Households are the unit, not individuals
Western wedding tools default to a row-per-guest spreadsheet. That works for a 100-person wedding where everyone is invited individually and travels alone. It does not work for a South Asian wedding where the Patel family of five turns up together, replies together, eats together, and sits together. The first thing Baraat does differently is treat the household as the primary unit. You add the Patel family as one entry, with five guests inside it. They get one RSVP code, one invite link, and one row on your seating chart. When Mrs Patel replies that her family is coming, she replies for everyone. When her son is unable to make the Mehndi night but coming to the Reception, she ticks that one box. When her daughter is vegetarian and her husband halal, both go on the same form.
Per-event RSVP — because they're not all coming to everything
A typical wedding has six events. Most guests don't come to all six. Close family come to everything; school friends might come to the Reception only; a vendor's family might join for the Mehndi night and skip the rest. Generic RSVP tools force one yes/no for the whole wedding, which is useless. Baraat's RSVP page lets each guest tick which events they're attending, individually — so the bride's younger cousin can come to the Sangeet but skip the Vivah, and that's captured cleanly. You see the per-event count in real time. The catering team gets accurate per-event numbers. The seating chart pulls from the right per-event guest list. Nothing is approximated.
Dietary capture that actually means something
A South Asian wedding caterer needs to know more than "vegetarian, gluten-free, allergic to peanuts". They need to know: pure vegetarian (no onion, no garlic — Jain), Jain-compatible, halal-only, kosher, vegan, vegetarian-but-eats-eggs, and dozens of allergen and preference combinations. Baraat's dietary form is structured for this. Each guest gets a primary preference (the dominant signal) plus an "additional" multiselect (allergies, sub-categories) plus a free-text notes field. The result is a clean, exportable dietary brief that goes straight to the caterer — not a chaotic email thread of "Auntie Sushila is Jain, but she's OK with garlic on Sundays" three weeks before the wedding.
A guest list that becomes a seating plan and a day-of timeline
The guest list is the foundation. Once it's in place, everything else builds from it. The seating plan picks up the same households and lets you drag-drop them onto tables. The dietary brief flows automatically into a printable PDF for the caterer. The day-of timeline shows the right per-event count to your venue and vendors. The wedding website pulls in the guests-only schedule and the right RSVP link per household. There is no re-keying of data anywhere. This is how a planning platform should work, and how a spreadsheet never can.
Privacy, fairness, and family politics
Some guests get plus-ones; some don't. Some get full menu choice; others are at table 14 with the kids. Some are on the bride's side, some on the groom's, some shared. Some are VIP and need special seating; some are last-minute additions you wish you could quietly disinvite. Baraat lets you tag, side, prioritise, and reorder without the rest of your family seeing your private notes. You can also share the guest list with read-only access to specific people — your wedding planner, your seating coordinator — without giving them edit access to everything else.
What's inside
Built to handle the full job.
Households as units
One row per family, with multiple guests inside.
Per-event RSVP
Each guest can attend any combination of your wedding events.
Structured dietary capture
Pure veg, Jain, halal, allergens, free-text notes — caterer-ready.
Side, plus-one, VIP tags
Bride's side / groom's side / shared, plus-one allowance, VIP flagging.
Personalised RSVP links
Each household gets a unique URL — no logins, no friction.
CSV import & export
Bring guests in from your existing spreadsheet, export anytime.
In real weddings
How couples are using it.
320 guests across six events
Mehndi (180), Sangeet (240), Anand Karaj (320), Lunch (320), Choora (60), Reception (300). Baraat tracks each event's invite list separately, sends per-household RSVP links, and gives you live attending counts per event for catering and seating.
A pure-veg-and-halal mixed wedding
The bride's family is Gujarati Hindu (mostly Jain-compatible); the groom's family is Muslim. The reception caterer needs accurate counts of pure veg, halal-only, Jain-strict, and vegan guests. Baraat's structured dietary capture exports a single, clean PDF brief the caterer can work from.
Aunties forwarding the RSVP link
You send the Patel family their RSVP link. Auntie Patel forwards it to her sister's family in Manchester. The link is a household invite code — anyone with the link can submit, but only on behalf of the household named on the invite. The data stays clean; the family politics stay handled.
Frequently asked