Two couples get married in the same month. One is hosting a reception evening for a couple of hundred people in Delhi. The other is taking a few dozen guests to Udaipur for four days of functions.
Both need an RSVP form. They should not be using the same one.
The Delhi couple needs a headcount and a food split, and not much else. The Udaipur couple needs to know who is flying, which nights each person needs a room, and who is sharing with whom. Give the Delhi guests the Udaipur form and they wade through questions about airport pickups. Give the Udaipur guests a one-page reception form and the couple spends the month chasing arrival times on WhatsApp.
That is why the RSVP builder in The Curated Knot starts you from a form template made for your kind of wedding, instead of leaving you to build one from nothing. A reception-only party, an intimate wedding, a destination wedding and a family celebration with a function every day each need different questions, and you can adjust the form afterwards.
This post is about picking the starting point. If you want the full list of questions worth asking, we have written it already: RSVP questions every Indian wedding form should ask. This one is shorter and answers a single question: which form do I start from? New to online RSVPs altogether? Our digital RSVP guide for Indian weddings covers the basics first.
You pick the form when you set up your RSVP
When you set up RSVPs, the first screen is called Choose a form. Each card is a form template for a kind of wedding, with a colour swatch, a one-line summary and a couple of tags such as One page or Several steps. Select a card and that form opens in a live preview, which you can click through the way a guest would. When it feels right, Customise this form takes you into the editor with the form ready to change.
You will meet this screen in onboarding. If your wedding has no RSVP form yet, the RSVP page offers the same picker, so you can set one up later without going back through onboarding.
Quick pick: your kind of wedding, your starting form
Find the row that sounds most like your wedding. The sections after the table say what each template really asks, so you can check before you commit.
| If your wedding is… | Start with | What guests are asked |
|---|---|---|
| A casual or single-guest invite | Simple RSVP | Name and phone, yes or no, extra guests, a message |
| A reception-only party | Reception Evening | Name and phone, yes, maybe or no, party size, food for the party |
| Small, with every guest named | Intimate Wedding | The people in the party, by name, and each person's food |
| A local family wedding with several functions | Family Celebrations | Each person's functions and food, no travel or stay |
| Several events, one reply per family | Wedding Events | Party size, events for the party, food for the party |
| A wedding that guests travel to | Destination Wedding | Events, meals, arrival and departure, rooms |
| Dates set, invitations still to come | Save the Date | Can you make it, and would you need travel or a stay |
Reception only: a one-page RSVP form
A reception is one event, often with your biggest guest list, and the caterer wants two things from you: how many, and what do they eat. Reception Evening is built around exactly that. It is a single page.
Guests give their name and phone number, then answer Will you join us for the reception? with Count us in, Will try or Can't make it. The maybe is a proper answer here, which suits an evening invitation that people often decide on late.
Only guests who choose Count us in see the rest: How many are coming with you? (leave it blank if it is just them), Food preference for your party (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Jain or A mix) and Anything the kitchen should know? The last box, A message for the couple, is open to everyone.
Food is asked once for the whole party, not person by person. That keeps a reception form to one page and still tells your caterer the mix. If you need a plate count per person, Intimate Wedding or Family Celebrations will serve you better.
Intimate wedding: one reply, then names and food
On a small guest list you are planning seats and plates by name, so a party-size number is not enough. Intimate Wedding takes one reply for the household, then asks for the names of the people in the party and each person's food.
Page one, Reply, takes the guest's name and phone number and asks Will you join us? with Yes, we'll be there or Sadly, no. A guest who says yes sees a short list headed Coming with you, where they add each person by name, up to three more. A guest who says no can leave an optional note and is finished. Page two never appears for them.
Page two, Details, is for guests who said yes. It asks for each person's food preference (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Jain or Vegan) and any allergies, then one note for the couple, A personal note for us. When the whole household eats alike, a Same for all family members option lets one answer cover everyone.
There is no maybe on this form, on purpose: small weddings plan by name. If you want one anyway, a Not sure yet answer is already built in and simply hidden. You can show it in the editor.
