Chalet Template — Complete Guide

Chalet is a winter invitation set in an alpine lodge. The page opens on a knitted band, like the yoke of a ski sweater, in the colour you choose. Your photo looks out through a timber-framed lodge window glowing with warm lamplight, soft snow drifts past outside, and a mountain ridge runs along the foot of the cover.

Chalet is one of Fotify's simpler designs: its look comes from one knit colour you choose — any colour at all — and a knit pattern.

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

Chalet 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 Chalet different

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

Signature design elements

• A knitted band — drawn stitch by stitch across the top of the page and again as the hem at the bottom, in your knit colour with a cream yarn (or a dark yarn, when your colour is pale)
• Three knit patterns — Fair Isle snowflakes and little pines, a single minimal Nordic star, or a buffalo check
• The lodge window — your cover photo seen through a heavy timber window, with three small transom panes above one large picture pane (no bar crosses the faces in your photo) and snow on the sill, set in a wall of warm wooden planks lit by a lamp. Without a photo, the window looks out on snowy mountains at dusk
• Soft snowfall — a few flakes drifting gently past the window. You can turn it off
• Gondola cabins — the countdown hangs in little cabins on a cable
• A trail map — each day of your programme is a winding trail, and each moment a wooden signpost along it
• Warm type — Fraunces, a soft characterful serif, for the names and titles, with Hanken Grotesk for small labels and reading text
• Always readable — whatever colour you pick, even a pale yellow or a near-black, the text and the buttons are deepened just enough to read clearly on the cream page

When to choose Chalet

Chalet suits winter gatherings, especially ones that run over several days:

• Winter weddings — a mountain chapel, a lodge reception, a weekend in the snow
• Ski weekends and ski trips — a programme of days on the trail map, from the welcome dinner to the last run
• Holiday parties — a cosy, wintry page that isn't tied to one holiday
• Après-ski birthdays — a fondue night, a cabin party, a birthday on the slopes
• Corporate winter retreats — a multi-day offsite with your brand colour as the knit colour

Whatever the occasion, the photos your guests take matter as much as the invitation. Guests can scan the event QR code and add their photos to the shared gallery. See how Fotify works for weddings and corporate events.

For a Christmas evening with an advent calendar on the cover, try Advent. For a multi-day wedding with a ribbon timeline for each function, try Mehndi.

Applying Chalet 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 Chalet under Designs (it is listed under the Wedding filter, and under Party and Corporate too)
3. Optional: press Try it on to see Chalet with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
4. Or click the Chalet card to apply it straight away
5. Open Chalet options below the gallery to pick your knit colour and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Chalet 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 Chalet options are kept in case you switch back.

Chalet options

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

1. Knit colour

The main colour of the knitted band, and of the buttons, the gondola cabins and the trail. Pick it two ways:

• A suggested swatch — Cranberry (default), Forest, Navy, Charcoal or Oatmeal
• Pick any color — the last chip opens your device's colour picker, so you can match a brand colour, the bridesmaids' dresses or the venue exactly. The colour's code is shown beside the chips

Any colour works. Chalet knits the pattern in cream yarn on a deep colour and in a dark yarn on a pale one, and wherever your colour carries text or a button label it uses the shade of it that reads clearly.

2. Knit pattern

• Fair Isle (default) — snowflakes and little pines between rows of small dots
• Nordic star — one eight-point star at a time, with a small cross between, framed by two plain rows
• Buffalo check — large checks of your colour crossed with a near-black (or with the cream yarn, when your colour is too dark for a black check)

The same pattern is woven into the strip at the top of the reply card, and the section heads take a small matching glyph: a snowflake, a star or a check.

3. Snowfall

On by default: soft snow drifts past the lodge window. Turn it off for a still window. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion always see the flakes still.

4. Cover line

The small line above the event name on the cover (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("Come in from the cold"). Try "A winter wedding", "Ski weekend in the Alps" or "Our winter retreat".

5. Closing line

The line at the end of the page (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("See you by the fire").

Every piece of text Chalet 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

The knitted band runs across the top of the page. Under it:

• The cover line (option 4) in small spaced capitals in your knit colour
• Your event name in Fraunces. Long names step down a size so they never break mid-word
• The date, the time and the place — the time follows the Show time setting of your invitation's cover, the date and the place follow Show date and Show location, and every guest sees the date you picked, whatever their time zone
• Reply — a button that scrolls to the RSVP form. It only appears when your RSVP section is visible, and never on a save-the-date page
• The lodge window, beside the words on wide screens and under them on a phone: your cover photo through the window (keeping the horizontal crop you set), or snowy mountains at dusk when you have no photo
• A mountain range drawn along the foot of the cover: snowy peaks in the distance and a nearer ridge in your knit colour

Section heads

Each section opens centred: its label in small spaced capitals between two glyphs of your pattern, its title in Fraunces, a short row of cross stitches and, for the story and gifts, your subtitle or gift message.

