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Announcements are how you communicate with guests on Weddingkart. Each announcement sends a WhatsApp message individually to every recipient — not a group chat, not a broadcast list.

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What is an announcement?

When you send an announcement, every guest receives a personal WhatsApp message delivered directly to their chat. Guests don’t see each other, replies come back to you individually, and nothing gets buried under group conversation noise. Weddingkart delivers all announcements through the official WhatsApp Business API. Messages appear to guests as coming from a named sender (such as “Wedding Invite”), not a personal number. This means:
  • Messages are delivered even if a guest hasn’t saved your number
  • You get delivery receipts (Sent, Delivered, Read) for every guest
  • Your personal number is never at risk of being flagged or banned
  • Interactive RSVP buttons work reliably
Using a personal WhatsApp number or broadcast list to send bulk messages puts your account at risk and limits delivery. The WhatsApp Business API removes both of those problems — messages go through a verified business channel, guests see a named sender, and your personal number is never involved.

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Who can send

Team members with the Admin or Member access role can create, send and schedule announcements. View Only members can see the same screens but cannot send or schedule anything — ask an Admin to change your access role if you need to. See Team collaboration.

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Announcement types

Weddingkart includes templates for every stage of the wedding communication timeline.

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How to create an announcement

1

Open Announcements

Go to the Announcements section in the Weddingkart app and select your wedding.
2

Tap Add Announcement

Tap Add Announcement (the + button). The New Announcement sheet asks how you want to reach your guests:
  • Send a ready-made message — pick an approved template. Reaches every guest straight away, and you can add a photo or PDF.
  • Write your own message — type anything in your own words. Each guest gets it when they next open the chat.
  • Play a recorded message — a phone call that plays your recording. See Voice Announcements.
3

Choose a template

For a ready-made message, browse the template library — filter by category (Save the Date, RSVP, Event Update, and so on) or view all. All templates are pre-approved for the WhatsApp Business API, so their wording is fixed apart from the blanks you fill in.
4

Fill in the template variables

Each template has placeholders for details like guest name, wedding date, venue, and time. Fill these in for the message content. Guest names are personalized automatically from your guest list.Under How would you like to address your guest? choose Actual Name (each guest’s name from your list) or Custom Title — for example “Friends & Family”, or “GUEST_NAME Ji” to add a suffix to every name. You can also tap a chip under Insert a guest detail to add a per-guest value such as {{hotel_name}}; guests with no value on record get that detail’s fallback text instead (see Guest attributes).
5

Attach media (optional)

Attach a PDF (such as your wedding invitation card), image, or video to the announcement. Not all templates support attachments — the option appears when it’s available. The Add Attachment sheet shows the size limit for each type (by default images up to 5 MB, videos up to 16 MB and documents up to 100 MB).Some templates require an attachment — you can’t continue until one is uploaded. Others accept only certain types (for example an image but not a video).
6

Select recipients

Choose individual guests or one or more guest groups. If a guest appears in multiple selected groups, they receive the message only once — no duplicates.Tap the exclusions bar (it reads No exclusions — tap to skip groups until you set some) to open Don’t send to: switch on Exclude guests who declined RSVP, or pick groups whose guests should be left out. Before you send, the review screen shows Will receive with the recipient count — tap it to see how the number was worked out, including anyone excluded.
7

Send or schedule

Tap Send Now to deliver immediately, or choose Schedule for Later to pick a future date and time. The announcement goes out automatically at the scheduled moment.For larger sends, a Confirm Announcement sheet asks you to type the number of recipients before it sends. This is deliberate: a WhatsApp send is irreversible — you cannot delete the messages once they are sent.
Tap Send it to me at the bottom of the editor to receive the exact announcement on your own WhatsApp before adding any guests. You are added to the guest list as yourself so it can be delivered to you.

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What it costs

Each announcement uses credits from the wedding’s balance:
  • Per phone number, not per guest. A guest with two or three phone numbers on file is messaged — and charged — on each number.
  • By country. The cost depends on the guest’s country. Numbers outside India usually cost more, based on WhatsApp’s per-country rates. Tap What’s a credit? on the Wallet screen for the rates, or see weddingkart.co/pricing.
  • Personalised cards (a card or cover page with each guest’s name on it) cost extra credits for each number messaged.
  • The app shows the exact credits on the review screen before anything is sent.
  • The template’s type makes no difference — an invitation costs the same as a reminder.
The total is rounded up to a whole number of credits and deducted when you tap send. If a message fails to reach a guest, the credits for it are returned to your balance automatically. See Payments & Credits.
On the Free plan you can send to at most 5 guests at a time. Pick a plan on the Wallet screen to send to everyone.