Destination wedding: an RSVP form for travel, stay and events
This is the most complete form of the lot, and it should be: a destination wedding is a logistics project with a guest list attached. Destination Wedding runs over several steps, shown as tabs.
- Guests. First name, WhatsApp number and email (email is required, because itineraries and hotel confirmations go by email), then the people travelling with them. For each person it asks name, relationship and an age group (Adult, Teen 13–17, Child 2–12 or Infant under 2), because flights and rooms are priced by age. The household then answers once: Wouldn't miss it, Hoping to or Can't make it.
- Events. Which events each person will join, and each person's food (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Vegan or Jain, plus allergies).
- Travel. Where they are travelling from, and how they are arriving: Flight, Train, By road or Already there. A flight number appears only for flights and a train number only for trains. Everyone except guests who are Already there then gives an arrival point, date and time, whether they need a pickup, and the same for departure, with a drop-off question.
- Stay. Do you need a room? Say yes and it asks which nights, a room preference (Single, Double bed, Twin beds or Family room) and who they are sharing with. It can also ask which ID the guest will show at hotel check-in (Passport, Aadhaar, Driving licence or Voter ID) and, once one is picked, take an optional photo of it as a JPG, PNG or PDF up to 10 MB. Both are optional.
- Notes. Special requests or accessibility needs, then a note for the couple.
- Review. A summary of the whole reply before it is submitted.
Two details keep it manageable. A guest who says maybe or no submits straight from the first step, so only guests who have said yes ever see Events, Travel and Stay. And the logistics are per person, with a Same for all family members option: a couple flying together answers once, and the cousin who arrives a day later unticks it and answers for herself. The ID is the exception: each person gives their own.
If you are gathering guest IDs for the hotel, see how to collect wedding guest IDs for hotel check-in.
Five-function family wedding: each person ticks their own functions
If your wedding runs from haldi to reception and the family is local, travel and hotel questions are noise. What you need to know is who is coming to which function. Family Celebrations is the destination form with travel and stay taken out.
Step one, Family, takes the guest's name and WhatsApp number, then lets them add everyone in the family who is invited: name, relation (Spouse / Partner, Parent, Grandparent, Sibling, Child or Other) and age group (Adult, or Child under 12). The household answers once: We'll be there, Hoping to or Can't make it. That single answer covers the whole family, so the form never asks whether each person is coming. What varies per person is the functions they tick and what they eat.
Step two, Functions, is the point of the form: For each person, tick the functions they will attend. Every person on the list gets their own set of functions, with date, time and place, and each has to tick at least one, so you get a real answer instead of a blank that means "all of them". Food is asked per person next (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Jain or Vegan, plus allergies). A Blessings step lets guests leave a message, and Review shows the reply before it goes.
Related read
Multi-Event RSVP for Indian Weddings: Per-Function Tracking
How to collect separate RSVPs for Mehendi, Sangeet, Pheras & Reception — without WhatsApp chaos or 5 different spreadsheets.
Not sure which form fits?
Open the picker, click through each live preview the way a guest would, and adjust the form once you have chosen.
Several events, one reply per family: Wedding Events
Some families would rather not fill in a form per person. They want to send one reply: we are four, we are coming to the sangeet and the wedding, two vegetarian and two non-veg. Wedding Events is that form, on one page.
It asks for name, email and WhatsApp number, then Will you join us? (We'll be there, Hoping to or Can't make it). Guests who are coming give a party size (How many of you are coming, including you?), tick the events their party will attend (the samples are Mehendi, Sangeet, Wedding and Reception), choose a food preference for the party (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Jain or A mix) and add anything the kitchen should know. All of it is answered once for the whole party.
The difference from Family Celebrations is the unit. Wedding Events treats a party as a number. Family Celebrations lists each person and asks each one. Choose Wedding Events when you want a short reply and per-person detail does not matter, and Family Celebrations when different relatives are going to different functions.
