Aurora Template — Complete Guide

Aurora is the Fotify invitation for nights worth dressing up for. It borrows from dark, glowing product-launch pages: a near-black canvas lit from behind by slowly drifting aurora light, frosted-glass cards, a huge gradient headline with your event name, and a ticker band that scrolls your date and venue across the page.

Aurora is available on every plan, including Free — pick it from the template gallery and it is yours.

This guide covers how Aurora looks, the options unique to it, and the treatment it gives each section of your invitation. For the template gallery and the picker itself, see How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation.

What makes Aurora different

Standard templates change colours and fonts over one shared layout. Aurora replaces the layout itself: it ships its own cover, its own treatment for ten sections, its own typography and a set of options you won't find on other templates.

Signature design elements

• Aurora light — three or four very large, soft blobs of colour drift slowly behind the whole page, with a fine film grain on top. The light stays behind every section as your guests scroll.
• Glass cards — every block of content sits on a translucent card with a hairline border and a brighter top edge, as if lit from above.
• Gradient headline — your event name, set huge in Sora, fades from white into the colours of your glow.
• Badge pills — a small glowing dot and a monospaced label open the cover and every section.
• Ticker band — under the cover, your event name, date and venue scroll past in a continuous band. It pauses when a guest hovers over it.
• Glowing buttons — the RSVP button is a gradient pill with a soft halo; secondary buttons are glass pills.
• Planet horizon — the invitation ends on a glowing arc rising at the bottom of the page, under a big gradient closing line.
• Three typefaces, three jobs — Sora for headlines, Inter for reading, JetBrains Mono for numbers, dates and labels.

When to choose Aurora

Aurora is built for events that happen after dark and want to feel like one:

• Birthday parties — especially milestone birthdays (18, 21, 30, 40) with a big night out
• New Year's Eve and countdown parties — the glowing countdown was made for it
• Galas, award nights and fundraisers
• Product launches, brand events and company parties
• Club nights, DJ sets and after-parties
• Modern evening weddings and receptions — especially with the Ice or Violet glow
• Graduation and prom-style celebrations

It's less suited to daytime garden events or traditional stationery-style weddings. For those, look at Linen for quiet editorial cream paper, Vesper for soft romantic pastels, or Atelier for letterpress formality.

Applying Aurora 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 Aurora under Designs
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Aurora with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Aurora card to apply it straight away
5. Open Aurora options below the gallery to set the glow, intensity and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Switching to another template later is non-destructive: your written content and section settings stay exactly as you entered them, and your Aurora options are kept in case you come back.

Aurora options

Aurora adds seven options of its own.

1. Glow

The colour of the light behind the page. It tints the aurora, the headline gradient, the countdown digits and every glowing button.

• Violet night (default) — violet, magenta and cyan; the classic launch-night look
• Sunset ember — ember orange, rose and amber; warm and golden
• Emerald aurora — emerald, teal and lime; real northern lights
• Ice blue — sky, indigo and frost; crisp and cool, lovely for winter galas and evening weddings

2. Glow intensity

• Subtle (default) — low, moody light that keeps the focus on your words
• Vivid — the lights turned up: brighter aurora, wider glow around buttons and digits

3. Cover badge

The small glowing pill above your event name. Defaults to "You're invited". Try "New Year's Eve", "Launch night", "Save the night" or "Turning 30".

4. Show the ticker band

Turns the scrolling band under the cover on or off. It is on by default.

5. Ticker text

By default the ticker repeats your event name, date and venue. Type your own line to replace it — for example "Dress to shine ✦ Dance till late ✦ Open bar". Leave it blank to go back to the automatic line.

6. Show the light grid

A faint grid that fades out from the cover and the closing section, like a stage floor. Turn it off for a cleaner, darker page.

7. Closing title

The big glowing line at the very end of the invitation. Defaults to "See you there". Try "Let's make it a night", "Can't wait to celebrate with you" or "Until midnight".

Every text Aurora prints on the invitation — the cover badge, the section labels and titles, button labels and the closing line — can also be rewritten directly on the page: switch the live preview into edit mode and double-click the text.

