How to Send Email Invitations

Send beautifully designed email invitations, save-the-dates, reminders, event updates, and thank-you emails to your guests directly from your Fotify dashboard. Customize the look and content of each email with your own images, messages, colors, and fonts — then schedule sends, automate reminders, and track opens, clicks, and responses in real time.

Getting Started

1. Go to your event dashboard at dashboard.fotify.app
2. Select your event and click "Invitation" in the sidebar
3. Click the "Email" tab

Before sending emails, make sure you've added guests to your list with valid email addresses.

Purchasing Email Credits

Email invitations use a credit-based system. You need to purchase credits before sending:

1. In the Email tab, you'll see the available credit packs
2. Select a pack size and click "Buy Credits"
3. Complete the checkout via Stripe
4. Credits are added to your event immediately

Credits are per-event and non-transferable between events. You can buy more credits at any time. Automatic RSVP confirmation emails are free and never consume credits.

Email Template Types

Fotify provides six email types you can send, plus two automatic emails — each designed for a different stage of your event:

Save the Date

A teaser announcement sent early to let guests know your event is coming. No RSVP button is included — just a "formal invitation coming soon" message and add-to-calendar links so guests can block the date right away. Perfect for sending weeks or months before the event.

Invitation

The main email with full event details, add-to-calendar links, and an RSVP button that links directly to each guest's personalized RSVP page. This is the primary email you'll send to collect responses. Each guest can receive the invitation up to two times, so you can follow up later — for example, targeting only guests who never opened the first one.

Reminder

A follow-up for guests who haven't responded yet. Includes a countdown badge showing how many days until the event and a notice that they haven't responded. Only sent to guests with a "Not Answered" RSVP status. Reminders can also be sent automatically when your RSVP deadline approaches — see Scheduling and Automation.

Event Update

For when details change — a new venue, a different time, updated logistics. Sends your custom message together with the current event details and refreshed add-to-calendar links. Can be sent up to three times per guest.

Cancellation

If the event is called off, notify all guests at once with a clear cancellation notice. One send per guest.

Thank You & Photos

A post-event email thanking guests for coming — its button links straight to your event's photo gallery so guests can relive the day and upload their own pictures. Best sent to the "guests who attended" or "guests who accepted" audience a day or two after the event. One send per guest.

RSVP Confirmation (automatic)

When a guest responds to your invitation, Fotify automatically emails them a confirmation with their response (attending or not, and their party size), the event details, and add-to-calendar links. You can customize its content like any other template, but you never send it manually — and it's completely free, it never consumes your credits.

Pre-Event Reminder (automatic)

Three days before your event, Fotify emails everyone who accepted a short "it's almost here" reminder with the date, time, location, and a calendar invite attached. Like the RSVP confirmation, it's free and never uses your credits, and you can customize its wording, colors, and subject line from the Configure button on its card.

It goes only to guests who accepted and have already received an email from you for this event — so guests you added to the list yourself, who were never emailed through Fotify, are left out.

This one is on by default. If you'd rather your guests didn't get it, open the Email tab and click Turn off on the Pre-Event Reminder card.

If you use door check-in (QR access control), the reminder also embeds each guest's personal entry QR code and its short fallback code, so it is in their inbox on the day. This is on whenever check-in is on; to leave it out, open the reminder's Configure editor and untick Include each guest's entry QR code.

Customizing Your Emails

Click "Configure" on any template card to open the editor. A live preview next to the form updates as you type, so you always see exactly what guests will receive. You can customize:

Content

Field	Description
From Name	The sender name guests see in their inbox (e.g., "Sarah & John"). The email address itself stays on Fotify's verified domain for deliverability — only the display name is customized. Leave empty to use "Fotify" as the sender name.
Organizer Name	Who the invitation is from, shown inside the email body — the line reads "[Guest], [Organizer Name] invites you to [Event Name]." Use a family or group name ("The Miller Family", "Sarah & John") when several people are hosting together rather than one person. Leave empty to use your account name.
Event Name	The name of your event
Subject Line	Custom email subject (leave empty for the default). Supports personalization placeholders
Title / Headline	The main headline text (e.g., "You're Invited!"). Supports personalization placeholders
Intro Line	The sentence under the headline. Left empty, we generate it as "[Guest], [Organizer Name] invites you to [Event Name]." Write your own when that wording doesn't fit — for example several people hosting together, where it should read "The children of Amara invite you to…" rather than "invites". Supports personalization placeholders
Custom Message	A personal message to your guests. URLs are automatically converted to clickable links. Supports personalization placeholders
Button Text	Custom CTA button text (not available for Save the Date)
Reply-to Email	Where guest replies go (defaults to your account email)

Personalizing with Placeholders

The Subject Line, Title / Headline, Intro Line, and Custom Message fields support personalization placeholders — the same ones used in your invitation message template. When you send, each placeholder is replaced with that recipient's own details, so a single email greets everyone by name.

