Messaging your guests

Once your invitations are out, you can reach your guests any time with a message — a venue change, a parking note, a quiet reminder, or a warm hello. Messaging lives in your event's Messages window.

Where to start

Open your event and go to Messages. The window has five sections down its side (along the top on a phone):

• Inbox — every conversation with a guest, with unread replies marked.
• New message — write to all your guests or just some of them.
• Sent & reminders — everything the event has sent, and whether it arrived.
• Support — write to the InviteBird team.
• Help — a one-minute spoken tour and these guides.

Choose New message to open the composer.

Choosing who gets it

The composer starts with Who gets it. Nobody is chosen until you choose — so a message can't go to everyone by accident — and the Send button stays off until at least one guest is picked.

• Pick a group — choose All, Awaiting (hasn't replied), Attending, Maybe, or Declined. Each shows how many guests it holds (the same words as your Guests tab). Picking one sets your recipients to that group.
• Narrow by tag — if you tag guests (for example Family or VIP), those tags appear below the groups. Select one or more and the recipients narrow to guests carrying any of the chosen tags, within the group you picked. So Attending + VIP reaches everyone who's coming and on the VIP list — and nobody else.
• Choose guests one by one — open the guest list to tick or untick anyone. Tap anywhere on a guest's row to toggle them.

Tags are for your eyes only — a guest never sees the tags you've given them.

A line under the groups sums it up, for example Sending to 12 guests · 10 by email · 2 by text. Each guest's row says how they'll be reached: Email, Text (with Waiting for their YES or Gets a one-time YES request first when that applies), Unsubscribed from email, Opted out of texts, or No email or US/Canada mobile. People who replied through your shared link but aren't on your guest list can't be messaged from here — add them on the Guests tab first.

Writing the message

Add an optional email subject — if you leave it blank, the email reads New message from [your event's host name]. Then write your message, up to 2,000 characters.

As soon as you start typing, What [guest] receives shows the message exactly as the first guest you picked will get it — their name filled in, and for a guest reached by text, the full text message and how many SMS segments it takes.

When your selection includes guests who will be reached by text (no email on file), you'll be asked to confirm that each of those guests personally gave you their number for event updates. That one checkbox is required before the send button turns on — it keeps texting consent-based. See SMS consent and compliance for the full picture.

Press Send and the message goes out on each guest's own channel. A short summary tells you what happened — for example Sent to 11 guests · 1 unsubscribed from email. If a few guests couldn't be reached just then, your message stays in the composer: press Send again and only those guests are retried; nobody gets it twice.

Personalizing each message

You don't have to write "Hi there" to everyone. Drop a merge field into your message and InviteBird fills in the right detail for each guest as it sends — so one note can greet every guest by name. Use the Add each guest's first name / full name / event title buttons beneath the message box, or type a field yourself:

• {{firstName}} — the guest's first name. For Sam Rivera, this becomes Sam.
• {{fullName}} — the guest's full name as saved on your list (Sam Rivera).
• {{eventTitle}} — the name of your event.

For example, typing:

Hi {{firstName}}, one note about {{eventTitle}} — parking is easiest on Oak Street.

reaches Sam as "Hi Sam, one note about Maya's Graduation — parking is easiest on Oak Street." Merge fields work in both emails and texts, and in your automatic reminder notes too.

A couple of things worth knowing:

• No blanks ever. If a guest has no name on file, {{firstName}} and {{fullName}} fall back to a friendly friend, and {{eventTitle}} falls back to the event — so a message never arrives with an empty gap where a name should be.
• The raw tag never shows. Every field is filled in (or quietly removed) before a message leaves — a guest never sees a literal {{firstName}}.

What each guest receives

• Guests with an email get a clean Message from host email showing your event name, the date and location, your note, and a Read & reply button that opens their private message panel on the guest page — no account or password needed.
• Guests with only a phone (United States and Canada numbers) get your note by text with a link to read and reply on the web. If it's the first text InviteBird has sent that guest, they first receive a one-time confirmation asking them to reply YES; your message follows once they opt in.
• Guests with no email and no phone can't be messaged — add a contact detail for them, or share your event link with them directly.

Every recipient also gets (or joins) a private one-to-one thread with you, so their reply comes straight back to your Messages tab. Guests never see each other's messages, and they can't see who else you wrote to.

If your event details change

Change the date, time, or location of an event you've already sent, and InviteBird notices for you: a banner appears at the top of your Guests tab — "You changed the date — your guests haven't been told yet." One tap on Email guests the update sends a tidy update email (the new details, plus what changed) to everyone who hasn't declined. Prefer to handle it yourself? Dismiss clears the banner and nothing is sent.

Nothing ever goes out automatically — editing your invitation never emails anyone until you choose to. The update respects unsubscribes, and a double-tap can't send twice.

A few things worth knowing

• Co-hosts can message guests too. Anyone with access to the event — you or an accepted co-host — can send from the Messages tab.
• You can't message yourself. If your own address is on the guest list, that copy is skipped automatically.
• Sending is separate from inviting. This is for updates after the fact; to send the original invitation, see Sending your invitations.

Common questions

Can I message only the guests who are coming? Yes. In the composer, pick Attending to set your recipients to everyone who has RSVP'd yes, then send. The same works for Maybe, Awaiting, and Declined — and you can layer a tag on top to reach, say, only the Attending guests in your VIP group.

Do my guests need an InviteBird account to get my message? No. Email guests read and reply from a link in the email; text guests reply on the web through a link. No sign-up, no password.

Is there a limit on how long a message can be? A message can be up to 2,000 characters. That's plenty for email. A text carries up to two SMS segments — your name, the message, a link to read all of it, and the opt-out line — so a longer message is cut with "..." and the link leads to the rest. Emoji and some symbols can't be sent by text and are left out of the text (never out of the email). The preview in the composer shows the exact text.

What happens if a guest has no email or phone number? Their row says No email or US/Canada mobile, and the send summary counts them as not reached. Add an email or a US/Canada mobile for them on the Guests step, or share your event link with them yourself.

What if I press Send twice? Nothing extra goes out. A second press of the same message — a double-click, a second tab, a retry after a dropped connection — reaches only guests the first one missed.

Will guests see who else I messaged? No. Each guest has a private thread with you and your co-hosts only. Replies come back to you individually.

Related articles

• Guest replies and conversations
• What guests receive
• Finding your message history
• SMS consent and compliance