Teatime Template — Complete Guide

Teatime is an invitation laid like a table for afternoon tea. The page is fine bone china: a border of flowers and ribbons printed like transfer-ware, your photo on a lace doily with a teacup and saucer beside it, cards with a scalloped, gilt-edged rim like a saucer, and a tea menu card for your programme.

Teatime is one of Fotify's simpler designs: its look comes from a china service you choose — blue and white, chintz, or white and gold — and one colour for its pattern, any colour at all.

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

Teatime 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 Teatime different

Standard templates change colours and fonts over the same shared layout. Teatime 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 china service — blue and white transfer-ware on white porcelain, chintz with pastel flowers on warm cream, or white bone china with the pattern in gold
One pattern colour — pick it from the suggested colours or from the colour picker. It prints the flowers, ties the satin ribbon, ices the petit-fours and fills the buttons
A transfer-ware border — a ribbon swag caught up by a bow, with roses, forget-me-nots, buds and leaves along each side, across the top of the cover and again at the foot of the page. Flowers and ribbons only: no pagodas, no scenes
A lace doily and a teacup — your cover photo in a round gilt frame on a white lace doily, with a teacup and saucer beside it and gentle steam rising from the tea
Saucer-rim cards — the message and the programme sit on cards with a scalloped edge, a fine gold outline and a gilt line painted just inside the rim
Two voices — Petit Formal Script, an elegant copperplate, for your event name only, and Brygada 1918, a graceful book serif, for everything else
Always readable — whatever colour you pick, even a pale yellow or a near-black, the text, the lines and the buttons are deepened until they read clearly on the porcelain

When to choose Teatime

Teatime suits gatherings around a pot of tea:

Bridal showers — chintz in rose, or white and gold, with the bride's name in the script
Baby showers — blue and white, or chintz in a soft lavender, sage or butter yellow
Afternoon-tea birthdays — a tea menu card for the programme and petit-fours counting down to the day
Garden tea parties and high teas — the garland, the doily and a steaming cup set the scene
Mother's Day brunches — a gentle colour and your own closing line

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 birthdays and weddings.

For a restaurant menu card on a linen tablecloth, try Supper. For translucent vellum over cotton paper, try Christening.

Applying Teatime to your event

Open your event, click Invitation in the sidebar, then the Invitation tab
In Design Template, click Change template if the gallery is collapsed, and find Teatime under Designs (it is listed under the Party filter, and under Wedding, Baby shower and Birthday too)
Optional: press Try it on to see Teatime with your own invitation details in the live preview — nothing is saved until you press Use this design
Or click the Teatime card to apply it straight away
Open Teatime options below the gallery to pick your china, your pattern colour and the other options described below. Changes save automatically

Teatime 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 Teatime options are kept in case you switch back.

Teatime options

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

1. China

The tea service the page is laid with:

Blue and white (default) — transfer-ware printed in your pattern colour on cool white porcelain
Chintz — pastel flowers on warm cream: your colour leads the roses, two companion blooms are turned from its hue, and the leaves are a soft sage
White and gold — white bone china with the pattern in gold; your colour appears as a narrow enamel band inside the gilt lines, on the satin ribbon and on the petit-fours, and the buttons are gold

2. Pattern colour

The colour of the china pattern. Pick it two ways:

A suggested swatch — Cobalt (default), Rose, Sage, Lavender or Butter yellow
Pick any color — the last chip opens your device's colour picker, so you can match the flowers, the dress or the napkins exactly. The colour's code is shown beside the chips

Any colour works. Teatime never paints your pick as it is where it would hurt legibility: the labels and the buttons use the shade of your colour that reads clearly on the porcelain, and the pattern's outline the shade that stands out from it. The porcelain itself always stays white or cream.

3. Cover line

The small line above the name on the cover (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("Please join us for tea"). Try "Please join us for a bridal shower honouring", "Afternoon tea for" or "A garden party for".

4. Closing line

The line at the end of the page (up to 80 characters). Leave it blank to use the default ("We look forward to celebrating with you").

