QR CODES FOR INVITATIONS
One code on the invitation, three jobs across the wedding
Invitations go out months ahead, and what guests need from them keeps changing: an RSVP in the spring, the timings and the taxi number the week before, somewhere to put their photographs the morning after. A dynamic code lets one printed square do all three, because what it opens is a setting rather than ink.
QUICK OVERVIEW
What this changes in practice
01
Print it once, change what it opens three times
The matrix on the card never changes. What changes is the answer behind it, and that answer is editable from the day the invitations are posted to the day the last guest goes home.
Plan the sequence before you print, so the wording on the card survives every stage of it. “Scan for everything you need” ages better than “Scan to RSVP” when the same code will be showing photographs in September.
- Months ahead: the RSVP form
- The weeks before: schedule, directions, dress code, gift list
- The days after: the photo album, or a thank-you note
02
What the code can carry
Mosaqo makes the code and owns the redirect behind it. The page it opens is whatever you already use — a wedding website, a form, a shared album — and none of it has to exist yet on the day you print.
Some things need no page at all. A code can carry a PDF of the order of the day, the venue’s guest Wi-Fi so nobody types a twenty-character password at a table, a contact card for whoever is coordinating, or a short line of plain text.
- A link to the RSVP form, wedding site or registry
- A PDF: the order of the day, the menu, the seating plan
- The venue’s guest Wi-Fi, joined without typing the password
- A contact card for the planner, the best man or the venue
03
Make it look like it belongs on the stationery
Take the colours from the invitation rather than defaulting to black, soften the modules if the type is soft, and put a monogram in the middle if you want one — small, because a logo covers real modules and eats into the error-correction budget that keeps the code readable.
Contrast is the constraint everything else bends around, and three fashionable choices break it. Metallic foil scatters the light a camera needs. Dark card with pale ink inverts the code, which many scanners read and not all of them do. Heavy cotton and letterpress soften every module edge. Any of the three can work — none of them should go to print untested.
04
Size it for a card held in the hand
An invitation is read at about twenty-five to thirty centimetres, which puts the floor at roughly two and a half to three centimetres square. That is bigger than it looks in a layout, and it is a floor rather than a target.
Keep the destination short so the code stays coarse: a long link packs more modules into the same square and each one gets smaller. Leave the margin around it clear — a rule, a flourish or the edge of the card crossing the quiet zone costs you more than the millimetres it saves.
05
Knowing whether anyone actually scanned it
A dynamic code counts scans over time, which answers a question every couple asks the week before a deadline: is nobody replying, or is nobody scanning? A quiet week is a signal to send the same link by message rather than to blame the guest list.
What it does not do is identify anybody. You see counts, times, broad regions and device types — never who scanned, and never which of your guests is which.
06
Give guests a way through when the scan fails
Print the short address under the code so it can be typed. Assume the venue has no signal and keep the timings on paper as well — a barn with thick walls is exactly where a schedule that exists only behind a code disappears.
And assume some guests will never scan anything. The code is a faster path to the information, not the only copy of it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can one code handle the RSVP first and the photographs later?
Yes, as long as it is printed as a dynamic code. The printed matrix stays the same and the destination is changed whenever you like — RSVP form, then the schedule, then the album.
Will a QR code printed in gold foil scan?
Often not. Foil scatters light instead of absorbing it, so the camera loses the contrast between modules. If the design calls for foil, print a real proof and scan it on two phones under the light the guests will be sitting in before committing to the run.
How big should the code be on an invitation?
About two and a half to three centimetres square for a card read at arm’s length, and larger if the link is long or the stock is textured. Keep the quiet zone around it free of ornament.
Could the code expire before the wedding?
The printed matrix has no expiry date. What can stop working is the destination behind it, or the account that owns a dynamic redirect — which is a reason to choose where a code lives as deliberately as where it is printed.
Can I see which guests scanned the code?
No. Scan data is aggregate — counts, times, broad region and device type — and identifies nobody. If you need to know who has replied, that belongs to the RSVP form behind the code.
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