There are three ways to send a wedding invitation on WhatsApp. A broadcast list from your own phone, which reaches at most 256 people and only the ones who have saved your number. A WhatsApp Business account, which is the same limit with a shop front. Or a platform that sends the invitations for you, from its own line, one personal message per guest, with the RSVP and the access pass built in. For a birthday of forty people, use the first. For a wedding of six hundred, the first two will get your number restricted before you reach the groom's side.
Why your number gets blocked
WhatsApp watches for the same message going to many people who did not ask for it. Send an identical invitation to three hundred numbers in an afternoon and enough of them will either not have you saved, or tap "report", and the app decides you are spam. The restriction usually arrives at the worst moment: after the invitations have gone out, when the replies are coming back to a number that no longer works.
The rules that trip people, in plain terms:
- A broadcast list holds 256 contacts, and a broadcast only lands with people who have your number saved. Everyone else simply never receives it and you will not be told.
- Copying and pasting the same text into hundreds of individual chats looks, to WhatsApp, exactly like a spam run.
- The "bulk sender" apps and browser extensions that promise to send to a thousand unsaved numbers work by pretending to be you. They are against WhatsApp's terms, and the number they use is yours.
The way that does not risk your line
The safe route is to let the invitations go out from a line that is built to send them, and to make every message personal, so it is not the same text three hundred times. On Comtev, you send invitations to the whole guest list in one tap. Each guest gets their own message, with their name on it and their own QR access pass inside, over WhatsApp, or by SMS or email where that suits the guest better. The messages come from Comtev, not from your phone, so your number is never the one sending six hundred invitations on a Sunday evening.
Replies land on one live guest list instead of in six hundred chats. When a guest says yes, an automation can send their access pass immediately, or move them to a confirmed list, without you touching anything. We wrote about that in the guide to automations.
What to write in the invitation
A WhatsApp invitation is read on a phone, between other messages, often by someone in traffic. Keep it short and put the facts where a thumb will find them. Here is a shape that works.
Kemi and Tunde are getting married, and you are invited.
Saturday 21 November 2026 Traditional ceremony: 10am, Grand Hall, Ikeja Reception: 2pm, same venue
Reply YES or NO to this message by 7 November so we can plan for you. Your access pass is below. Please show it at the gate; it is for you alone.
Colours of the day: emerald and gold.
What makes it work: one date, one venue, one clear ask (reply YES or NO, by a date), and the pass in the same message. No paragraph about the love story. The love story can go on the printed card.
Do not open with a greeting that expects a reply before the invitation. Do not send the invitation and the pass as two separate messages, because the second one is the one that gets missed.
Collecting the replies without losing your mind
The reply is the point. Rice and stew very plenty, as the old joke goes, is what happens when replies are not collected properly, and we have a whole piece on the Nigerian RSVP problem. Whatever tool you use, the replies must land on one list that shows you three numbers at any moment: invited, confirmed, and checked in on the day. If you are collecting replies by reading chats, you do not have a guest list. You have a memory.
Before the invitations: getting the names
Most planners never get to the sending stage cleanly, because the guest list itself arrives in pieces: the bride's list, the groom's, both mothers', and an aunty with a spreadsheet. Comtev's AI assistant messages each of those people on WhatsApp, collects their names, merges the duplicates, and holds everyone to the number of seats you gave them. Then the invitations go out from one clean list. The guide on the guest list that would not stop growing covers that part.
FAQs
How many people can I send a WhatsApp broadcast to?
A broadcast list holds up to 256 contacts, and the message only reaches people who have saved your number in their phone. You can make several lists, but the saved-number rule still applies to every one of them.
Will WhatsApp ban me for sending wedding invitations?
Not for inviting a handful of friends. Sending the same message to hundreds of people in a short time, especially people who have not saved your number, is what triggers restrictions. Using an unofficial bulk-sending tool makes a ban more likely, not less. We compared every option, with WhatsApp's own limits, in bulk WhatsApp messages for events.
Can I send the invitation and the access pass together?
Yes. On Comtev the QR pass is inside the invitation message, so the guest has one thing to find at the gate. A pass for a guest you later remove stops working, even on the old message.
What if a guest is not on WhatsApp?
Send their invitation by SMS or email instead. The QR pass works the same way on any of the three, and a printed copy of the code scans fine at the gate.
Does the planner pay per message?
Comtev is free to run. You buy the message sends at wholesale inside the app and put your own price on the work when you invoice your client. There is no published per-message rate.