Placeholder	Replaced with
{{FIRSTNAME}}	The guest's first name (or their display alias if set)
{{LASTNAME}}	The guest's last name
{{FULLNAME}}	The guest's full name
{{EMAIL}}	The guest's email address
{{RSVP_LINK}}	The guest's personal RSVP link

In the editor, the available placeholders are shown as clickable chips below the message field — click one to copy it, then paste it into any of the supported fields. For example, a subject of {{FIRSTNAME}}, you're invited! arrives as "Maria, you're invited!". If a guest has no value for a placeholder (e.g. no last name), it's simply replaced with nothing.

Images

• Cover Image — A hero image displayed full-width at the top of the email. Click the upload area or drag a file to add one.
• Additional Images — Extra images displayed in the email body. Click the + button to add more.

Images are uploaded to secure cloud storage and embedded with long-lived URLs so they display reliably in all email clients.

Email Style (Theme)

Choose from 8 visual themes to match your event's style:

Theme	Best For
Fotify Dark	Default dark theme with magenta and gold accents
Elegant Ivory	Weddings and formal events — cream tones with serif fonts
Modern Slate	Corporate events — dark navy with indigo accents
Romantic Rose	Weddings and romantic events — soft pink tones with serif fonts
Garden Green	Outdoor events — fresh green with emerald accents
Midnight Blue	Galas and evening events — deep purple with violet accents
Warm Sunset	Casual celebrations — warm tones with orange accents
Minimal White	Clean and professional — white with black accents

The live preview updates instantly when you switch themes.

Previewing and Testing

Preview

The editor shows a live preview that updates as you type — including unsaved changes, your images, and the selected theme. You can also click "Preview" on any template card for a full-size preview. Use the language dropdown to preview in different languages.

Send Test Email

Click "Send Test" to send a test email to your own email address. Test emails:

• Are free and don't consume credits
• Include a [TEST] prefix in the subject line
• Use sample guest data (e.g., "Test Guest" as the name), so any personalization placeholders resolve to that sample data and a preview link in the test

Always send a test before your first bulk send to verify the email looks correct in your inbox.

Sending Emails

Send to a Group of Guests

1. In the "Send Emails" section, click the button for the email type you want to send
2. Choose the audience — who should receive this email:
   • All guests — every guest with an email address
   • Guests who haven't responded — only pending RSVPs
   • Guests who accepted / declined / attended — filter by response
   • Guests who didn't open the previous email — re-target unengaged guests (great for a second invitation send)
3. Optionally tick "Only send to guests who haven't received it" — see below
4. The dialog shows exactly how many guests will receive the email — and why any are skipped (already received it, unsubscribed, previous emails bounced)
5. Select the default language for guests without a specific language set
6. Click "Send" — or check "Schedule for later" to pick a date and time instead

Finishing a Partial Send

If a send only reached some of your guests, ticking "Only send to guests who haven't received it" re-runs it for the rest without giving a second copy to anyone it already reached. The recipient count in the dialog updates to match, so you can see exactly who is left before confirming.

Leave it unticked when you are sending a genuinely new message of the same type — a second event update about a venue change, say — otherwise everyone who received the first one would be skipped.

Emails are queued and sent in the background. The stats section updates live while a send is in progress.

Send to Individual Guests

In the Guest Email Status table, each guest row shows available send actions:

• Send icon (pink) — Send an invitation to this guest. The number next to it shows how many invitation sends this guest has left.
• Bell icon (blue) — Send a reminder to this guest (only for non-answered guests)
• History icon (gray) — View every email this guest has received, with timestamps for sent, delivered, opened, and clicked

Per-Guest Send Limits

To prevent spam and protect your sender reputation, the number of sends per guest is capped by email type:

Email type	Sends per guest
Save the Date	1
Invitation	2
Reminder	1
Event Update	3
Cancellation	1
Thank You & Photos	1

Once a guest reaches the limit for a given email type, further sends of that type are blocked. Failed sends don't count against the limit.

