How to send event invitations on WhatsApp and track replies

Most invitations in the Gulf now arrive on WhatsApp. Sending them is the easy part. The work starts after: who has replied, how many people each guest is bringing, and who stands at the door checking names. This guide covers the two ways Azayemna handles it and when each one makes sense.

The free way: one link

You design the invitation and get one link. Share it in the family group or send it to whoever you like. Anyone who opens it sees your invitation play on a page we serve, with a small mark in the corner.

Your account has 50 free opens. An open is counted from the devices at each connection rather than from taps, and your own opens never count. If you need more, you buy them in hundreds: AED 25 per hundred for a card and AED 45 for an invitation site. Unused credit stays on your account for the next invitation.

The free link doesn't know who opened it, can't carry a name and collects no replies. It suits an open invitation posted in a group, like an Eid gathering or a girls' night.

The paid way: a send to each guest

Here we send the invitation to each guest on WhatsApp from Azayemna's own number, not yours. You paste your guests' numbers in one go, or connect your WhatsApp and take a whole group, and sort them into lists you name yourself: the groom's family, the bride's friends, colleagues.

Every guest gets their own link. They reply from it, yes or no, and say how many people are coming with them, up to the number you allow. The reply lands on your list straight away.

The price is per guest: AED 4 for a card, or AED 5 with an entry pass. For an invitation site it is AED 6, or AED 7 with a pass. There's no charge for putting the guest's name on it and no charge for a longer card.

The difference between a card and a site is easier to see than to describe. This is a card:

And this is an invitation site. The guest receives its cover picture and a button that opens their own copy:

When replies close

The reply list closes twenty four hours before the event, so you can print it and plan the tables. Guests see that time written under the two reply buttons before they choose, so nobody is surprised. The door doesn't close with the list: a guest who declined and then turns up still scans in with their pass.

Entry passes and the door

An entry pass is a code that belongs to one guest. We send it on WhatsApp and it is scanned once at the door. The scanner runs in a phone's browser. You make a link and hand it to whoever is on the entrance, and once it has opened it keeps working with no signal, which matters in wedding halls where the network drops.

If you sent the invitations yourself and only need passes, you can buy them on their own at AED 1.50 a pass, and we send one to each number.

Which one to pick

If the event is open and the headcount doesn't matter, the free link is enough. If you have a fixed list and need to know who is coming, or there is security on the door, a send to each guest saves you a week of calls and follow-up messages.

Either way, a send is final once its first message goes out, so check the invitation and the numbers before you pay.