Wedding invitations for guests abroad: what NRI families need on the invite

Two kinds of NRI invitation

A wedding in India, with guests abroad. The usual case. Your invitation has to work as a travel note as well: dates far enough ahead to book, the city and the nearest airport, where to stay, what the weather will be, and which functions nobody should miss.

A wedding abroad, with family in India. A wedding in Brampton or Texas, with grandparents, uncles and old friends in India who may not travel. For them the invitation is how they take part: the local date and time stated plainly, a live stream if there is one, and a version they can watch or print.

Many families have both at once. One invitation can serve both groups, as long as every time on it says whose time it is.

Dates and times that cannot be misread

• Write the date in words. 5 December 2026, not 05/12/2026, which a guest in the US reads as the twelfth of May.
• Add the day of the week. Saturday, 5 December 2026. A wrong weekday is the first thing a careful guest notices, and one family came to us after a video invite from another maker had got exactly that wrong.
• Say whose time it is. '7 pm, Udaipur time' or '7 pm IST'. For a wedding abroad, '11 am, Brampton time'.
• Handle the night muhurat. Pheras at 1:30 am belong to the night of Saturday 5 December but fall on Sunday the 6th. Write 'the night of Saturday 5 December, 1:30 am (early Sunday)'. Local guests misread it too.
• One time zone on the invitation, two in the message. Keep the invitation in the wedding's local time. When you send it to someone abroad, add their time in your message.

Weather, travel and what to pack

• The nearest airport, and the railway station if there is one, with the distance to the venue in kilometres and in time. A 60 km drive can take two hours on a wedding weekend.
• Who meets them. If you have arranged pickups, a name and a number to call on arrival.
• The weather in both units. A family based in the US asked us to show it in Celsius and Fahrenheit, and it is a small kindness: a guest who thinks in Fahrenheit has no feel for 12°C.
• What to pack, function by function. A shawl for the open-air night, comfortable shoes for the baraat, something yellow for the haldi.
• Where to stay. The hotel options, any group rate, and the date by which to book.

Guests who have not been to an Indian wedding in years, and friends who have never been to one, also want to know what to wear. The Wedding Wardrobe (₹1,199) is a designed style guide that goes out with the invitation: a page for every function, with its mood, its colours as swatches and what suits women and men. One family asked for the outfit guide to go only to their international guests, which is a good use of it.

Visas and arrival forms, briefly

Do not answer visa questions from memory, and do not let guests rely on a forwarded message. Send them to the official source, and put one line about it in the invitation's travel section.

• Guests with a foreign passport need an Indian visa. Many nationalities can apply online on the Government of India's e-Visa site, which lists the types of visa and who is eligible for each. The site also says the government charges no 'emergency' or 'express' fee, so a site asking for one is not the official portal.
• Relatives with an OCI card already hold a lifelong visa for visiting India and travel on it.
• Arrival card. The same site says foreign nationals and OCI cardholders can fill in the e-Arrival card online in the 72 hours before they land.

Language: keep the English view English

Many NRI families want two languages: Hindi, Gujarati or Punjabi for the grandparents, English for friends abroad and the younger cousins. That works well with one rule: whichever language a guest is reading should stay that language from top to bottom.

A family in the US asked us for exactly this. Their invitation had a Gujarati view and an English one, and they wanted the English view to stay English all the way through, including the names of the days, so nobody abroad met a Gujarati weekday in the middle of an English line.

For the elders, the reverse holds: the invocation, the names and the family list in the script they read, with Roman letters only where a guest has to type something.

RSVP for guests who travel

• Ask more than yes or no. Which functions they will attend, how many are coming, their arrival and departure dates, and whether they need a room.
• Set their deadline earlier. If you are booking rooms or pickups for them, guests abroad need to reply a month or two before your local guests do.
• Keep the replies in one place. Replies to an Invifest invitation go to your private RSVP console, free with the invite, where you can read them and download them as an Excel sheet.

Ask about each function separately. The cousin from Canada may come for the whole week while a colleague comes only for the reception, and the caterer needs the numbers per function. Families abroad have asked us to add a question on which functions each guest will attend, and it is the most useful question on a long wedding. The invitation timeline has the rest of the schedule, and RSVP for an Indian wedding the questions and reminders that get replies.

Sending the invitation across time zones

• Send at a sensible hour where the guest is. A message that lands at 3 am in Toronto is read over breakfast at best and buried under the family group's good mornings at worst.
• WhatsApp works everywhere. The link opens in any phone's browser, in any country, with nothing to install.
• Office networks can block it. A groom in Canada found his company laptop would not open the guest dashboard; on his phone it opened at once. If a work computer refuses the link, the phone will not.
• Give it a day. Relatives abroad often reply in their own evening. Wait a full day in their time zone before you chase.

One couple abroad started sending their invitations before they flew back to India for the wedding. That is the right instinct. The link goes out once, and every later change, a time moved or a venue confirmed, reaches everyone who has it without a second message. The rest of the sending, from broadcast lists to the elders' calls, is in how to send wedding invitations on WhatsApp.

Ordering an invitation from abroad

Everything at Invifest happens on WhatsApp and through the link, so it does not matter where you live. You choose a design and pay, send your details on WhatsApp, and the first version comes back on WhatsApp, with an email as well.

• Paying from abroad. Prices are in Indian rupees and designs start at ₹2,499. A card from outside India pays through Razorpay, and the checkout adds the gateway's 3% and the 18% GST on that fee before you pay. Your own bank may add a conversion charge.
• When we reply. We answer on WhatsApp and by phone 24/7. After you pay, a person from our team messages you within 15 minutes between 9 am and 10 pm India time, which in Toronto in winter is 10:30 pm to 11:30 am.
• How long it takes. The first version reaches you within 3 days of your complete details for most designs, and two rounds of changes are included.
• Not only weddings. Children abroad also order invitations for their parents' functions in India, such as a Shashtipurti, the sixtieth birthday ceremony, sent in the children's names.

A video or a PDF for relatives who will not tap through

Some relatives will never open a link: a grandfather who only watches what arrives on WhatsApp, an aunt who wants a card in her hand. Send them the invitation in a form they already use.

• The 4K video of your invite (₹1,100): your invitation as a short film, every page coming alive with your song, in 4K and as a light 720p for WhatsApp. It is made once, from your final invite, within 3 days.
• The PDF of your invite (₹1,000): your invitation's own pages laid out page by page, to print a few cards or send as one file.

For guests flying in, the save the date matters more than for anyone: 10 to 12 months ahead, so leave and flights can be booked. A matching Save the Date (₹978) is one screen in your invitation's design with your names, the date and the city. The destination wedding guide covers hotels, costs and the full timeline.

Messages and lines you can copy

For guests abroad and for family in India. Change the names, dates, cities and times in [brackets], and always say whose time a time is.

Want these words on a real invitation? See the designs.

Invitation designs

6 designs you can personalise, from ₹2,499. Open any one to see it full size, with a live demo.

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