Work, Invita, Jul 2026 – present

Live, In active development

Case study

One link, every detail, one RSVP button

Paper invitations get lost, and guests still ask the host what time, where and what to wear. I designed and built Invita: mobile-first invitations where one link holds every detail, and guests RSVP without signing in.

Torn-paper collage on a wide navy paper strip: two blank envelopes, one wax-sealed, and an RSVP card struck through in pen, beside three phones showing the first screen of an Invita theme: Copertina’s magazine cover, Jardin’s garden wedding and Étoile’s night sky. — Illustrative demo data

Product: Invita, my own product
Type: Digital invitations, mobile-first
Role: Solo, from the first sketch to production
Timeline: Jul 2026 – present
Scope: Product and theme design, full-stack build, cloud, photo pipeline, RSVP, host panel
Stack: Next.js, TypeScript, Firebase, Cloudflare R2, Vercel; GSAP on the sample invitations
Internals: Server-rendered guest pages, Firestore behind server routes, Cloudflare R2 photo storage, Vercel
Status: Live, In active development

Challenge: Paper invitations are printed and delivered one by one, nobody knows whether they arrived, and they can’t hold everything a guest needs to know. So guests keep asking, and the host counts RSVPs by hand.
Approach: A mobile-first page per event that answers the questions and takes the replies. I built it for my daughter’s birthday, then grew it into a platform of designed themes.
Outcome: About 80 guests, 30+ RSVPs, and the follow-up questions stopped. Today: 11 themes, 33 palettes, RSVP without sign-in, and sample invitations that show their opening image in under a second on desktop (note 1).

Note 1: Sample invitations, Lighthouse desktop emulation: opening image in 0.6–0.9 s, score 99–100. On an emulated mid-range phone over slow 4G: first content within about 2½ s, opening image in roughly 2½–5½ s depending on theme, no measurable layout shift.

The trouble with paper

A paper invitation is a lot of work before anyone reads it. It has to be designed, printed, addressed, then handed out or mailed, one guest at a time. Then the worrying starts: did it arrive, did it get lost, did it get damaged on the way?

And a card holds only so much. So the questions come anyway: what time, where, what to wear, what to bring. Replies come back by text, by call or in passing, and the host keeps count by hand.

A: On paper, and with Invita

On paper, and with Invita
Topic	On paper	With Invita
Sending	On paperPrinted, addressed, then handed out or mailed, one by one	With InvitaOne link, copied or shared
Arrival	On paperNo way to know it arrived	With InvitaNothing to lose or damage on the way
Details	On paperOnly what fits on a card	With InvitaEvery detail, from the program to the dress code
Questions	On paperThe same questions, from guest after guest	With InvitaAnswered on the invitation, before anyone asks
Replies	On paperBy text, by call or in passing	With InvitaOne RSVP button, with a deadline
Counting	On paperKept by hand	With InvitaThe headcount, dietary needs and notes in the host panel
Changes	On paperA reprint, or another round of messages	With InvitaRepublish: the same link, every RSVP kept

My daughter’s birthday

The idea goes back to SDGKU in 2023, as one of my capstone ideas. It came back to me while I was planning a big birthday party for my daughter. Tracking RSVPs by hand was something I wasn’t willing to do, so I built her a digital invitation.

There was one link for the whole party. The replies came back through it, and the follow-up questions stopped.

Guests loved it, and said it was nothing like the invitations they usually get.

“I didn’t have to worry about ‘did this person receive their invitation?’”

The party

About 80guests, one shared link
30+RSVPs through one button

From one invitation to a platform

That invitation was a one-off, made for one party, and the platform grew from it. Both carry the name Invita, after a foreign word for a gathering.

A host picks one of 11 designed themes, five for weddings and six for debuts, the 18th-birthday celebration. Each theme has three palettes, and three artworks for each palette. The host adds the details and photos, then publishes one link.

I put the polish where guests look: every invitation should feel like a designed piece, not a form. The host panel stays plain, with only what a host needs.

C: Copertina: the magazine

Invita’s Copertina theme on a wide screen: the magazine cover beside an “Inside this issue” contents card that lists the invitation’s sections as numbered pages. — On a wide screen, the “Inside this issue” contents card doubles as the section menu.Illustrative demo data

Invita’s Copertina theme on a phone: a magazine-cover debut invitation with a portrait and the party details. — The cover: a masthead, a cover photo, cover lines and an “RSVP inside” link, over a flat-lay artwork.Illustrative demo data

Copertina’s Q&A page on a phone, headed “Everything you wanted to ask.”: guest questions set like a magazine interview, each opening to its answer, under the page number. — The FAQ, written as a magazine Q&A. The page number comes from the section’s place in the order.Illustrative demo data

How the magazine works

Each section is a magazine page: Editor’s letter, The look, Q&A, Reply card
Page numbers are CSS counters, so they stay right in any order
Long names get one of four size tiers, so they wrap instead of shrinking
Type sizes follow the container, not the screen
Playfair Display, with Archivo’s width axis for the stretched small headings

D: Jardin: the garden

Invita’s Jardin theme on a phone: a garden wedding invitation with the couple’s portrait above their names. — The opening: the couple’s portrait above their names, framed by a sprig ornament that a palette’s artwork can replace.Illustrative demo data

Jardin’s dress code section on a phone, headed “Garden formal.”: five color swatches, then a note on what to wear. — The dress code section: color swatches, what to wear and a few tips, so nobody has to ask.Illustrative demo data

