The list that fills itself in
The list is not a document you maintain beside the invitations. Every reply your page receives lands on it as it comes in — names, plus-ones inside your cap, meals in one view nobody has to reconcile.
The guest list usually begins as a spreadsheet, and for a week it behaves. Then a yes arrives in the family chat and gets ticked off a mental list. Then a partner is added verbally and noted in nobody's column. Two weeks before the event you have three sources of truth that disagree, and reconciling them means rereading every conversation a party has already moved past.
The fix is to stop maintaining a list that sits beside the invitations and let the replies compose it. Send guests to a page with a reply button, and each response writes its own line: who, whether, how many, what they eat. The spreadsheet was always trying to be a mirror of this.
From the first yes to the last arrival, the list is the same object throughout:
The link goes out over WhatsApp and the answer comes back from the reply button on the page. Nobody replies to a bot in a thread; the conversation stays for jokes about parking.
Whether the link travelled through the group, a personal message, or a chain of forwards, each reply lands on the one list rather than in separate piles.
The list shows who has not answered, and reminders go to those people from the app — over WhatsApp or email — instead of a group-wide ping that guilt-nudges everyone twice.
To be exact about the boundary: Jitabi does not read your contact list, and no app can be given permission to sweep your phonebook into a guest list. The people you care about already live in your WhatsApp chats — the list builds itself from what happens next, which is each of them replying on the page. Send the link to a group and the replies compose the list one name at a time; that is the whole mechanism, and it is why nothing needs reconciling afterwards.
How it works
There is no register to open and no columns to prepare. The list exists the moment the page is published, empty and ready.
Each response writes itself onto the list with the details — plus-ones inside your cap, meals where you asked for them.
Non-responders are visible; a reminder from the app reaches them over WhatsApp or email while everyone who answered is left in peace.
On the day, arrival check-in keeps the count current, so the headcount you booked with becomes the headcount you catered for.
Questions
No, and we will not pretend otherwise — there is no contact import. The list is written by replies on the invitation page: send the link to people or to the group, and every answer adds its own line.
Both answers are on the list, which is why the tidy habit is sending one link per household and mentioning it on the page. The cap on plus-ones stops the count growing past the seats you have.
Yes — that is the list's most useful view. Pending guests stand out, and reminders go to exactly those people, sent from the app over WhatsApp or email.
They don't have to, and the system does not rely on it. The message opens the page; the page has the reply button; the list gets the answer. The chat stays a chat.
It also carries what happens around the count: meal notes on supported events, the reminder route, and check-in at the door by QR, so the same names serve you from RSVP to arrival.
Get Started
One published page, one link, one list that keeps itself current. The spreadsheet retires on the day the first reply lands.
