Why a register doesn't work at a big reception
At an Indian reception, five hundred people arrive within an hour, queue for the stage, hand over an envelope, take a photo with the couple and head for dinner. The register by the entrance gets a few hurried signatures, mostly "Best wishes, Sharma family", and the couple reads it once, months later.
A digital guestbook moves the writing to the guest's own phone, at their table, while they wait for the stage queue to shrink. They have time to write a real line, they can add the photo they just took, and the couple sees every wish on the big screen that same evening.
How guests leave a wish
Every table gets a card with a QR code. A guest points their phone's camera at it and the wishes page opens in the browser: no app, no sign-up, no account.
- Their name, up to 40 characters.
- How they know you, optional: "Riya's mama", "Sam's first boss", "Neighbour from Lajpat Nagar". This line shows under their name on the screen, and it's what turns a list of names into the people who raised you.
- The wish, up to 300 characters. Short wishes read best on a screen from across the hall.
- One photo, optional.
- "Make it yours", optional: paper, font and stickers for the wish.
Guests can write in Hindi, English or Hinglish. The wish stays on the phone that wrote it, so the guest can change it or take it back later. Elders who don't scan QR codes can dictate to a grandchild, who writes it on their own phone with the elder's name.
Guests don't have to wait for the reception. Your invite has a "Wishes for the couple" section with the same QR and the newest wishes, so relatives who can't travel from Toronto or Dubai leave theirs weeks ahead, and they're waiting on the screen when the reception starts.
The screen at the venue
Open the screen's link on the laptop connected to the banquet hall's LED wall, or on a TV or projector. It shows one wish at a time in big type, with the guest's photo, their own paper and font, your names at the top and the QR in the corner, on your invite's theme. New wishes go to the front of the queue and appear within seconds.
The person running the screen has a few keys: left and right arrows to move, OK or space to pause during the speeches, O for only new wishes, F for full screen. Where the browser can, the screen stays awake by itself. Where it can't, it says so: turn off the TV's sleep timer.
When the venue Wi-Fi drops
It will. Banquet hall Wi-Fi is shared with the caterer, the photographer and four hundred phones. The screen was built for that:
- it keeps the last 50 wishes in memory and keeps showing them if it loses the connection;
- the only sign of trouble is a small "Reconnecting" dot in the corner, never an error page;
- it checks for new wishes once every five seconds and catches up when the connection comes back;
- photos are kept small, and there's no video, so a phone hotspot is enough to run it.
Checking each wish before it reaches the screen
A screen that five hundred guests can write to needs someone checking it. Each new wish waits for an OK before it shows. On your hosts' page, the Wall tab lists the wishes waiting, on the wall and hidden, with Approve and Hide. It checks for new ones every ten seconds.
Give this job to a cousin with a phone, not the couple. Up to ten co-hosts can moderate, so the other family can share it too. Once you trust the room, switch to "Show wishes straight away"; you can still hide any wish. A hidden wish never reaches the screen, even if its writer edits it. A filter stops known bad words before they're saved, but it only knows the words it knows, which is why checking first is the default.
Table cards and the QR
"Print table cards" on the Wall tab draws an A5 card in your invite's theme: your names, "Scan to leave a wish", the QR and a short address under it for any phone whose camera won't read the code. Download it as a PNG, 1748 by 2480 pixels (A5 at 300 dpi), and the print shop on the corner can print as many as you have tables. Put one at each table, one at the entrance and one near the stage queue.
The QR only ever opens your public wishes page, never a private link, because a photo of a table card is a public object. The screen's own link has a private key in it. Keep that one to yourselves, and if it gets forwarded too far, the person who made the invite can change it and the old link stops working.
What it costs
The guestbook comes with your invite for up to 200 wishes, with one photo each, and the screen and table cards come with it at no extra cost. Wishes you hide don't count towards the 200. When a wall is full, new wishes are turned away with a note that bigger walls are coming soon.
Coming soon, with no prices yet: walls bigger than 200 wishes and more photos per wish, downloading every wish and photo, voice notes, and a keepsake book of every wish and photo.
After the reception
After the last function, your countdown page thanks everyone and shows the wishes. The thank-you cards can carry up to three photos from the wish wall, with a line for one particular guest. The guestbook belongs to your wedding invitation, so it's there alongside the haldi, the mehendi and the sangeet, and some families put the screen up at the sangeet too.