Jardin’s opening on a phone in the Rosée palette: the couple’s portrait above their names on a pale blush page, a rose “Kindly RSVP” button and a pink rose sprig. — The same opening in the Rosée palette. The colors and the artwork change together.Illustrative demo data

What makes it Jardin

Botanical and romantic, built from the shared section components
A monogram header, and a skip link to the RSVP for keyboard users
Cormorant Garamond with its italics, set with Manrope
Three palettes, Oliva, Rosée and Azur, each with three artworks

E: Étoile: the night sky

Invita’s Étoile theme on a phone: a night-sky debut invitation with a large gold 18. — The opening: a painted night sky, edge to edge, with its line “A night written in the stars”.Illustrative demo data

Étoile’s event details on a phone: the date set inside a thin circle, with the weekday, the day in large figures, the month and the year, and the time and venue listed below. — The details: the weekday, day, month and year set in an orbit, with the time and the venue below it.Illustrative demo data

Étoile’s RSVP section on a phone, headed “A place in my constellation”: the reply deadline, then a choice to attend or decline at the top of the form. — In the sample, the RSVP is headed “A place in my constellation”. The form underneath is the one every theme shares.Illustrative demo data

What makes it Étoile

Celestial: the age as a large motif, the date as an orbit
The story section opens with “A little of my universe”
The other sections use the shared debut layouts, styled for Étoile
Cormorant Infant with Jost; palettes Minuit, Brume and Aurore

F: A guest’s RSVP

GuestThe guest opens the link on their phone. No app, no account.
GuestThey read the details: the date and time, the venue, directions and a calendar link.
GuestThey answer attending or declining, then give their name, party size and any dietary needs.
InvitaInvita checks the reply and saves it once, even if the send is retried.
HostThe reply appears in the host panel: who’s coming, the headcount, dietary needs and notes.

One link, one form, no sign-in. Every reply lands with the host.

The first screen of a Jardin wedding invitation on a phone: a monogram above the couple’s portrait and their names. — The first screen of a Jardin invitation: the couple’s portrait and names, under the monogram.Illustrative demo data

Jardin’s event details on a phone: the date, then the ceremony and the celebration with their times and venues, and an add-to-calendar link. — Event details with the date, both venues and an add-to-calendar link.Illustrative demo data

Jardin’s RSVP form on a phone, headed “A seat saved for you.”: the reply deadline, then a choice to accept or decline, then the name and email fields. — The RSVP form. The host sets the deadline, in the event’s time zone, and the most guests per reply.Illustrative demo data

Invita

Invita checks the reply and saves it once, even if the send is retried.

The confirmation. Behind it: a same-site check, a bot trap, a rate limit, then one transactional write.

Host

The reply appears in the host panel: who’s coming, the headcount, dietary needs and notes.

G: What it does today

Everything below runs in production. The host panel is a deliberately plain MVP. Open a group to see it.

For guests

One link per invitation, opened on a phone with no app and no account
Event details with the date, time and time zone, venue, directions and add to calendar
Up to nine optional sections: story, program, venue and travel, entourage, dress code, gallery, gifts, FAQ, closing
A photo gallery you can step through with the arrow keys; focus returns where it was
A gift registry in its own pop-up
A keyboard skip link to the RSVP, 44 px tap targets, and reduced motion respected

RSVP

Attending or declining, then name, email, party size, dietary needs and a message
Party size capped by the host, from 1 to 20 guests per reply
A deadline enforced in the event’s own time zone
A retried send never creates a second reply
A bot trap, rate limits and a same-site check on every reply
On an error, focus moves to the first field that needs fixing

Themes

11 designed themes: five for weddings, six for debuts
Three palettes per theme, and three artworks for each palette, matched to both
Each theme brings its own layouts, fonts and art; hosts edit content, not CSS
Twelve section types shared by every theme: hero first, event details and RSVP always in
Each theme loads only its own fonts and styles

Photos

Uploaded straight from the browser to private Cloudflare R2 storage, through short-lived signed links
Orientation fixed, colors converted to sRGB, and EXIF and location data stripped
WebP copies in four sizes, up to 2,560 pixels on the long edge, never upscaled
A required alt text field and a crop focus for every photo
Up to 20 MB a photo and 60 photos an event; unused uploads cleaned up daily

Host panel (MVP)

Google sign-in for accounts I set up
A list of events with RSVP totals; create a wedding or a debut
An editor with a live preview: every field, the palette and artwork, section order and visibility
Drag-and-drop section order that also works from the keyboard
Saving in three stages: on the device, a cloud draft that catches conflicting edits, then publish
A link to copy or share, and a read-only table of every RSVP

Under the hood

Guest pages are rendered on the server from a published snapshot that never changes, then cached, and refreshed the moment a host republishes. Only the menu, the reveals, the RSVP form and the pop-ups are interactive. Published pages use a small built-in animation instead of GSAP, and each theme ships only its own fonts and styles.

The browser never touches the database. Its rules deny every client read and write, so every host request goes through a server route that checks the sign-in and the role. Guests need no account: the invitation’s random token is the key, and every reply is checked before one transactional write.

H: By the numbers

11designed themes, for weddings and debuts
33curated palettes, three for every theme
Under 1 sopening image on desktop, sample invitations (note 1)
12section types, shared by every theme

See note 1

Where it stands

“Built for one real celebration first.”

My daughter’s invitation did its job. Invita is live today, and in active development.

Host sign-in is closed: I set up each host account myself, and there’s no public sign-up.

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