How to make a wedding invitation video that people watch to the end

The five decisions that matter

• Shape: vertical, 1080×1920. It will be watched on a phone, full screen. A landscape video plays as a thin strip.
• Length: 45 to 90 seconds. Long enough for every function, short enough that your uncle watches the end, which is where the venue is.
• Text: big, and on screen for at least three seconds. If your grandmother cannot read the date without pausing, it is too small or too quick.
• One function per scene. Name, date, time, venue. Do not stack the haldi and the mehendi on one card.
• File: MP4, under 16 MB. Small enough to forward without WhatsApp crushing it. Send it as a document if you want the full quality to arrive.

Making it yourself, step by step

• Write the wording first, in a note on your phone: the opening line, each function with its date, time and venue, the RSVP line. Get both families to agree on it before you open any app.
• Open Canva, Crafty Art or CapCut and search for a vertical wedding invitation video template in your tradition.
• Give each function its own page or scene. Set each one to three to five seconds.
• Replace the names, dates and venues. Check spellings of every elder's name twice; that is where the angry phone calls come from.
• Add music. Use the app's licensed library, or a track you have the right to use, so the video is not muted when someone posts it on Instagram.
• Export as MP4 at 1080p. Watch it on your own phone, at arm's length, before anyone else sees it.
• Send it to three people first: one elder, one cousin, one friend. Fix what they ask about.

Having it made

If you would rather not design, you have three routes: a ready-made template from a maker such as WishNWed or Selfanimate (a few hundred rupees, minutes), a caricature studio or freelancer (₹2,500 to ₹15,000, two to three days), or Wedyay, where you answer about ten questions and the two of you are illustrated into a film with a scene for every function (₹1,499, about twenty minutes).

There is a fuller side-by-side, with prices, in the best wedding invitation video makers in India.

What to write in it

Open with the families or with the two of you, depending on who is hosting. Then one scene per function. Close with the RSVP and, if you have one, the hashtag.

There are ready lines for each function in wedding invitation wording for every ceremony, and for the message you send alongside it in what to write on WhatsApp.