Simple RSVP for a casual invite
Not every invitation needs an event list. Simple RSVP is a single page: full name, phone number, Will you be joining us? (Joyfully Accept or Regretfully Decline), How many extra guests are coming with you? and A message for us.
The guest count appears only once someone accepts, and it counts extras: blank means just the one guest, and answering 2 counts three people. There is no maybe and no food question, which makes it the quickest to fill in. It suits casual or single-guest invites.
Save the Date: ask before you invite
When your dates are set but the invitation is still to come, a form can do an early job: find out who can come and who will need help with travel or a place to stay. Save the Date is one page. It asks for name, WhatsApp number and, optionally, Which city would you travel from? Then comes Can you make it? with Pencil us in, Likely, not sure yet or Unlikely.
Guests who say yes or maybe are asked how many would come with them and whether they would need help with travel or a place to stay (Yes, No or Not sure). Guests who say Unlikely get a note box and nothing more.
[add your wedding dates here]. It is a placeholder on purpose, so a sample date cannot be sent to every guest by mistake. Replace it with your real dates in the editor before you share the link.Still torn? Three questions that settle it
- Is anyone travelling in? If guests need flights, trains or hotel rooms, start with Destination Wedding. If you only want to gauge interest first, Save the Date comes before it.
- Do relatives in one household go to different functions? Then you want Family Celebrations, where each person ticks their own. If a family can answer once for everyone, Wedding Events is shorter.
- Do you need names, or just a number? For names, use Intimate Wedding on a small list, or Family Celebrations or Destination Wedding on a larger one. For a number, use Reception Evening, Wedding Events, Simple RSVP or Save the Date.
If your wedding is a single event with no travel, Reception Evening and Simple RSVP are the two to compare. The real difference is whether you want a maybe and a food question. Still choosing between tools rather than forms? Our comparison of RSVP apps for Indian weddings covers that.
What you can change afterwards
Picking a form is a starting point, not a commitment. In the editor you can:
- reword questions, with their help text and the hint text inside text boxes;
- mark a question Required ("Guest must answer this") or Hidden ("Not shown in the form");
- change answer choices and event details, including each event's date, time and place;
- show a question only for certain answers, with Visible when;
- change the form's colours and fonts.
If an answer might come back later, hide it rather than deleting it. A hidden answer can be shown again, which is how Intimate Wedding keeps Not sure yet in reserve. As you edit, a live preview shows how the form will look, and your changes reach guests when you publish the form. For ideas on what else belongs on it, our guide to RSVP form questions goes through each question and why it matters.
Not sure which card fits? Open the picker and click through the previews: each one is a live preview of the form, with sample content. The Curated Knot lets you start from the form that matches your wedding and adjust it later. Choose your starting form →
Frequently Asked Questions
Which RSVP form template is best for a reception-only party?
Reception Evening. It is one page: name and phone, then Count us in, Will try or Can't make it, how many are coming with the guest, a food preference for the party and a note for the kitchen. Party size and food only appear for guests who choose Count us in.
Which RSVP form should I use for a destination wedding?
Destination Wedding. It runs over several steps (Guests, Events, Travel, Stay, Notes and Review) and asks about each person's events and food, arrival and departure, and whether they need a room. A guest who says maybe or no submits from the first step, so only guests who say yes answer the longer questions.
Can I change the questions after I pick a form?
Yes. In the editor you can reword questions, mark them required or hidden, change answer choices and event details, show a question only for certain answers, and change the form's colours and fonts.
What is the difference between Wedding Events and Family Celebrations?
Wedding Events is one page answered once for the whole party: a party size, the events the party will attend and a food preference for the party. Family Celebrations lists each person in the household and asks each one for their own functions and food. Choose it when different relatives go to different functions.
Can guests reply with a maybe?
On most of them, yes: Reception Evening, Family Celebrations, Wedding Events, Destination Wedding and Save the Date all offer a maybe. Simple RSVP is yes or no only. Intimate Wedding keeps a Not sure yet answer hidden, which you can show in the editor.
Do my guests need an account or a verification code?
No. None of these forms asks guests for a verification code or an account. They open the link and fill in the form.