Sangeet & mehndi guest list app

Do you need a separate guest list for the sangeet and mehndi?

Almost always, yes. The pre-wedding events run on completely different scales. The haldi is usually the smallest — close family gathered in the morning to apply turmeric. The mehndi is women, close friends, and family sitting for henna. The sangeet is bigger and louder, a night of music and dance that can pull in the extended circle. Then the wedding ceremony and reception open the doors widest of all.

Trying to run all of that off a single "wedding guest list" falls apart quickly. You end up with a spreadsheet full of Y/N columns you constantly miscount, or you over-invite and the intimate haldi turns into a crowd. A dedicated app keeps each event’s list separate so the small events stay small and the big ones stay big — on purpose.

• Different sizes per event. A dozen at the haldi, fifty at the mehndi, a few hundred at the sangeet and reception.
• One master list underneath. Everyone lives on a single list; you assign each person to the events they belong to.
• Keep the intimate events intimate. Family-only mornings stay family-only instead of ballooning by accident.

Intimate pre-wedding events vs. the big reception

The overlap between these lists is real but partial, which is exactly why it is hard to manage by hand. A cousin might be on the mehndi, sangeet, ceremony, and reception lists. A parent’s colleague might be on the reception list only. A close aunt might be at every single event including the haldi. No two guests have quite the same combination.

Duva turns that tangle into a set of checkboxes. When you add a guest, you tick the events they’re invited to — haldi, mehndi, sangeet, ceremony, reception — and from then on each event knows its own guests. Add someone to the sangeet later and their invite for that night opens up without touching their status for anything else. The over-invite problem disappears because you are never inviting anyone to an event you did not explicitly check.

• Assign per event. Check exactly which events each guest is invited to — nothing is inferred.
• Adjust anytime. Move a guest onto the sangeet or off the haldi without disturbing their other events.
• Guests see only their events. A reception-only guest never sees the haldi, so there’s no awkward assumption.

Build a separate list for haldi, mehndi, and sangeet

Each pre-wedding event gets its own event in Duva, with its own time, venue, dress code, and guest list. The haldi list might be twenty relatives. The mehndi might be the women and close friends who’ll sit for henna. The sangeet might be everyone in the family plus the friends who’ll dance until midnight. You build each one by assigning guests, and every event carries its own details on the wedding website too — including a per-event dress code (think yellow for haldi, festive color for the sangeet).

Because it all sits on one master list, adding a guest once makes them available for every event. You are never re-typing names or reconciling three spreadsheets. And Duva scales from an intimate two-dozen haldi to a sangeet and reception of several hundred — the same tool handles lists from a few dozen to 800 and beyond.

• Haldi. A small, family-first morning event — usually your shortest guest list.
• Mehndi. Women, close friends, and family for henna — its own intimate list.
• Sangeet. A bigger night of music and dance that often pulls in the extended circle.
• Dress code per event. Set the look for each event — yellow for haldi, festive color for the sangeet.

Message each guest list on its own

A single group text to everyone is the wrong tool for events with different lists — the haldi crowd does not need the reception logistics, and the reception-only guests should not get the mehndi timing. Duva lets you message each event’s list on its own. Send the mehndi invitation only to the mehndi guests, a sangeet reminder only to the sangeet guests, and a day-of "haldi starts at 9" note only to the family joining that morning.

Messages go out by SMS to US numbers and WhatsApp to international numbers automatically, each one personalized and private — guests never see each other’s numbers, and replies come back to you. It reaches the relatives flying in for the sangeet as easily as the family in town for the haldi.

• Invite each list separately. The mehndi invite goes to mehndi guests; the sangeet invite to sangeet guests.
• Remind non-responders per event. Nudge only the guests who haven’t answered one specific event.
• Day-of updates per event. Announce a time or venue change to just that event’s guests.

Track a headcount for every event

Every event keeps its own count. Guests RSVP per event — by text, WhatsApp, or a name lookup on your website — and can respond for their whole party, so plus-ones and family are captured in one reply. Your dashboard then shows attending, pending, and declined totals for the haldi, the mehndi, the sangeet, the ceremony, and the reception, each on its own.

That is what lets you plan each event on real numbers: cater the mehndi for the people actually coming to the mehndi, book the sangeet venue for the sangeet count, and keep the haldi as small as it should be. Every RSVP is verified with a one-time code, so the counts are clean enough to hand a vendor without a second call.

• Independent counts. A live attending total for each pre-wedding event and the reception.
• Party & household RSVP. One guest answers for their whole party per event.
• RSVP any channel. Guests reply by SMS, WhatsApp, or a name lookup on your site.

What it costs

Your wedding website, master guest list, and unlimited RSVP collection are free — no subscription, no per-guest fee, and no limit on how many events you run. You start with 50 message credits to try invitations and reminders. After that, messaging each list by text or WhatsApp is pay-as-you-go: credit packs cost $40, $99, or $165, they never expire, and each message uses one credit per recipient. Guests responding on the website costs nothing. You only pay when you actively message guests.