Advent Template — Complete Guide

Advent turns your invitation into an advent calendar. The cover is a calendar board hanging on a wall where gentle snow falls: a grid of little numbered doors, and one big door in the middle that swings open to show your cover photo. Your event name sits beside the doors in a festive serif (under them on a phone), with the date, time and place beneath it.

Advent is one of Fotify's simpler designs: its look comes from one of four palettes and one door colour you choose — any colour at all.

This guide covers how Advent looks, the options unique to it, how to apply it to your event, and how it lays out each section of your invitation.

Advent is available on every plan, Free included.

For an overview of the template gallery and the picker, see How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation.

What makes Advent different

Standard templates change colours and fonts over the same shared layout. Advent replaces the layout itself: its own cover and closing, its own section heads, and its own treatment of the message, countdown, gallery, story and schedule.

Signature design elements

• An advent calendar cover — 23 little numbered doors around one big door, on a board hung from a nail. The numbers are decoration in a fixed order; they are not dates
• A door that opens on your photo — the big door's two leaves swing open when the page loads to show your cover photo (or a star, if you have no photo)
• Four palettes — red & evergreen, navy & silver, white & pine, or cream & gold for the board, the wall and the page
• Doors in your colour — pick a colour from the suggested swatches or from the colour picker. Advent paints the doors, the baubles, the ribbon and the buttons with it
• Three door styles — painted wood, cut paper or soft velvet
• Numbered sections — every section opens under a little door standing open, numbered by its place on the page
• Gentle snowfall — snow falls on the wall behind the calendar, never over its text
• Always readable — whatever colour you pick, even a pale yellow or a near-black, Advent adjusts the doors, the text and the buttons until every number and label reads clearly on every background it sits on

When to choose Advent

Advent suits celebrations of the holiday season:

• Company holiday parties — the office party, the end-of-year dinner or the team celebration, with the evening's programme laid out on a festive card. See corporate events
• Family gatherings — a Christmas lunch, a holiday get-together or a New Year's Eve at home
• Festive dinners and parties with friends — a gift exchange, a holiday drinks evening or a winter party. See parties

The default wording is celebratory without naming a holiday ("You're invited", "Season's greetings", "See you at the party"), so it works whatever your guests celebrate — and every line can be changed.

If you prefer a summer festival poster, try Lineup. For a party covered in stickers, try Confetti. For heirloom stationery with a wax seal, try Heirloom.

Applying Advent to your event

1. Open your event, click Invitation in the sidebar, then the Invitation tab
2. In Design Template, click Change template if the gallery is collapsed, and find Advent under Designs (it is listed under the Party and Corporate filters)
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Advent with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Advent card to apply it straight away
5. Open Advent options below the gallery to pick your palette, your door colour and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Advent works on every plan. On free events a small "Made with Fotify" badge appears in the bottom corner of the invitation; any paid plan or an active subscription removes it.

Switching to another template later is non-destructive: your event content stays exactly as you entered it, and your Advent options are kept in case you switch back.

Advent options

Advent has six options of its own. They take the place of the standard colour and font controls, which Advent doesn't use.

1. Palette

• Red & evergreen (default) — an evergreen board with gold trim on a dark green wall, and a cream page
• Navy & silver — a navy board with silver trim on a midnight wall, and a dark navy page for every section
• White & pine — a white board with pine trim on a pine-green wall, and a fresh white page
• Cream & gold — a cream board with gold trim on a warm dark wall, and a cream page

2. Door colour

The colour of the calendar doors, the baubles, the ribbon on the letter and the buttons. Pick it two ways:

• A suggested swatch — Berry red (default), Holly green, Gold, Frost blue or Plum
• Pick any color — the last chip opens your device's colour picker, so you can match your company colours or your table decorations exactly. The colour's code is shown beside the chips

Any colour works. Advent never paints your pick as it is where it would hurt legibility: it deepens or lightens the doors, the text and the buttons just enough for every number and label to stay readable.

3. Door style

What the doors are made of: Painted wood (default, with a fine grain), Paper (cut paper with a fold and a perforated edge) or Velvet (a soft sheen and rounder corners).

4. Snowfall

On by default: gentle snow falls on the wall behind the calendar. Turn it off for a plain wall. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see the flakes still, and the big door already open.

5. Cover line

The small line at the top of the calendar (up to 60 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("You're invited"). Try "Season's greetings", "Our holiday party" or "The Northwind team invites you".

6. Closing line

The big line at the end of the page (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("See you at the party"). Try "Warmest wishes for the season" or "Let's raise a glass together".

Every piece of text Advent prints on the invitation — the cover line, the reply buttons, the section labels and titles, the countdown units, the closing line — can also be rewritten directly on the page: switch the live preview into edit mode and double-click the text. Section titles you have already set in their own settings (story, countdown, gifts, where to stay, getting there, FAQs) are edited in place the same way.

