For the host with twelve dishes to coordinate
Everybody confirms on the same page and takes a slot while they are there. What you end up with is a headcount for the cooking and a spread with some variety, without a spreadsheet nobody keeps current.
Nobody brings too little. Four households bring the same slaw, the desserts arrive at half past six when the savoury ones were wanted at six, and someone turns up with a dish and no way to keep it cool. The food is not the difficulty; the coordination is, and coordination does not survive a chat thread where the answers run twenty messages long.
The fix is small and unglamorous: the invitation page carries the list of what the meal needs, and the reply carries the choice. A guest confirms, takes a slot in the same action, and the list you read the day before shows both.
Say what the meal needs, then let guests pick from it as they confirm.
Something to start, a green thing, two or three mains, bread, dessert, drinks and ice. Plain words, no categories that need interpretation.
Guests select what they are covering while confirming, so a yes and a dish arrive together instead of in two separate messages.
Households take one at a time, which is how you avoid three versions of the same casserole on the table.
The table, the oven, the big dishes, the coals. Guests then know whether to bring something that needs finishing on arrival.
Six sentences that prevent every recurring potluck argument.
For a shared meal the count is not polite arithmetic; it is how many chopsticks, chairs and serving spoons exist. Replies land against names with companions inside the limit you set, and declines are visible rather than assumed. Read that list the day before and you know the size of the table you are laying, and roughly how much food is walking in with people.
Late changes come to the same record. The household that goes from two people to three edits their reply and the total moves with them. Anyone who never answered is a gap you can see, and reminders to them go out from the page by WhatsApp or email rather than becoming another personal note you have to write.
What a host actually does with the list once the replies have slowed.
How it works
Decide what the meal needs and how many people you can seat. Those become the slots guests choose from.
Sign up on the web, or tell Jitabi on WhatsApp: Saturday lunch, twenty people, we are doing the meat and the tables. Edit the slot names into words your friends recognise.
When to bring the dish, where it goes, how much space exists. These are the lines everyone who cooks will read twice.
Publish and share the link. Each confirmation carries a name and a dish, and the day before you simply read what you have.
Questions
List dessert as a limited number of slots in the reply. Once two are taken the choice disappears, so duplication is prevented by the form rather than by you policing a chat.
Leave room for a note beside the reply and they will tell you there, which is easier than a negotiation across six messages. You can then suggest a slot that is still empty.
Both come off the same list. Each confirmed invitation shows the people attached to it, so portions and plates are read from one number.
The un-answered names appear as a gap in the guest list, and reminders to them can be sent from there by WhatsApp or email. No individual chasing typed by hand.
Yes. Collaborators can be added to an event with their own level of access, so two people can read replies and send reminders without sharing logins.
Get Started
Say what the meal needs, let guests claim a slot as they confirm, and read one list the day before. The table gets variety and you get a number.