Message — a postcard

Your message on a cream postcard: your words in the Fraunces italic on one side and, on the other, a perforated stamp with a small mountain scene, the wavy lines of a postmark and three blank address lines. On a phone the stamp and postmark run along the top. A long message switches to the reading face, which is easier to read over many lines. The postcard never prints a town, a date or an address.

Countdown — gondola cabins

The remaining time in little gondola cabins hung from one cable across the page: each cabin in your knit colour, its number on a cream window, its unit under it. The cabins sway gently (still for guests who prefer reduced motion). It counts down to your event's date and time in the venue's time zone, and shows your completed message once the moment arrives.

Gallery (Carousel)

Every photo the same square snapshot in a slim timber frame, two to a row on a phone and three on wider screens (two for two photos, and a single photo centred).

Story

Every milestone is set the same way: its photo in a timber frame with a cream mat beside a small card with its date, its title and its text. On wide screens the frame changes sides from one moment to the next, and a row of cross stitches divides them. A milestone without a photo lets its card stand alone.

Itinerary — the trail map

Each day of your programme is its own trail: a winding dashed path in your knit colour, opened by a small peak and the day's date (a day heading appears only when the day has a date or a label). Each entry is a wooden signpost at a junction on the trail, pointing along the way, with its time and name carved in cream, and the place and any note under it. The trails lie on a faint contour map, and on wide screens the days stand side by side like routes on a map (up to three in a row). Entry icons are not shown, and the trails carry no difficulty colours or symbols.

RSVP — the lodge key tag

"Will you join us?" with your RSVP deadline under it, and the reply form on a tall cream key tag: a strip of your knit pattern across its top with a brass eyelet, a brass key hung on its ring above, a stitched edge inside the border and a rounded foot. The tag never prints a room number. On a save-the-date page the tag holds the save-the-date note instead of the form.

Location, Gifts, Event Details and Save the Date

These four sections share their structure with Fotify's other picker-coloured designs (Meridian, Thread, Prism and Duotone), dressed in Chalet's colours: cream cards with soft corners, rounded buttons in your knit colour, and Fraunces titles under the same centred heads.

• 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: dress code 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 FAQ 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

Closing

The mountain range again, your closing line (option 5) in Fraunces, the date and place, a Reply button, and the knitted band as the hem of the page.

Sections that use the shared layout

These sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Chalet'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 cream card, with titles in Fraunces and rounded buttons in your knit colour. Photos in custom sections are capped in height so a tall portrait never takes over the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Chalet a Christmas design? A: No. Its snowflakes, pines and lodge are wintry rather than tied to one holiday, and its default lines ("Come in from the cold", "See you by the fire") suit a wedding, a ski trip or a company retreat as well as a holiday party. For a Christmas evening with an advent calendar, try Advent.

Q: How do I show a ski weekend over several days? A: Give each entry of your itinerary its date. Chalet draws each day as its own trail on the trail map, with the day's date at its start, and every entry as a signpost along it. On wide screens the days stand side by side.

Q: I picked a pale colour. Why are the buttons darker than my colour? A: Chalet keeps every label readable: the buttons, the cabins and the small coloured text use a deeper shade of the same hue so they read clearly on the cream page. The knitted band keeps your colour and is knitted with a dark yarn instead of the cream one.

Q: Can I turn off the snow? A: Yes. Turn off Snowfall in the Chalet options. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see the flakes still either way.

Q: I don't have a cover photo. Will the window be empty? A: No. Without a photo the window looks out on snowy mountains at dusk, with a few pines and stars.

Q: Does Chalet work in right-to-left languages? A: Yes. In Hebrew and Arabic the layout mirrors: the trail runs down the right side, the signposts point the other way, and the key and the postmark turn around. The cover photo's crop stays as you set it.

Q: Does the page move? A: Gently: the snow drifts past the window, the gondola cabins sway on their cable and the cover fades in. Guests whose device asks for reduced motion see a still page.

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 winter and multi-day designs: Advent for a Christmas evening, or Mehndi for a wedding over several functions
• Let guests share their photos with a QR code: read about Fotify for weddings and digital invitations with RSVP

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