How to Create a Digital Halloween Party Invitation with Paperless Post

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Who doesn't love getting a Halloween party invitation? In my opinion, there is no better way to celebrate Halloween.

Paperless Post provided me coins to use their service in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own. See my disclaimer for more.

And for me, Halloween party invitations are one of THE most important pieces of planning my party each year. It’s my first chance to share my party theme and set the tone for Halloweenie Roast.

However, as much as I love putting together my invitations, they’re also always a bit of a headache. Sending physical invitations has become a bit of an issue for me. I either go way over the top (see my Rocky Horror invites from 2013), or they get lost in the mail (like, SIGH, several of my Tim Burton invites from 2016).

Last year when I started planning my party, digital seemed to be the way to go. But…I was not crazy about my options. There are a lot of digital invitation websites out there, but so many of them limit what you can do or have a clunky interface that isn’t user-friendly.

I ended up opting for a Facebook invite because nearly all my guests are on Facebook, but…that just felt so lackluster. I wanted my invites to still feel special, even if they were digital.

And then I discovered Paperless Post.

 

 

Paperless Post is different because they’ve designed everything with their customers in mind. Their site is gorgeous, simple to navigate and, my favorite, not littered with ads like so many other digital invitation websites.

And they give you several options for sending “post” too, whether that’s a Halloween card…

 

 

Or a party invitation!

 

 

Just to be clear (because I definitely wondered too!), Paperless Post is 100% digital. You will not order or receive physical cards or have them snail mailed on your behalf. Everything is done online. (I’ll show you how in just a minute!)

Paperless Post has free and paid options. To send a premium design card, you must purchase coins. They recommend waiting until you’ve finished designing your cards to purchase them so you know how many you’ll need.

Each add-on, as you’ll see when I show you my card creation process, will add coins to the total per recipient. Don’t worry though – their coin system is super easy to understand and affordable! You can also opt out of the extras you don’t want.

My new friends at Paperless Post were kind enough to give me a few coins to try out their platform. Here’s what I created…

 

How to create a digital Halloween invitation with Paperless Post:

 

 

After creating my account, I headed to the Halloween section under parties to start designing my invitation.

 

 

There are TONS of options too, which I love! It’s kind of like a Halloween invitation wonderland.

 

 

I love this Witch’s Brew invite!

Every single one can be customized with your party details. You can even change up the fonts or create an invite with your own photos…but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

 

I ended up picking the Bates Motel card to send. I love the detail of the haunted house outlines across the top and the inside of the envelope! This card costs two coins to send per recipient, but there are also lots of free options!

Next, I needed to pick a background for my card when it sends.

 

 

By default, the card had a gray marble pattern for the background. I liked it, but I wanted something a bit more…festive.

 

There are LOTS of options. I had fun poking through them until I found the perfect one.

 

 

Spooky AND festive…just like me! By the way, if you don’t want one, there is an option for no background.

Next, I customized my text for my pretend Halloween party.

 

 

Just click on the text box to make your updates. Then you can change your font formatting, typeface and even colors.

I happened to like how this one was laid out, so I left it as-is once I entered my own information.

 

 

Next, I had the option to customize my envelope from the liner to the envelope color to the background!

Again, I already liked what had been selected – that black watercolor design on orange is so creepy – so I stuck with Paperless Post’s original design here.

 

 

Now for the front of the envelope! You can customize this too, starting with the stamp. You can use the Paperless Post stamp for free or…

 

 

…you can use a Halloween stamp! Which, of course, I did.

 

 

Next, I customized my typeface and font color on the front of the envelope.

 

 

Last thing to design? The reply card! For party invites, you can design your guests’ response card. Options include an RSVP card, a greeting card, a save the date, an announcement or simply a link to a website.

I opted for an RSVP card.

 

 

Once the RSVP card was set, I entered my party details for the landing page Paperless Post will create for my party. This is what guests will see below the card when they click to open the invitation from their email.

 

 

Paperless Post also gives you the option to add more information to your landing page, like additional RSVP questions, info for guests and you can even set a maximum capacity.

Pretty nifty for this party host who needs to share all her contest details with her guests each year.

 

 

Finally, you can customize your host name and email subject line as well as upload your guest list here! I did a CSV file – Paperless Post gives you a template to use if you don’t live in the email marketing world like me and already swim in CSV files daily.

 

 

Before you hit send, you can send yourself a test email too! Because I like to live dangerously (and because I was only sending this to my family), I went ahead and hit send!

 

 

Once you send, you can use this page in your account to view your RSVPs, request RSVPs from guests who haven’t responded, send an event reminder and send a message to your guests. (Emails DO display here, I just erased them since I was using my family for a test send.)

 

 

Here’s what it looks like once your guests start responding.

 

 

And, of course, you can pop over to the invitation page to see what people have posted on your event wall…or what nonsense your little brother has posted in the name of testing functionality.

You can also download the app for iOS to create and manage everything too!

 

 

By the way, here is a sneak peek of what it looks like in your inbox. And if you head this way, you can check out the live view of the invitation.

My Review of Paperless Post:

I cannot say enough kind things about how beautiful their platform is for hosts AND guests. Most online invitation platforms I’ve used before are kind of, well, ugly. There’s so much going on on the page that my eye doesn’t know where to go.

Not with Paperless Post! Plus, setting up my invitation, esp. a pre-designed one, was ridiculously easy and done in less than 10 minutes. I usually spend 2+ hours designing a digital invite in Photoshop just to upload it to Facebook…

I also love the RSVP tracking for invitations. It makes it super easy to see who has and hasn’t responded, who you need to follow up with…and you can set it all up to send at a later date!

The verdict: I’d absolutely recommend using Paperless Post for your Halloween party invitations, cards or any other celebrations you have coming up.

Have a question about how Paperless Post works? If something wasn’t clear from my quick tutorial, drop your question in the comments and I’ll answer it…or ask my friends at Paperless Post and get right back to you!

 

 

How do you send your Halloween party invitations?

I’d love to hear from you, especially if you use digital invites! I think Paperless Post is a fun option that’s way easier to use as a party host and as a guest than what I’ve seen before. I encourage you to check it out this Halloween season – and don’t forget you can use it to send digital Halloween cards too!

Looking for more Halloween party tips and tricks? I’ve got a Facebook group for that, and I’d love to see you over there!

Happy haunting,

Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween

Miranda is the Houston-based writer, blogger, and Halloween lover behind Spooky Little Halloween, the blog celebrating October 31st all year long. Her favorite Halloween things include pumpkin guts, chocolate bars in her trick-or-treat pail, real haunted houses (including the one she lives in!), and historic cemeteries.

2 Comments

  1. Reply

    Chelsea Celaya

    June 5, 2018

    I still love physical invites, but I truly love this concept. Especially since my feelings about a facebook invite are just the same!

    How do you invite guests? Via email? Using facebook? I tend to opt with Facebook invites just because a lot of people I know really don’t check their emails much anymore. :/ Curious how Paperless Post works out.

    • Reply

      Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween

      June 5, 2018

      I used Facebook again last year after I had so many invitations gets lost in the mail in 2016. Paperless Post is the way I’m going for Halloweenie Roast 2018!

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