How each section is treated

Cover

A full-height calendar replaces the standard header. On a computer the board is landscape, with the doors on one side and the words on the other; on a phone the words sit under the doors:

• Cover line (option 5) at the top of the board on a phone, above your event name on a computer
• The doors — 23 small numbered doors around the big one. The numbers are decoration in a fixed order
• The big door — its two leaves swing open to show your cover photo, keeping the horizontal crop you set. Without a cover photo, a star shines behind the door
• Your event name beside or under the doors. Long names step down a size so they never break mid-word
• The date and time, then the place. The date and place follow the Show date and Show location settings of your invitation's cover, the time follows Show time, and every guest sees the date you picked, whatever their time zone
• RSVP — a door-coloured button that scrolls to the RSVP form. It only appears when your RSVP section is visible, and never on a save-the-date page

Section heads

Each section opens under a little door standing open, with the section's number inside it — 1 for the first section on the page, 2 for the next, and so on (a hidden section never leaves a gap). Then come its label, its title in the festive serif and, for the story and gifts, your subtitle or gift message.

Message

Season's greetings: your invitation message as a holiday letter, a sheet of card tied with a ribbon in your door colour, a bow at the top and a fine trim line inside its border. A long letter steps down to a comfortable reading size.

Countdown

Doors left to open, as tear-off calendar pages: one desk-calendar block for each unit — days, hours, minutes and (if you switch them on) seconds — with a binding and two rings at the top, the number large in the serif and a perforated edge where the last page was torn off. When the countdown ends, your completion message takes its place.

Gallery (Carousel)

Every photo behind a little double door standing open, each window on its own card so the open doors never cover the photo next to it, in a grid: two across on a phone, three on wider screens. On a computer, the doors open a little wider when you point at a photo.

Story

A garland timeline: an evergreen garland runs down the side of the section, and every milestone hangs on it as a bauble beside a card with its date, its title, its description and its photo. Every milestone is laid out the same way; one without a photo or a date simply leaves that part out.

Itinerary

A festive programme card with a sprig of holly at the top and a double trim line inside its border. Each day has its own heading between two sparkles, and every entry is one row: the time in your door colour, then the event, the place and any note.

Location, Gifts, Event Details, Save the Date and RSVP

These five sections share their structure with Fotify's other picker-coloured designs (Meridian, Thread, Prism and the others), dressed in Advent's style: soft cards on the page, rounded buttons in your door colour and titles in the festive serif. Their default titles follow the season — the gifts open as a Gift exchange — and every one of them can be changed.

• Location — a map card beside an address card with your address, your directions and an Open in Maps button. When a map can't be shown, the map card draws a pin with the venue's coordinates; without coordinates the address card spans the row
• Gifts — every registry, payment option, charity and wishlist item is its own card in a grid, grouped under small labels (with a count) when you offer more than one kind. Payment details sit in an inset box with a Copy button, and long account numbers wrap inside the card. Pay links, scan-to-pay QR codes and wishlist reservations appear as buttons on each card
• Event Details — a card per topic: what to wear with your suggested and avoided colours as swatches, where to stay with each hotel as a mini-card (distance, price range, promo code, notes and a Book button), getting there with an icon for each kind of transport, and a full-width Questions card where each question opens on tap
• Save the Date (Calendar) — one card with the title and the event date on one side, and Google, Apple (downloads the calendar file) and Outlook buttons on the other
• RSVP — the title with your RSVP deadline under it, and the reply form on a gift tag: rounded top corners, a punched hole with a trim eyelet, a loop of string tied through it and a stitched line around the edge. The attend / decline choices are two selectable boxes. On a save-the-date page, the tag holds the save-the-date note instead of the form

Closing

A band in the colour of the calendar board: a star, your closing line (option 6) large in the serif, the date and place, and a final RSVP button.

Sections that use the shared layout

These sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Advent's style:

• Photo upload, QR code, Table assignment, Playlist, Sub-events, Special treatments and custom sections

Each sits in the same column as the rest of the page on a soft card, with titles in the festive serif and buttons in your door colour. Photos in custom sections are capped in height so a tall portrait never takes over the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Advent only for Christmas? A: No. The default wording is celebratory without naming a holiday — "You're invited", "Season's greetings", "See you at the party" — so it suits any end-of-year or winter celebration. Every line can be changed, with the options above or by double-clicking the text in the live preview.

Q: Do the numbers on the doors mean anything? A: No. They are decoration, in a fixed order, like a real advent calendar. They don't count down to your event — the countdown section does that.

Q: I picked a pale colour. Why do my doors look deeper than my colour? A: Each door carries a number, and each button a label, so Advent deepens (or lightens) your colour just as far as it needs for them to stay readable. Your colour still sets the hue.

Q: Can I turn the snow off? A: Yes, switch Snowfall off for a plain wall. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see the snow still and the big door already open, whatever you choose.

Q: I don't have a cover photo. Will the big door look empty? A: No. Without a photo, a star shines behind the open door.

Q: Does Advent work in right-to-left languages? A: Yes. In Hebrew and Arabic the layout mirrors: the garland runs down the right side, the programme's times move to the right and the calendar grid reads from the right. The doors are double doors, so they open the same way in every language, and the cover photo's crop stays as you set it.

Q: Can I use custom RSVP fields with Advent? A: Yes. Custom fields (dropdowns, dates, checkboxes, file uploads and so on) pick up Advent's fields and labels automatically.

Next steps

• See How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation for the template gallery and how to try a design on before applying it
• Compare the other picker-coloured designs: Lineup for a summer festival poster, Confetti for a sticker party, or Meridian for a poster in your brand colour beside the details
• Planning the party itself? Read about Fotify for corporate events and digital invitations with RSVP, and let guests share their photos of the night with a QR code

Need help? Get in touch through the in-dashboard help widget.