With Joy’s general message and reminder email features, you can send a message to all (or some) of your Guest List with the click of a button, saving you hours individually texting or calling guests to share updates. Different from Save the Dates and Invitations, general messages and reminder emails are perfect for last-minute changes, updates, reminders, and any other information you want your guests to be aware of ahead of the big day. The messages appear in your guests’ inboxes, as an email from you and your fiancé, and feature your Event Page Photo at the top, further personalizing the note.
Although you can fully customize your message however you like, here are some common reasons to send general messages to your guests:
- You have a last-minute update about your rehearsal dinner and want to relay the new information quickly. You can send a general message to only your rehearsal dinner guests so everyone in that group is on the same page.
- Your wedding is a week away, and you want to send a quick “countdown to the wedding” note to get your guests excited.
- Your event will be held outdoors, and you want to make sure guests think twice about wearing high-heeled shoes due to the landscape.
- You want to send an update to all of your guests about your plan to postpone your event due to a personal matter.
Additionally, here are some common reasons to send reminder emails to your guests:
- You haven’t heard from a guest about whether they’re attending and want to send them a nudge to RSVP by a certain date.
- You’ve checked the weather forecast for your big day and want to remind all of your guests to dress according to the weather.
- You discover your hotel blocks are quickly running out and want to send a reminder to your guests to secure a room ASAP.
- You want to kindly remind your guests to refrain from bringing gifts to the wedding.
Use Joy to Send General or Reminder Messages to Your Guests
To edit and send a general and reminder email, first navigate to the Guest List from your admin dashboard.
From here, select the guests from the Guest List by clicking on the checkbox next to their names, searching for their names in the search box at the top, or choosing the Select All checkbox, if you want to send a message to all guests. (As you can see, you have the ability to either send a message to all guests or only some guests.)
Then, click on Send in the upper-right corner where you’ll see the five pre-built email templates you can send to your guests: Invitation eCard, Save the Date eCard, Custom eCard, Reminder Email, and a General Message Email. For our purposes here, you will either select Reminder Email or General Message Email depending on which you want to send.
You’ll then be brought to an edit screen. This is where you can make the General Message or Reminder Email your own.
Once you’ve edited the email, click ‘Done’ and you’ll see a preview of the email.
If you’re ready to send it, click ‘Next.’ On the next screen, you can send a test email to yourself to preview the message and make sure it appears exactly how you want it.
Test email as it would appear in your inbox:
If everything looks good in the test, click Send Now. You’ll see a confirmation screen indicating the emails were sent.
Actual email as it would appear in your inbox:
As you can see, your guests’ first names will automatically populate in the email greeting based on the individual guests you select on the Guest List. For guests who are grouped together as a party on the Guest List — such as a couple or family — the first names of all guests in that grouping will be included in the email message, regardless of the email address to which you send the message.
A family grouped as a party on the Guest List (Notice how Emily is the only guest in the group with an email address listed.)
The pop-up that appears after initiating the message (or eCard) process (Note that you will receive this pop-up for any guests that don’t have an email address listed. In this case, because Richard Gilmore is grouped with Emily Gilmore [who has an email address listed], you can disregard this pop-up.)
Send General Messages for Unexpected Event
Sometimes there are unexpected situations that can impact your event plans. This could be a natural disaster, family emergency, global pandemic, or another event out of your control. As a result, you may need to share important updates with your guests to keep them in the loop. Sending a general message with Joy is an easy and effective way to do that.
Here is an example of a general message — viewed from the guest perspective — where a couple shares a wedding update in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Subject line: An important update about our wedding plans
Use Messages to Direct Your Guests to the Announcements Banner on Your Website
As we mentioned earlier, guests can visit your website via the View Our Website button (see above) located in the email message. This is especially useful if you a) want to provide guests with further information, or b) want to encourage guests to visit your website for periodic updates. And now, thanks to Joy’s Announcement Banner feature, it’s an especially great time to link guests to more information.
Joy’s Announcement Banner feature is intended to bring attention to anything you wish, such as an important update or a reminder to RSVP. As such, your announcement will be the first thing your guests see when they visit your site.
Use Tags to Send a Message to Specific Guests
Depending on the context of your general or reminder email, you may not want to send your message to everyone. In fact, it may not even be pertinent to all of your guests.
For example, you decide to host an informal pre-rehearsal brunch for only your rehearsal guests, and you want to send a quick note about the venue, date, and time. Although you can certainly send an email to a subset of guests by manually selecting them from the Guest List — i.e. searching for guests using the search box or sifting through the entire Guest List — you can also use Joy’s Guest Tags. Guest Tags enable you to quickly find the guests you’re looking for, those assigned to the “Rehearsal” tag (in this case), to begin your message.
Let’s show you what we mean:
On the Guest List, click the three-tiered option tool in the search box at the top:
The Filter by Tag panel will appear. Click the tags you want to filter by, and your Guest List will only show guests:
- who have those tags,
- or are grouped with guests with those tags.
Then, click Done, select the guests you wish to send a message to, and Send at the top, and choose a type of card or message to send.
Track Who Has and Has Not Read Your Message
After sending your message, you can easily track the status for each of your guests by heading to the Last Email Status column on your Guest List.
You’ll notice that the Last Email Status column lists the email status first and then the subject line for your message. Here are the various “statuses” you can expect to see.
Last Email Status: Preparing to send (This just means the email is in the queue and will be sent out shortly.)
Last Email Status: Sent
Last Email Status: Email Opened (This means your email message has been opened. If you send Save the Date, Invitation, Change the Date, or Custom eCards, you will see ‘Email Opened’ if your guests only opened the email and didn’t click on “View Your Invitation” or “Open Save The Date” in the email. Once guests open the eCard from the email, the status will change from “Email Opened” to “eCard Opened.”)
Last Email Status: E-Card Opened (Notice how Jackson has opened the eCard whereas the others have not.)
Last Email Status: Delivery failed (Notice how there is a Delivery failed: Email address does not exist status for Jess on the Guest List. This means there may be an error in the guest’s email address, so you should check the email address, update it, and resend the message.)
Whether you plan to send a general message or reminder email to share last-minute changes or important developments in your wedding plans with your guests, we hope the flexibility of this feature and the tools embedded within are useful.
Still have some questions?
Ask us directly! Click on the black and white chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of this page to ask us your questions, or you can email us at support@withjoy.com. You’ll get a friendly response from someone on our team! 🙂