Scheduling and Automation

Schedule a Send for Later

When sending any email type to a group, check "Schedule for later" in the confirmation dialog and pick a date and time. Scheduled sends appear in the Scheduled Sends list, where you can cancel them any time before they run. When a scheduled send completes, the list shows how many emails were queued and skipped.

Automatic Reminders

If your invitation has an RSVP deadline set, you can let Fotify handle reminders for you:

1. Click "Configure" on the Reminder template
2. Enable "Automatic reminders"
3. Choose how many days before the RSVP deadline the reminder should go out

When the deadline approaches, Fotify automatically emails every guest who hasn't responded yet. Each guest receives at most one reminder — whether it was sent automatically or manually — and automatic reminders use your credits like any other send.

Automatic RSVP Confirmations

Whenever a guest responds through their RSVP link, they automatically receive a confirmation email with their response, the event details, and add-to-calendar links. There's nothing to enable — it just works, and it's free.

Automatic Pre-Event Reminders

Three days before the event, everyone who accepted gets a final reminder with the details and a calendar invite attached. It's on by default and free, so there's nothing to set up.

The attached calendar invite is always built from your event's current date and time, so if anything changed since guests first saved the event, their calendar is corrected when they open it. To switch the reminder off for an event, click Turn off on its card in the Email tab.

When door check-in is enabled, the reminder also carries each guest's entry QR code (see the Pre-Event Reminder section above for how to leave it out).

Email Statistics

The stats section shows real-time metrics, and refreshes automatically while emails are being sent:

Metric	Description
Guests with Email	Total guests that have an email address
Sent	Emails successfully queued and sent
Delivered	Emails confirmed delivered to the recipient's inbox
Opened	Emails opened by the recipient (requires open tracking)
Clicked	Recipients who clicked the RSVP button
Failed	Emails that bounced or failed to deliver
Sending...	Emails currently queued (shown while a send is in progress)
Marked as Spam	Recipients who reported the email as spam (shown when > 0)
Unsubscribed	Guests who opted out of event emails (shown when > 0)

Credits Bar

Below the stats, the credits bar shows:

• X / Y used — How many credits you've consumed out of your total (queued sends reserve credits until they complete; failed sends refund them)
• Z remaining — Credits still available

A Note on Open and Click Tracking

Open and click tracking relies on techniques that are not 100% accurate:

• Open tracking uses a tiny invisible image (tracking pixel). Some email clients block images by default (e.g., Outlook desktop, many corporate email systems), so opens may go untracked. Conversely, some clients like Apple Mail Privacy Protection automatically load images in the background, which can inflate open counts.
• Click tracking works by routing links through a tracking server. This is generally reliable, but some security-conscious email clients or corporate firewalls may pre-fetch links automatically, which can register false clicks.

As a result, treat open and click metrics as directional indicators rather than exact counts. Delivered is the most reliable of the three, but read it precisely: delivered means the recipient's mail server accepted the email, not that it reached their inbox. A company mail system can accept a message and then file it into junk or hold it for an administrator, and that still counts as delivered.

When guests say they never got it

Start with the statistics rather than assuming. Filter the guest table by Bounced to see genuine failures — those are usually a typo in the address, and correcting it and resending fixes them.

If almost everything shows delivered and guests still say nothing arrived, look at which guests. Sort the picture by employer: when opens and clicks are healthy overall but every guest at one company shows delivered and nothing else, that company's mail system is almost certainly filtering our messages. This is common at large corporates — banks, law firms and enterprises run the strictest filters — and it has nothing to do with your email's content. Their filters are cautious about any unfamiliar sender delivering mail on another company's behalf.

Two things help:

• Ask their IT team to allowlist us. One guest at the company can usually get this done, and it fixes everyone there at once.
• Send those guests from your own mailbox. In the guest list, the Envelope icon copies the guest's designed invitation and opens your mail client addressed to them; paste it in and send. Coming from your own company domain, it arrives like any other email you send them. See How to Manage Your Guest List for the step-by-step.

Invitations you send this way don't appear in the statistics above — your mail client did the sending, so there is nothing for us to track. Their RSVPs still come back normally.

