A QR code on a wedding invitation works best for one specific job: directions to the venue. Guests scan it on the day, from the car, when the printed address is the last thing they want to be typing. It also works for RSVPs and a gift list, but keep those on separate codes with clear labels — one unlabelled code doing three jobs confuses people.
What to put behind the code
The strongest use is directions. A guest reading the invitation at home has time to type an address; a guest already in the car does not, and that is precisely when the code gets used.
RSVP is the second most useful. A code opening a short form removes the reply card, the stamp and the chasing, and gives you responses in a list rather than a pile of envelopes. Gift lists and a wedding website work too, but they are lower urgency and can share one code.
- Directions to the venue — and to the reception if it is somewhere different.
- RSVP form, with dietary requirements and song requests in the same place.
- The wedding website, gift list, or accommodation suggestions.
- Order of the day, for an on-the-day card rather than the invitation.
One code or several?
Several, but label each one. A single code doing three jobs means the guest lands on a page and has to hunt, and most will not.
The practical layout is a directions code on the invitation itself, an RSVP code on the reply card, and a website code on the information insert. Each carries a short line saying what it does — "Scan for directions", "Scan to RSVP". An unlabelled code on a formal invitation reads as a printing error.
Size, placement and paper
An invitation is read in the hand at 25–40cm, so the code needs to be 2.5–4cm. That is bigger than most stationery designers expect, and shrinking it to fit the layout is the commonest reason wedding codes fail.
Paper choice matters more here than almost anywhere else, because wedding stationery is deliberately tactile. Heavily textured, laid and cotton stocks spread ink and break up the module edges — on those, print at 3.5cm or larger. Metallic, pearlescent and foiled papers reflect light straight back at the camera and should not carry the code at all; put it on a plain insert instead.
- Print at 2.5cm minimum, 3–4cm on textured or cotton stock.
- Keep 8–10mm of clear space around the code — no border, no flourish, no watermark.
- Avoid foil, pearlescent and heavily coloured backgrounds behind the code.
- Never place it across a fold.
- Dark ink on a light background. Do not invert it for aesthetics.
Use a dynamic code, and why it matters here
Wedding details change. Venues move a reception indoors, RSVP forms fill up and need replacing, websites get rebuilt. Invitations, meanwhile, went out months ago and cannot be recalled.
A dynamic code lets you change what the code opens without touching anything already posted. That is worth more at a wedding than almost any other use, because the print run is fixed, personal, and expensive to redo.
Test it before the whole run
Print one invitation on the final paper, at final size, and scan it with three or four phones including an older one. Check it under warm indoor lighting rather than a bright desk lamp, because that is closer to how it will be read.
Then check the destination on a phone, not a laptop. A wedding website that looks beautiful on a desktop and unusable on a phone is the single most common disappointment here — the code works perfectly and the guest still gives up.
Make a directions card
Turn an address into a QR code on a printable card — free, no account, nothing uploaded.
Open the location tool