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Tracking delivery

After sending, tap View Delivery Status (or open the announcement’s report later). The Summary tab lists every status with a count, and the Detailed Report tab lists each guest: Tap a status with a count to see those guests. The report refreshes by itself for about 10 minutes after a send; after that, tap the refresh icon. You can also see RSVP responses and other guest interactions directly from the dashboard. For failed messages, the detailed report shows a reason such as Not on WhatsApp (the number has no WhatsApp account), Re-engagement required, Media upload failed or Service unavailable. On the Failed filter, Copy names & numbers copies that list so you can follow up another way. Retry failed media sends (shown when anything failed) tries again for guests whose message failed because of a media problem; other failures are skipped. If a guest who was Not on WhatsApp later becomes reachable, a banner says “N guests are now reachable on WhatsApp.” with a Resend button. In the web app at app.weddingkart.co, the Failed filter also tells you who actually needs chasing. A line at the top reads, for example, “54 still need follow-up · 85 got it on another number · 72 landlines”. Guests who still need follow-up are listed first, under Need follow-up. Guests whose message failed on one number but who received the announcement on another of their numbers are grouped last, under a collapsed “N already got it on another number” heading; tap it to see them. Landline numbers are tagged Landline, since a landline usually can’t receive WhatsApp. Tap Check on a guest to open their number in WhatsApp, or tap Copy list and paste it into any WhatsApp chat. Numbers that are on WhatsApp become tappable. The copied list puts guests not reached yet first, then the guests who already got it on another number. Download Report saves a spreadsheet of the report to your device. While it’s being built, the button reads Preparing report….

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Resending announcements

If some guests haven’t responded, you can resend the same announcement to just those guests. Select the non-responders and send again — guests who already responded are not re-messaged. Sending an announcement again re-sends it to everyone it is addressed to, and uses credits again. If you tap send a second time straight after a send, Weddingkart stops you with “This announcement is already being sent right now. Give it a moment — you don’t need to send it again.” or “This announcement was just sent…try in N seconds.” — this protects you from double-sending by accident.

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About templates

Ready-made announcements use pre-approved WhatsApp templates. Weddingkart maintains a library of templates covering the full wedding communication journey. If you need a message format that doesn’t exist yet, contact the Weddingkart team to request a custom template. Once approved by WhatsApp, it will appear in your account. The one exception is Write your own message, which needs no template — but WhatsApp only lets it reach guests who have an open chat with you, so it is not a good fit for anything every guest must receive.

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If you send from your own WhatsApp number

If you have connected your own WhatsApp Business number, you write and submit the templates for it yourself, and WhatsApp decides whether to approve them. In the web app at app.weddingkart.co, open an event, tap the Guests get messages from row to reach Who your guests hear from, then tap Message templates. You can also reach Message templates from a number’s details screen. Message templates has two tabs:
  • Proven — starting points for everyday updates such as RSVP confirmations, on-the-day reminders, meal timings, check-ins, and venue or timing changes. Filter by use case. Each card says whether the wording was pre-approved by WhatsApp, adapted from wording WhatsApp approved, or not yet tested with WhatsApp. English only for now, and invitations aren’t included.
  • My templates — every template on your number, grouped as ready to send, under review, or needs changes.
1

Pick a starting point

On the Proven tab, tap Use this on the wording you want. If it is already on your number, the card says Already on your number and offers Use in announcement instead.
2

Fill in your details

Enter your names, dates, and venue in the fields provided. You can tap Edit wording to change the text itself, but changed wording is marked Changed from proven wording, and WhatsApp may class it as marketing.
3

Send for approval

Tap Send to WhatsApp for approval. The template shows as under review in My templates until WhatsApp decides. Once approved, it is available when you build an announcement.
Only the number’s owner, and people they have given access to, can add templates. Everyone else can read the cards, but Use this is greyed out and a note says who to ask. If no number is connected yet, the Proven tab shows a locked preview with a Connect button.
Cards with an attachment icon start with a sample image, video, or document. You can open them, but Send to WhatsApp for approval stays unavailable for those for now. Create that kind of template with Create template → Write from scratch, where you can attach your own file.