How each section is treated

Cover

Aurora's cover replaces the standard header. From top to bottom:

• Badge pill with a pulsing dot and your cover badge text
• Event name as a huge gradient headline
• Glass meta row with the date, time and venue, each with a small icon (the time can be hidden with Show time on cover in the hero settings)
• RSVP button that jumps to the reply card, and a Save the date button that jumps to the calendar buttons when the calendar section is on
• Your cover photo in a glass frame, with the aurora's light pooling underneath it (landscape on computers, portrait on phones). Without a cover photo the cover simply ends after the buttons.

Countdown

Glowing monospaced digits, each in its own glass tile, with the unit label underneath. Shows the units you enabled (days, hours, minutes, seconds) and your completion message once the moment arrives.

Message

Your invitation message sits in a centred glass card with a thin line of light across its top edge.

Gallery (Carousel)

A horizontal strip of rounded photos that guests swipe (or scroll) through, each photo lifted on a soft glow with a small "01 / 08" counter.

Story

A vertical timeline: a glowing gradient line runs down the side and every milestone hangs off it as a glass card with a date chip, title, text and photo. Every milestone is shown the same way.

Location

One glass card with a darkened map (when your venue has map coordinates), the address, your directions and an Open in Maps button that opens the venue in Google Maps.

Itinerary

Glass rows grouped by day, each with a glowing time chip, the event name, its location and your note.

Gifts

Glass tiles in a grid — registries, monetary gifts, charities and wishlist items — with Open, Copy and Reserve buttons. Long bank details and wallet addresses wrap inside their tile.

Event details

Glass cards for the dress code (with colour swatches when you set them), where to stay and getting around, followed by your FAQs as an accordion: guests tap a question to open its answer.

Save the date (Calendar)

Three glass buttons — Google Calendar, Apple · iCal and Outlook.

RSVP

The reply card has a slowly flowing, aurora-coloured border and a soft glow around it. Inside, the RSVP form is restyled for the dark page: clear light text, rounded fields, a glowing focus ring and a gradient submit button.

Closing

A glowing planet horizon rises at the bottom of the page under your event name, the big closing title, the date and venue, and a final RSVP button.

Sections that inherit Aurora's styling

The remaining sections use Fotify's standard layouts and pick up Aurora's dark colours, fonts and glass styling automatically:

• Photo upload — glass card with a glowing upload button
• QR code — the code sits on a light plate so it always scans
• Table assignment — glass search field and buttons
• Sub-events and special treatments — glass cards with glowing accept and claim buttons
• Playlist — glass song-request form
• Custom sections — Sora headings and Inter text on the dark canvas

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Aurora available on the Free plan? A: Yes. Aurora is available on every plan, including Free.

Q: Does Aurora work for a wedding? A: Yes — it suits modern evening weddings and receptions especially well. Set the cover badge to something like "We're getting married", choose the Ice or Violet glow with Subtle intensity, and change the closing title to your own line.

Q: Will the moving light slow down my guests' phones? A: No. The aurora and the ticker are animated in a way phones handle efficiently, and the heaviest glass blur effects are only used on computers. If a guest has turned on "reduce motion" on their device, the light, ticker and border all stay still.

Q: Can I change Aurora's colours with the colour pickers? A: Aurora's colours come from the Glow option — each glow is a tested set of colours that keeps every text readable on the dark page. Pick the glow that matches your event instead of individual colours.

Q: Is the dark page easy to read? A: Yes. All text is light on a near-black background, including the RSVP form, and every glow keeps the contrast well above accessibility guidelines.

Q: Can I turn off the scrolling ticker? A: Yes — switch off Show the ticker band. You can also keep it and replace its text with your own line using Ticker text.

Q: What happens if I don't have a cover photo? A: The cover still works: badge, event name, date, time, venue and buttons, centred over the aurora light. Add a cover photo whenever you like and it appears in a glass frame below the buttons.

Q: Does Aurora support RTL languages like Hebrew and Arabic? A: Yes. The whole layout mirrors for right-to-left languages, including the story timeline and the direction the ticker scrolls.

Next steps

• See How to Customize Your RSVP Invitation for the template gallery, hero settings and editing text in place
• Browse other designs: Linen for editorial cream paper, Cinematic for film-poster drama, Marigold for warm 1970s colour, or Vesper for romantic arches
• Planning a party? See how guests share photos live on the night with party photo sharing
• Compare plans on the pricing page

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