HelloStampedFestivals
Diwali party invitations
Shubh Deepavali
8 designs
Free with an account: your invitation as a link, a QR code and a short video for WhatsApp.
Lamp-lit
Lamps, a garland and gold words on an arch; a lit room at night.
About this design
A lit room rather than a dark colour: lamps and a lantern drawn in gold geometry at the head and foot, a garland along the top, and the words on an arched panel in a gold display serif. Built for Diwali and every evening celebration where the lamp is the point; the restraint is what keeps it from reading as a shop window.
Marigold
A garland and toran at the head of the page, drawn as geometry.
About this design
A garland across the top and a toran hung at the head of the page, drawn as botanical geometry rather than as photographs of flowers. Warm by construction: the marigold is what a doorway wears on the morning of almost every occasion in this taxonomy, which is also why the family suits so many groups and leads none of them.
Kolam
Dot-grid geometry from Tamil and Telugu doorsteps, drawn at dawn.
About this design
White dot-grid geometry on a warm ground, the way a Tamil or Telugu doorstep is drawn at dawn. Named kolam and not rangoli on purpose: alpana in Bengal and aripan in Bihar are cousins with their own names, and this family draws only the South Indian one.
Bandhani
Tie-dye dots and mirror discs from Gujarat and Rajasthan, made to carry far.
About this design
Tie-dye dot fields and mirror-work discs, Gujarati and Rajasthani, at the loudest end of this file. It is the one family designed to be seen from across a school gymnasium, which is where the research found garba actually happens in the United States. Motion is festive here and on only two other families.
Editorial
A serif at size, one hairline above the date, generous margins.
About this design
Type and rules and nothing else: a serif at a large size, a hairline above the date, generous margins. It is the formal end of the range — a fiftieth anniversary, a convention, a wedding whose hosts want no ornament at all — and it is the family that ages best, because there is nothing in it to date.
With your photo
These leave room for a picture of your own, added when you make the invitation.
Photo
Add a photo
Your photograph on its own plate; the words beside it, never over it.
About this design
One photograph full-bleed on the split plate, the invitation set beside or beneath it in a quiet serif. The plate holds the picture and nothing else — no words ever sit on it — so the photo is framed by the palette rather than written over. It is the host's own photo, copied once with its location and camera details removed; guests' photos are never stored.
Portrait Arch
Add a photo
A photo in an arch, like a doorway or mandap, with a gold hairline.
About this design
A photograph in an arch — the doorway of a house, the mandap, the temple gate — with a hairline inside the accent border, the invitation set underneath in a quiet serif. Built for a family or a couple: the framing is one tap on the face, never a face model. Without a photo the arch carries marigold and jali, so the design reads as a threshold rather than as a missing picture.
Your Artwork
Add a photo
Your own picture edge to edge; the words on a solid band below.
About this design
Your own picture edge to edge, with the invitation set beneath it on a solid band in a quiet condensed face. Made for a host who already has a card they love: the look is theirs and the words are ours, so the date can still be corrected at the same address after the picture has been forwarded. The band is the palette's own paper at full strength, never a veil over the picture, so nothing a guest reads is ever read through somebody's photograph.
Usually at home, a clubhouse and a hired hall, for family, friends, the wider community and the children. Mid-October to mid-November. Free invitation designs with RSVP and calendar, and no account for your guests.
Each one is a different visual tradition rather than a recolour of the same card. Tap a colour underneath to change the palette; every design carries your own wording, date and place.
About Diwali party
- When it falls
- Mid-October to mid-November
- Who is usually asked
- family, friends, the wider community and the children
- Where it usually happens
- at home, a clubhouse, a hired hall, a temple and a park
- How the invitation speaks
- Warm — first names, and it sounds like the person sending it
- Customary opening line
- “Shubh Deepavali” or, in English, “Join us for Diwali”
- Colours it is associated with
- Gold, red, orange
- What people wear
- Festive — Indian wear welcome
- What guests bring
- Just yourselves. Sweets if you insist.
- Marked by
- Hindu, Sikh, Jain and anyone else
Wording that works
Diwali at the Raos'
Diyas, dinner and cards. Come hungry, stay late.
Questions people ask
- Do my guests need an account?
- No, and they never will. A guest opens the link, types their name and taps Going, Maybe or Can't go. No password, no phone number, no app. If a page ever asks your guests for a password, it is not us.
- Can I text my guests?
- Only the ones who asked to be texted. A guest gives a number on their own — on our page, never yours — and confirms it with a six-digit code before we will send anything. You never see the number. Texts are limited to three per event so an invitation cannot become a mailing list, and cancelling or moving an event is never counted against that.
- Does it work in WhatsApp?
- That is what it is built for. Pasting the link shows a picture of the invitation with the date and who is hosting, before anybody taps — and the page opens in whatever browser your guest has, on any phone, including the ones that are not iPhones.
- Can guests add it to Google Calendar?
- Google, Apple, Outlook and anything else that reads a calendar file. There is a button on the invitation itself, and it works before anybody answers. If you change the time or the place afterwards, their existing entry updates — it does not add a second one — and cancelling removes it.