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Sharing your templates with other hosts

Weddingkart curates the Proven tab. If you opt in, wording from your approved templates can be considered for it once Weddingkart has cleaned and reviewed it. Sharing is off by default, and it is a setting on the number, not on a single event. To turn it on, open Who your guests hear from (see above) and switch on Share my approved templates, anonymised, to help other hosts.
  • Names, numbers, venues, and dates are removed, and Weddingkart checks every template by hand before anyone else sees it.
  • The setting applies to your number and to every event that sends from it. The screen tells you how many.
  • Only the number’s owner, or an admin they added, can change it. Everyone else sees it greyed out with the reason.
  • Turning it off asks you to confirm. Templates in the shared library that were written only from yours are removed from it.
  • The switch doesn’t appear if the event sends from Weddingkart’s own number, or if no number is connected.

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If you see a message

If your event sends from your own WhatsApp number, you may also see “Template announcements aren’t available when sending from your own WhatsApp Business number…” — use one of your own approved templates or a free-form message instead.

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What happens if…

  • A guest is in two of the groups I selected? They get the message once. With Send only to common guests, only guests in every selected group receive it.
  • I add or remove guests from a group after scheduling? For group sends, the recipient list is worked out when the message goes out, so the change is picked up. Individually picked guests are fixed when you schedule.
  • Some guests can’t receive it? Everyone else still gets the message. The failed guests show as Failed in the report with a reason, and their credits are returned.
  • A guest’s number isn’t on WhatsApp? The report shows Not on WhatsApp. Call or text them, or correct the number on the guest list.
  • A guest replies? Their reply lands in your team’s chat inbox as a one-to-one conversation — other guests never see it.
  • The message says Sent but never Delivered? The guest’s phone is probably off or offline. The status changes to Delivered if and when it reaches them.
  • I sent the wrong thing? Sent WhatsApp messages cannot be recalled. Send a short correction as a new announcement.

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Best practices

  • Time your messages well. Send between 9 AM and 8 PM local time. Avoid late-night or early-morning messages — guests are less likely to read them and more likely to mute you.
  • Use guest names. Templates that include the guest’s name consistently see higher read and response rates.
  • Segment your guest groups. Bride-side guests, groom-side guests, and out-of-town guests often need different information. Create groups in advance and target them separately.
  • Test before broadcasting. Send to yourself or a small test group first to verify the message looks correct before sending to all guests.

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Common questions

One credit per Indian phone number, usually more for other countries, plus 1 extra per number for personalised cards. A guest with several numbers is messaged on each. Top up from the Wallet screen if you’re short — the app tells you how many you need.
Yes. When WhatsApp reports that a message failed, the credits for that message are returned to the wedding’s balance automatically.
The wedding is on the Free plan, which caps each send at 5 guests. Buying a plan on the Wallet screen removes the cap.
No. WhatsApp messages can’t be edited or unsent once delivered, which is why larger sends ask you to type the recipient count first. Send a follow-up announcement to correct anything.
Ready-made messages are pre-approved by WhatsApp, so only the blanks can change. To say something else, attach an image with your text or write your own message.
It’s a free-form (write your own) message. WhatsApp only allows free-form messages inside an open chat, so the guest was sent a short opener first; your message is delivered once they reply.
WhatsApp reported that the number has no WhatsApp account. Check the number for typos or a missing country code, or reach the guest by phone.
Yes — tap Send it to me in the editor. The exact announcement arrives on your own WhatsApp.
They probably have the View Only access role. An Admin can change it to Member on the Teams Management screen.
For 10 days after the wedding date. After that the wedding becomes read-only and sending is disabled.
Check the report first: tap View Delivery Status. Sent means the message is waiting for the guest’s phone to come online. Delivered or Read means it’s on their WhatsApp. Not Sent Yet or Processing means the send is still working through your list. Sending again goes to everyone the announcement is addressed to, and uses credits again, so guests who already got it get it twice. If only some guests are missing, send it again to just those guests. If the report shows Failed, fix the reason shown, such as a wrong number, rather than resending to everyone.
The most common reason is that a guest has more than one number saved: an announcement goes to every number on the guest. Another is sending the same announcement again, which goes to everyone it’s addressed to. A guest in two of the groups you picked for one send gets it only once. Weddingkart also blocks a second tap on send while an announcement is still going out.
You don’t have to. The message to that guest fails and shows Not on WhatsApp in the report, and its credits are returned automatically. Keep them on your list if you want them in your headcount, and reach them by phone.

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What’s next

AI Announcements

Create announcements in seconds with a plain-language prompt

Scheduling

Queue messages to send automatically at the right time

Announcement Packs

Start with a pre-built sequence covering your full wedding timeline

Voice Announcements

Deliver personalized voice messages via phone call