Guest Email Status Table

The table shows every guest and their email status. Use the tools above the table to find specific guests:

Search

Type a name or email address to instantly filter the list.

Filters

• RSVP Status — Filter by Pending, Accepted, Declined, or Attended
• Email Status — Filter by Has Email, No Email, Sent, Not Sent, Delivered, Opened, or Bounced
• Click "Clear filters" to reset

Table Columns

Column	Description
Name	Guest's full name
Email	Email address (or "No email" if missing)
RSVP	Current response: Pending (gray), Accepted (green), Declined (red), Attended (green)
Save Date	Delivery status of the save-the-date email
Invitation	Delivery status of the invitation email
Reminder	Delivery status of the reminder email
Actions	Send, reminder, and email-history buttons for eligible guests

Email Status Icons

• Clock — Pending or queued
• Send arrow — Sent to provider
• Green check — Delivered
• Purple envelope — Opened
• Blue pointer — Clicked
• Red X — Bounced or failed
• Red ban — Spam complaint

Per-Guest Email History

Click the history icon on any guest row to see the complete timeline of every email that guest has received — including the email type, when it was queued, sent, delivered, opened, and clicked, and any error details if a send failed. This is the fastest way to answer "did aunt Carla actually get her invitation?"

Multilingual Support

Email invitations support 19 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Danish, Swedish, and Czech.

How Language Selection Works

1. Each guest can have a messaging locale set in the guest list (editable when adding or editing a guest)
2. When sending, guests receive emails in their specific locale
3. Guests without a locale set receive the email in the default language you select at send time

Arabic and Hebrew emails are automatically rendered right-to-left (RTL).

Unsubscribe and Opt-Out

Every email includes an unsubscribe link in the footer, and supports the one-click unsubscribe button built into Gmail and other email apps. When a guest unsubscribes:

• A confirmation page asks them to confirm (so a security scanner can't unsubscribe them by accident)
• Once confirmed, they're unsubscribed from all event emails
• Their status shows as opted out in your guest list
• No further emails can be sent to that address

You must respect opt-outs. Attempting to circumvent the unsubscribe system may result in your email feature being disabled.

Best Practices

Before Sending

• Always send a test email first to check formatting, images, and links
• Set a From Name guests will recognize (e.g., your name or the couple's names) — this is what shows in the inbox "From" column and drives open rates
• Set organizer name and event name — these appear prominently in the email. If several people are hosting together, put the group in Organizer Name ("The Miller Family") instead of one person's name
• Upload a cover image — emails with images have higher engagement
• Choose a theme that matches your event's style and formality

Timing Your Emails

• Send Save the Date weeks or months before the event
• Send Invitations 3–6 weeks before the event
• Enable automatic reminders so non-responders get a nudge before your RSVP deadline — or send reminders manually 1–2 weeks before the event
• Use "Schedule for later" to prepare sends in advance and have them go out at a guest-friendly hour
• Send Thank You & Photos to attendees a day or two after the event, while the memories are fresh — it's also the best way to fill your photo gallery

Managing Responses

• Monitor the Opened and Clicked stats to gauge engagement
• Use the "didn't open the previous email" audience to re-send the invitation only to unengaged guests
• Use filters to quickly find guests by RSVP status or email delivery status
• Check for bounced emails — these may indicate incorrect email addresses

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How much do email credits cost? A: Email credits are sold in packs at different price points. Check the Email tab in your event dashboard for the latest pricing and pack sizes.

Q: Can I send emails without purchasing credits? A: Test emails are free and don't require credits, and automatic RSVP confirmation emails are always free. However, sending to actual guests requires purchased credits.

Q: What happens if I run out of credits mid-send? A: The bulk send stops when credits are exhausted. Already-queued emails will still be delivered. You can purchase more credits and send to the remaining guests.

Q: Can I schedule an email to go out later? A: Yes. Check "Schedule for later" in the send dialog and pick a date and time. You can see and cancel upcoming sends in the Scheduled Sends list.

Q: Can reminders be sent automatically? A: Yes. Enable "Automatic reminders" in the Reminder template settings and choose how many days before your RSVP deadline they should go out. Guests who haven't responded get one reminder automatically.

Q: Do guests get a confirmation when they RSVP? A: Yes — automatically. Guests who respond receive a free confirmation email with their response, the event details, and add-to-calendar links. You can customize its look in the RSVP Confirmation template.

