One-tap call buttons on the invitation

Put someone other than yourselves on the invitation. Every wedding produces the same run of small questions - parking, dress code, whether children are included - and they land on whoever is easiest to reach, which is almost always the couple. A contact number on the invitation gives those questions somewhere else to go. Label it so guests can see who they are ringing, and the question reaches someone who can answer it without going through you first.

What guests actually ring about

None of it is complicated. It is a short list of questions, asked separately by one guest after another over the weeks before the day, and not one of them is hard to answer:

• Where do we park, and is there a second entrance
• Is this black tie, or will I be the only man in a suit
• Are children invited, and does that include the baby
• What time should we actually arrive, as opposed to the time on the invitation
• I am bringing my mother as well, is that all right
• Is there food, or should we eat beforehand

Answering any one of them costs you nothing. Answering all of them, over and over, in the fortnight you are also giving a caterer final numbers on a Tuesday and finding a suit that fits your brother, is a different matter. They rarely arrive at a convenient hour either. The call about parking comes at ten at night, because that is when your uncle remembered.

Who to nominate

Three questions settle it. Will this person answer a number they do not recognise? Do they know the answers, or know exactly who does? Will they still be reachable on the morning itself?

The best man and the maid of honour are the obvious names and often the wrong ones. On the morning they are in the room with you, being photographed, with their phones somewhere else. A sister or a cousin who is coming as an ordinary guest is usually better. If you have a coordinator or a planner, they are better still, because fielding this is already the job you are paying for. Ask whoever you pick before you type their number in. Nominating someone without telling them is how a number rings out for weeks.

The wedding designs give you two number slots. The editor calls them the groom’s and the bride’s, but whose numbers go in them is up to you, so the usual arrangement is one nominated contact per side of the family. A guest from your side then rings a name they recognise rather than a stranger, which is often the difference between asking and guessing. The birthday designs carry a single contact. Both slots are optional, every design you can pick renders these buttons, and a button only appears on the invitation once you have filled a number in.

Write the label yourself

The words on the button are your own text, and that matters more than it sounds. “Bride” tells a guest whose number it is. It does not tell them whether ringing is welcome, or what for. “Parking and directions - Sanjay” does both, and it quietly heads off the calls that were going to be about something else.

Be honest in the label about who the person is. If the number belongs to a coordinator rather than a family member, say so. A guest who thinks they are ringing your sister and gets a professional will apologise and hang up without asking their question. If your contact can only take calls in the evening, the label is the place to put that too.

One thing to check before you send. Most of the designs put your label on the button, but one or two ignore it and print the couple’s own names or the bare number instead. Open the preview, scroll to the footer and read what is actually on the button on the design you have chosen.

Answer it on the invitation and the phone stays quiet

A contact number is a safety net, not a plan. The better move is to remove the reason for the call. Most of the questions above are things you already know the answer to and have simply not written down anywhere.

• Give the venue as a guest would type it into a map, not as it appears on the letterhead. A venue name with no street produces phone calls.
• Put the arrival time rather than the ceremony time, and say which it is.
• Write the dress code in plain words. A guest who has to look up a phrase will ring someone instead of looking it up.
• Say whether children are invited. Saying nothing reads as an invitation to ask, and every family reads the silence differently.
• Say what happens after the ceremony, and roughly when the day ends.

Each of those, written on the invitation, is a call that never happens. What is left over is the genuinely unpredictable: the guest whose flight has moved, the aunt who cannot find the link, the cousin who wants to bring four people. That is what the number is there for.

When a number on the invitation is the wrong answer

Sometimes it is, and it is worth saying so plainly. The number sits on the page, so anyone who can open the invitation can read it, including anyone a guest passes it on to. If the person you had in mind would not hand that number to a stranger, do not put it there. Leave the field empty and nothing renders.

It is also a phone number, and it behaves like one. One tap dials it. A guest abroad ringing a number at home is placing an international call and paying for it, so if a good share of your list is overseas, a line in the label about messaging instead is a kindness. And if the honest answer is that neither of you wants to take calls and there is nobody to nominate, leave both fields blank and put more detail on the invitation instead. An invitation with no number and complete information beats one with a number nobody answers. The rest of what a guest finds on the invitation is covered across the features pages.

Related: All invitation features