Every piece of text Teatime prints on the invitation — the cover line, the Kindly 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 centred cover replaces the standard header:

The garland across the top
The cover line (option 3) in small, widely spaced capitals
Your event name in the copperplate script. Long names step down a size so they never break mid-word
Your cover photo in a round gilt frame on a lace doily, keeping the horizontal crop you set, with a teacup and saucer beside it. Without a photo, the teacup sits on the doily itself
The date, the time and the place under a gilt rule — 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
Kindly 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

Section heads

Each section opens with a small spray of flowers between two gilt hairlines, the section's label in small spaced capitals, then its title in the serif and, for the story and gifts, your subtitle or gift message.

Message — a tea card under a ribbon

Your message on a saucer-rim card, with a satin ribbon in your colour, tied in a bow, crossing its top corner and a small spray of flowers at its foot. A long message reads from the start of the line, a size smaller.

Countdown — petit-fours

Each unit of the remaining time is a petit-four: a little iced cake in a soft tint of your colour with a sugar rose on top, the number on the sponge, a pleated paper case under it and the unit's name below, all set on a serving plate. 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)

Plates on a dresser: every photo the same round plate with a porcelain rim and a gilt line, two to a row on a phone and three on wider screens (two for two or four photos, and a single plate for one).

Story — a china cabinet

Every milestone is set the same way: a round plate holding its photo (or, when it has none, a printed band and a small spray of flowers), beside its date in small capitals, its title in the serif and its text. On wider screens the plates alternate sides down the page; on a phone each plate stands above its words.

Itinerary — the tea menu card

One saucer-rim card with a three-tier cake stand at its head. Each day with a date or a label is headed as a tier, its name over a shallow gilt dish. Every entry is one line of the menu: the moment in the serif, a dotted gilt leader and its time, with the place in italics and any note beneath. Entry icons are not shown.

RSVP — the place card

"Will you join us?" with your RSVP deadline under it, and the reply form on a card folded like a place card at the table: the fold across its top with a small spray of flowers on it and a gilt line inside its rim. On a save-the-date page the card 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 Teatime's china: white cards with softly rounded corners and a gilt line inside the rim, buttons in your colour (gold on white and gold), and Brygada 1918 titles.

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 three-tier cake stand, your closing line (option 4) in the italic serif, the date and place, a Kindly reply button and the garland once more.

Sections that use the shared layout

These sections keep Fotify's shared layout and are dressed in Teatime'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 white card with a gilt line inside its rim, with titles in Brygada 1918 and buttons in your colour. Photos in custom sections are capped in height so a tall portrait never takes over the page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I use Teatime for something other than a tea party? A: Yes. It suits any gentle daytime celebration — a bridal or baby shower, a birthday, a garden party or a brunch. Use the Cover line and the Closing line for your own words, and rename any section in edit mode.

Q: Where does the script appear? A: Only on your event name on the cover. Everything else is set in the serif, so the page stays easy to read on a phone.

Q: I picked a pale colour. Why are the labels and buttons darker than my colour? A: Teatime keeps every label readable: the labels, the pattern's outline and the buttons use a deeper shade of the same hue so they read clearly on the porcelain. The soft washes inside the flowers and the petit-fours keep the lighter tint.

Q: What changes with White and gold? A: The pattern, the labels and the buttons turn gold, and your colour moves to a narrow enamel band inside the gilt lines, the satin ribbon and the petit-fours.

Q: I don't have a cover photo. Will the cover look empty? A: No. Without a photo the teacup sits on the lace doily in its place, steam and all.

Q: Does Teatime work in right-to-left languages? A: Yes. In Hebrew and Arabic the layout mirrors: the teacup moves to the other side of the doily (its handle still pointing outwards), the ribbon crosses the message card's other corner and the menu lines read from the right. The cover photo's crop stays as you set it. The script has no Hebrew or Arabic letters, so the event name is shown in the serif or the device's own font for those scripts.

Q: Does the page move? A: Only a gentle rise as the cover appears and the steam drifting up from the cup. 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 other gentle designs: Christening, vellum over cotton paper, or Supper, a printed menu card for a dinner
Let guests share their photos with a QR code: read about Fotify for birthdays and digital invitations with RSVP

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