Q: Can guests add the event to their calendar from the email? A: Yes. Invitations, save-the-dates, reminders, updates, and confirmations include Add to calendar links for Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple/iCal.

Q: Can I customize the email design beyond the themes? A: You can customize the content (title, message, images, CTA text, subject line) and choose from 8 visual themes. The email layout structure is fixed to ensure reliable rendering across all email clients.

Q: The email says "…, Event Organizer invites you to …". How do I change who it's from? A: That line comes from the Organizer Name field on the email template, not from your invitation page. Click "Configure" on the template, set Organizer Name to whatever the invitation should be from — a family or group name like "The Miller Family" works well when several relatives are hosting together — and save. It's stored per email type, so set it on each template you plan to send (Invitation, Save the Date, Reminder, and so on). Leave it empty and Fotify uses your account name. This is separate from From Name, which is the sender name guests see in their inbox. See Customizing Your Emails.

Q: Several of us are hosting. How do I get "invite" instead of "invites"? A: Use the Intro Line field on the template. Left empty, we generate that sentence for you and it always reads "invites". Fill it in and your wording replaces ours entirely — e.g. The children of Amara invite you to her 90th birthday. It supports the same personalization placeholders as the message, so {{FIRSTNAME}}, the children of Amara invite you… works too.

Q: Can I personalize each email with the guest's name? A: Yes. The subject line, title, and message support placeholders like {{FIRSTNAME}}, {{LASTNAME}}, {{FULLNAME}}, {{EMAIL}}, and {{RSVP_LINK}}. Each is replaced with that recipient's details when the email is sent, so one email personalizes for everyone. See Personalizing with Placeholders.

Q: Why can't I see open/click tracking? A: Open and click tracking must be enabled at your email provider's domain settings. Contact support if you need help enabling this. Also note that some email clients block tracking pixels or pre-fetch links, so these metrics are approximate — see the tracking disclaimer in the Statistics section above.

Q: What happens if an email bounces? A: Hard bounces (invalid email addresses) are tracked and the guest is flagged so further sends don't hurt your deliverability. Soft bounces (temporary issues like full mailbox) may resolve on retry.

Q: My guests' emails show as delivered but nobody opened them. What's wrong? A: Delivered means their mail server accepted the message, not that it landed in their inbox — company mail systems can accept an email and then file it into junk. If the guests showing no activity are clustered at one or two employers, that's the cause. See When guests say they never got it.

Q: Can I send an invitation from my own email address instead? A: Yes, one guest at a time. In the guest list, the Envelope icon copies that guest's designed invitation and opens your mail client addressed to them — paste it into the empty message and send. It's the workaround for guests whose employer filters our emails, since it arrives from your own domain. These sends use no credits and don't appear in the email statistics.

Q: Can a guest receive the same email type twice? A: It depends on the type: invitations can be sent up to two times per guest and event updates up to three times; save-the-dates, reminders, cancellations, and thank-you emails are one per guest. These limits prevent spam and protect your sender reputation.

Q: Do emails work with the RSVP system? A: Yes. Invitation and reminder emails contain a personalized RSVP button that links directly to each guest's individual RSVP page. When a guest responds through the link, their status updates in your dashboard in real time — and the guest gets an automatic confirmation email.

Q: Can I send to only specific guests? A: Yes. When sending, choose an audience: all guests, guests who haven't responded, guests who accepted/declined/attended, or guests who didn't open the previous email. The dialog shows exactly how many guests will receive it before you confirm.

Q: An email only reached some of my guests. Can I send it to the rest without duplicating it?

A: Yes. Tick "Only send to guests who haven't received it" when you send again. Anyone the email already reached is skipped, so nobody gets a second copy. See Finishing a Partial Send.

Q: What languages are supported? A: 19 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Danish, Swedish, and Czech. Arabic and Hebrew render right-to-left automatically.

Q: Why was my email feature disabled? A: If the content of your emails is flagged by our automated moderation system (for spam, offensive content, or policy violations), the feature is temporarily disabled. Contact support@fotify.app to resolve the issue.

Q: Are email credits refundable? A: Email credits are non-refundable and non-transferable between events. See our Refund Policy for details.

Pricing may vary depending on your country and currency. See the latest pricing on the pricing page.