Sending a graduation invitation to a large list
Pick the plan that matches your list, name the party, and write the invitation. Five dollars covers 100 guests and nineteen covers 500 per message, with no monthly fee afterwards.
You get a sign-up link and a QR code. Because a graduation guest list is scattered across several different groups, being able to drop one link into the family chat, the neighbourhood group and the graduate's own friends is what makes this quicker than collecting numbers.
Everyone receives the invitation individually at 12pm Eastern on the date you set. No group thread, no visible guest list.
Two guest lists that do not overlap
Almost every graduation party is really two parties happening at once. There is the family and neighbours list, run by a parent, and the graduate's friends list, which the parent usually does not have.
The practical answer is to let each side build itself. The parent shares the link with relatives and neighbours, the graduate shares it with friends, and both feed into the same list. Nobody has to hand over a phone.
If the messaging genuinely needs to differ, say a formal note to relatives and a casual one to friends, running two separate events is cleaner than trying to write one message that works for a grandmother and a seventeen year old at once.
Open house parties and arrival times
An open house is the default format for a reason: it lets 80 people attend a party that would never fit 80 people at once. The message just has to make the format obvious.
A working example: GRAD PARTY FOR ELIJAH: Sat June 6, drop in any time 1pm to 6pm, 118 Maple Street. Food all afternoon, no need to stay the whole time.
If you want to spread arrivals out, suggesting a window rather than assigning times works better in practice. Something like family earlier, friends later in the afternoon gives people a nudge without turning the party into a schedule.
Combined parties and graduation season collisions
Two families sharing one party is common and cheaper for everyone. What causes confusion is when guests do not know whose party they are attending, so name both graduates in the message and in the event name itself.
The other seasonal reality is that June weekends are crowded, and your party is competing with three others. Sending the invitation earlier than you would for any other party matters more here than the wording does.
A short reminder a few days out is worth sending for exactly this reason, as a separate send at the same plan price. Scheduling that reminder in advance means you can write it now and forget it.
When a printed announcement is still worth it
There is a real distinction between the announcement and the invitation. The announcement is the keepsake that goes to relatives who will never attend, and printed is genuinely better for that. The invitation is logistics, and text is better for that.
Plenty of families do both: cards posted to the wider family, texts to everyone who is actually coming.
If you are weighing the cost across different guest counts, the per-guest math for parties covers it, and sending to a list of several hundred explains how the larger plans work.