What a paper invitation still does best
A printed card says "we thought about you" in a way a message cannot. For grandparents, family elders, teachers and your parents’ friends, being handed a card in person is part of the invitation itself, and in many families it is expected.
Paper is also the keepsake. Many couples keep one card from their own wedding for decades; few keep a link. If the look of the stationery matters to you, a beautiful card is worth paying for.
- Shows respect to elders and to guests who expect it.
- Lasts: a keepsake for you and for close family.
- Works for guests who do not use a smartphone or chat apps.
- Feels formal, which suits a large traditional wedding.
Where paper falls short
Paper costs money per guest, takes weeks to design, print and deliver, and cannot be changed once printed. If the venue changes the room or the time moves, every card is wrong. And it is poor at the practical part: guests lose the card, cannot find the address on the day, and reply by phone, by message, or not at all.
- Printing and delivery cost for every single guest.
- Weeks of lead time, and a reprint if something changes.
- No map, no calendar reminder, no easy way to reply.
- Hard to reach guests who live abroad in time.
What an online invitation does better
An online invitation is one link, sent through the apps your guests already use. It costs nothing to send to a hundred people instead of ten, it reaches guests abroad instantly, and it can be updated after sending: change the time and everyone sees the new one on the same link.
It also carries everything a card cannot fit. On Perlink a wedding page has a sealed letter each guest taps to open (with their name on the envelope when you send personal links), a countdown, the schedule of the day, the venue with a map and a button to save the date to their calendar, a reply form whose answers land in your inbox, your photos, a guestbook of wishes in the 3D room, and a bank QR code for guests who want to send a gift from afar.
- Free to send, to any number of guests, anywhere.
- Replies collected for you, with party size and a message.
- Directions in one tap, and the date saved to their calendar.
- Editable after sending; the link never changes.
- Room for photos, music and a story a card cannot hold.
Where online falls short
Be honest about the downsides too. Some older guests will feel a link is too casual, especially from close family. A link in a busy group chat is easy to miss. And a web page is not a keepsake in the same way a card is.
Each of these has a fix: a phone call or a card for the elders, a personal message with each guest’s own link instead of one group post, and a printed card or photo book for the keepsake.
Using both: the QR code on the card
The approach most couples land on is both. Print a smaller run of cards for elders and close family, and send a link to everyone else. Then print the online invitation’s QR code on the back of the card with one line, "Scan for the map, schedule and to reply". Paper guests keep the card and still get directions on the day.
On Perlink you download your site’s QR code from the dashboard as an image and send it to your printer with the card design. Because the QR code points to your page and not to a fixed file, it keeps working when you update the details.
Two families, one link
When the groom’s and the bride’s families each print their own cards with their own reception times, the online invitation can follow the same split. Make one page with a Groom’s side tab and a Bride’s side tab. Print the QR code that opens the groom’s side on his family’s cards and the bride’s side on hers; both lead to the same page, so shared friends see both.