Online wedding RSVP

What "online RSVP" really replaces

The paper RSVP card is a slow, lossy system: you mail it, the guest misplaces it, they mean to send it back, and three weeks before the wedding you are calling relatives to find out if they are coming. Online RSVP collapses that into a link. The guest taps, answers, and is done — and you see it the instant it happens, not when an envelope arrives. Nothing about it has to feel less formal; the invitation can still be beautiful, while the response becomes something a guest can actually finish on the first try.

The other thing it fixes is the count. A stack of cards has to be tallied by hand, and the number is always a little out of date. A live dashboard is never out of date — every reply updates the totals immediately, and you can see exactly who is still outstanding without cross-referencing anything.

• Reply in a tap. A link opens straight to the guest’s response — no envelope, no stamp, no waiting.
• A count that is current. Totals update the moment a guest answers, so you never tally cards by hand.
• See who is outstanding. The dashboard shows exactly who has not replied yet, ready for a nudge.

The couple’s side: from guest list to headcount

Setup starts with your people. Import a guest list from a spreadsheet or add guests by hand with their phone numbers, and organize them into households so a family counts as one invitation. If your wedding has more than one event, assign each guest to the ones they are invited to — the whole list to the reception, a smaller circle to a welcome dinner — and each event tracks its own count.

Then you send. Duva delivers a personal link to every guest and, from there, does the collecting for you: responses stream onto the dashboard, you can filter by event or reply status, and you can export clean numbers whenever a caterer or venue asks. When you are ready to hand over final counts and meal breakdowns, they are already sorted — no reconciling two lists the week of the wedding.

• Import or add guests. Bring a spreadsheet in or add households by hand, each as a single invitation.
• Assign guests to events. Invite different people to different events; every event keeps its own headcount.
• Export when asked. Filter by event or status and hand a caterer or venue clean numbers on demand.

The guest’s side: a minute, no account

For the guest, the whole thing is one screen. The text arrives, they tap the link, and they see only the events they are invited to — nothing to scroll past, no password to set, no app to download. They mark who in their household is attending, choose a meal if you offered options, add a dietary note, and confirm a plus-one where you allowed one. Done in about a minute, from the messages app they already had open.

That simplicity is the entire point. The guests most likely to stall on an RSVP — parents, grandparents, the friend who never opens email — will answer a text without a second thought. Anyone who loses their link can still go to your wedding website, look themselves up by name, and respond there. Two paths, one guest list underneath, so the count is always singular and correct.

• Tap the texted link. The guest opens straight to their own RSVP — only their events, nothing to set up.
• Or self-serve by name. Lost the link? Find yourself on the wedding website and reply there instead.
• No app, no password. Nothing to install and no account to create — guests answer and move on.

The details you actually collect

An RSVP is more than yes or no, so Duva captures what caterers and planners really need. A single household member responds for everyone in their party and marks each person attending, not attending, or undecided. If you set meal options, guests pick one; if you ask about dietary needs, they can note an allergy or restriction. Where you allow a plus-one, the guest adds and names them, and where you do not, the option simply is not offered.

Every field is tied to the right person and the right event, so your export is not a pile of free text — it is a clean per-event table of who is coming and what they are eating. You collect exactly what you chose to ask, and nothing you did not.

• One reply per household. A guest confirms their whole party and marks each person’s attendance.
• Meals and dietary needs. Offer meal choices and gather allergies or restrictions, attached to each guest.
• Plus-ones on your terms. Allow a plus-one where you want one and name it; leave it off where you do not.

Reminders that do the chasing

Collecting replies is the easy part; the stragglers are the hard part. Duva takes that over. Schedule a reminder and it re-messages only the guests who have not responded yet — never the ones who already did — over the same channel their invitation used. Set a deadline nudge and a final follow-up and let the tool handle the awkward "did you get our invite?" so you are not texting relatives one at a time.

Every response is also tied to a verified phone number, which keeps a large list trustworthy: the yes you see came from the guest you invited, not a duplicate from a forwarded link. That is what lets you plan seating and catering off the dashboard number with confidence.

• Only the non-responders. Reminders reach the guests who have not replied and skip everyone who has.
• Scheduled in advance. Queue a deadline reminder and a last call; Duva sends them on time for you.
• Verified replies. Responses tie to a real phone number, so a big list stays free of duplicates.

Which RSVP page you need next

This is the hub; the details differ by wedding, so a few companion pages go deeper. If most of your guests are in the US, the SMS text-message RSVP page covers the text-first experience — how a guest replies straight from their messages app. If your wedding spans several events, the multi-event RSVP page explains inviting different guests to different functions and counting each one separately. And for a multi-day South Asian celebration with family here and abroad, the Indian wedding RSVP page handles per-ceremony responses across SMS and WhatsApp at a 300–600-guest scale and beyond.

All of them run on the same engine you set up here — one guest list, one dashboard — so you are never choosing a different tool, just a page that speaks to your situation.

• Mostly US guests. See the SMS / text RSVP page for the text-first, reply-from-messages flow.
• Several events. See the multi-event RSVP page for inviting and counting each function on its own.
• A multi-day desi wedding. See the Indian wedding RSVP page for per-ceremony replies at a big-list scale.

Free to collect

Gathering RSVPs costs nothing: the guest list, unlimited responses, and the pages guests reply on are all included, with no plan to subscribe to. Inviting people by text or WhatsApp runs on a one-time $10 messaging unlock — each RSVP link and reminder Duva sends never uses credits. Credits come in only for a separate message you compose and blast yourself — a shuttle time on the morning of the wedding, say — and the unlock puts 100 of those in your account. Once unlocked, the RSVP loop on this page never costs another cent.