Four counts tell you where your guest list is actually stuck: added, sent, opened, replied. Each gap between two of them is a different problem with a different fix, and only one of those fixes is another reminder. Work out which gap you are looking at before you type anything.
The four counts, and how to read them
Your dashboard stacks them as a funnel, one bar under the next, with the share that carried on to the next step. This is what each one counts.
- Added to list. Everyone on the list for this invitation, including the people you are still undecided about.
- Invite sent. Your own mark that it has gone out. It is set for you when you send on WhatsApp from your guest list, and you can set it by hand for anyone you invited another way.
- Opened link. Their personal link has been opened at least once.
- Replied. An answer is in against their name.
One thing to know before you read any of it: the counts are in people, not rows. A cousin whose row says four heads adds four to every stage, not one. That means the numbers come out in the same unit your caterer and your venue are asking for. It also means a drop of six people between two steps can be one household and one phone call, not six conversations. Look at the list, not only at the bar.
Added but not sent is your admin
This gap is work you have not done yet, and the only one of the three that sits entirely with you. Usually it is a guest with no number, a batch of names your mother sent at eleven at night, or a group you have not decided about the ceremony for.
The guest with no WhatsApp number does not need to sit there for three weeks: copy their link and send it by email or SMS, or give it to whoever in that house does read their messages. If you handed someone a printed card, mark them sent by hand.
Close this gap within a day or two of adding someone. That interval is a working habit we suggest, not a figure drawn from any data. Leave it a fortnight and you will not remember which of the names you added that evening got a message.
Sent but not opened is usually the number, not the guest
An unopened invitation is rarely a snub. Far more often it is a digit wrong, a missing country code or a number that changed, so nothing arrived at all. Or the message did arrive, into a chat they never scroll to, and they meant to open it properly later.
So check the number before you write anything, then try a different route rather than the same one twice: SMS, email, or their son or daughter, who will open it in front of them.
A few people will never open it, and no third route fixes that. Your grandmother reads her messages on a phone she barely taps, and treats anything underlined and blue as something to be avoided on principle. She is not a gap in a funnel. She needs a phone call, or a card put into her hand.
One caveat sits under this row of the funnel: only a personal link reports anything back. Paste the plain address, the one that ends without a guest code, into the family group and every relative who reads it there stays at sent, no matter how long they spent on the page.
Opened but not replied is a reminder, and only a reminder
This is the one gap a nudge genuinely closes. They have seen the invitation. What is missing is usually a decision that is not entirely theirs: whether their partner can get the Saturday off, whether the children are coming, whether the drive is doable.
So make replying the easiest thing in their day. One message, to them, naming the date you need it by and asking one question. “The caterer wants our final numbers on Thursday. Can you tell me yes or no, and how many of you?” beats a paragraph about how much it would mean to have them there.
If you turned on “RSVP to each ceremony” in the editor, read this carefully. A guest who has answered the reception and not the homecoming still counts as not replied, because they still owe you an answer. Half an answer does not fill a table. Leave that setting off and one answer covers the whole invitation, so a guest who has replied once drops out of the chase.
Chase four people, not two hundred
The blanket reminder to the whole list is the one move that reliably makes this worse. Someone who answered a fortnight ago opens it and concludes either that their reply was lost or that you were not paying attention. You spend goodwill across two hundred people to reach the handful who needed prodding.
The alternative is the dull one. Filter your guest list by delivery state - sent, not sent, opened, not opened - and one long list becomes three short ones. Then write three different messages.
- Not sent: there is nothing to write. Send it.
- Sent, not opened: check the number, then try another route.
- Opened, not replied: one nudge, carrying the date you need the answer by.
Your dashboard also keeps a standing list of who is still awaiting, so the follow-up list is made for you rather than rebuilt from memory every Sunday. Sending from the guest list opens WhatsApp one guest at a time, the wording drafted and that guest’s own link sitting in it; you read it and press send. One tap per guest. Nothing goes out on its own.
When none of this is worth your evening
If your list is thirty people you see every week, you already know who is coming. The funnel earns its place on a list too long to hold in your head, the kind where you catch yourself trying to remember which of the two cousins in Melbourne ever received a link in the first place.
Replies can also arrive without an open ever being recorded, because a guest replying from the public link has none to track, so replied can outrun opened. A gap between two steps is a diagnosis, not a verdict. It tells you which question to ask next, not who is coming to your wedding. Only the answers do that.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the funnel show more people than I have guests?
Because it counts people rather than rows. A row with four heads counts four at every stage. If the number looks high, that is your head count, which is the figure your caterer is asking you for anyway.
A guest says they replied, but my list still shows them waiting.
Two usual explanations. They replied in a chat rather than on the invitation, which nothing on your list can see. Or they replied from the plain public address, in which case they arrive as a new entry awaiting your approval rather than landing on the row you already had. Approve it, or send them their own link.
How long should I leave it before chasing someone?
Nothing measured sits behind this, only planning habit: give it about a week after sending before the first nudge, and put your own reply deadline a week or two ahead of the day the kitchen and the seating plan close. That gap is the window the chasing happens in, and it goes much faster from a list that already says who has opened.
Related: Per-guest links and open tracking · The guest list