In Person / Virtual Invitations

Send formal invitations only to those coming to the event. Send a viewing online guide that in no way resembles an invitation to others. It really is not at all the same thing, and people seeing something like an invitation would likely be a problem.

Oh gosh, I hate these situations and I'm currently in one! We'll be sending out 2 different sets of invitations - one for those being invited in person and the other for those being invited virtually. Our wedding website lists the info for the live stream so those invited in person can choose to attend virtually if they prefer. (I do have a few friends that I'd love to see in person, but I think they probably wouldn't feel comfortable going to an event and would prefer to join in online.) The invitations for those being invited virtually will say something along the lines of, "We'd love to celebrate with you in person, but unfortunately COVID has other plans for our day." It will be phrased better, of course. I think sending a paper invite helps to show that you really would like them to be there, but unfortunately circumstances are a bit out of your hands and the option isn't available at this time. However, you know your crowd. If they're generally pretty tech-savvy people a digital invite would likely be completely fine.

Do not send invitations to your ceremony/reception to people you don't actually want to attend. That is, if you can only host 50 people, do not send invitations to more than 50 people. For anyone above that number who you would like to invite to watch a livestream, send them a separate invitation/link that ONLY mentions attending virtually.

Otherwise, yes, you will confuse people and cause hurt feelings. Everyone who is living through a pandemic (that is, everyone!) understands that you will need to limit your guest count. Just set your guest list and your virtual invite list with confidence and move forward with planning.

I think sending paper invites that specifically say to join you online to the ones doing the live stream would be very cute and personal! Have an entirely separate "Save the date" or invite for the ones who you can't accommodate and make it fun and sweet while making it clear it's for the virtual stream.

I would also not do Facebook Live - I would say use another casting site and it would feel a lot more personal for the ones you can't have in attendance. Facebook Live is going to be for everyone of your facebook friends, so your actual friends may really have their feelings hurt to be invited to something you are streaming for potential thousands of people.

I would make a separate streaming option and send them a save the date for that. That to me would be so cute.

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Thank you for the advice! I'm starting to see how doing a separate type of personalize invite to those who can't attend would be really sweet. I'm nervous about doing a Zoom wedding option (I've seen too many of those go wrong), would a private Youtube Live link be better? Let me know if you have any suggestions

I'm in the exact same situation and I'm actually placing the order for the invitations this week. We are having 2 different invitations, one for in-person and one for the livestream. They're the same invitation template but with changed wording. Our state just announced that we should be able to have 100 people on our date, but I over-ordered the livestream invitations just in case the restrictions are put back.

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Thank you! I was so conflicted about this

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Thank you so much! Where would you recommend we get the virtual only invitations?

I have seen not so great experiences with virtual only invites. Guests expecting a paper invite after getting a virtual invite and hardly anyone showed up.

Send paper invites regardless of the formality. Virtual is ok for a birthday party or bbq but a wedding calls for actual paper. The invites are only sent to those attending in person. You will confuse and offend if you send paper invites to those watching online.

I actually ordered save the dates and did not send them when I originally planned to do so due to COVID. Instead, I used them as virtual invitations once we decided to proceed with a smaller wedding in a different location. Where the save the date listed the date and the city of the wedding, and said formal invitation to follow, I put a cute label there that said “Change of plans ... we still do ... virtually” and included a little insert with information regarding the livestream and directing those guests to our website. Our website generally described where the wedding would be, but we did not include physical addresses, etc. We sent formal invitations to those who we invited to personally attend, and those invitations included the physical address and weekend itinerary. It worked out well.

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You're welcome! FH literally just got our engagement shoot pictures back less than an hour ago, so we haven't figured out invitations quite yet. I've taken a look, though, and have seen some nice templates on Zazzle. You can also just use a regular invitation, but change the wording. That's probably what we're going to do.

Wedfuly is a great company we used for this! We were so worried about how to separate in-person guests vs people we wanted to join virtually. I recommend looking into them.