Import Your Joy Guest List and Send Wedding Text Messages
Joy's Messaging Plus sends text blasts, RSVP reminders and hotel reminders. If you have hit its limits — on scheduling, on talking back to guests, or on what it costs across a long list — Text My Wedding picks up where it stops. Import your list, keep your Joy website.
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Already using Joy?
Joy is one of the better wedding websites out there, and Messaging Plus is a real texting product — blasts, RSVP nudges, hotel reminders. Two kinds of couples end up here anyway.
The first are pricing out what messaging costs across a hundred and fifty guests. The second need something the add-on does not do: long sequences scheduled months out, unrestricted two-way conversation, planner access, and coordination on the wedding day itself. Either way, your Joy website stays exactly where it is.
- Full sequences scheduled months in advance, not send-now blasts
- Unlimited two-way replies in a shared inbox
- Groups for the wedding party, out-of-towners and every side event
- Day-of messages timed to your run of show
How to export your Joy guest list and text it
A file export and import — nothing connects to your Joy account, and your withjoy.com page keeps working exactly as it does now.
Export from Joy
Open your guest list in Joy and click Export All Guests. You get a spreadsheet with names, parties, RSVP status and any phone numbers you have collected.
Add a Groups column (optional)
Before uploading, add a column called Groups with comma-separated names — Wedding party, Out of town, Welcome drinks. Those groups get created during the import instead of by hand afterwards.
Upload the file
In Text My Wedding, go to Guests → Bulk Import and drop the file in. Pick the worksheet that holds your guests, usually Sheet1, and check the preview before anything is saved.
Map the columns
Joy's export does not split first and last name, so map its Name column to First Name and leave Last Name empty. Map Phone, and map Groups if you added one. Duplicates are caught and skipped.
Point everything at your Joy site
Every message we send can link to your withjoy.com page, so the RSVP, travel details and registry stay in one place. Then schedule the announcement, the reminders, the wedding week and the day itself.
Screenshots of each step are in our WithJoy import guide.
Text your Joy wedding website
Send the withjoy.com link with a reason attached — RSVP, travel, the weekend schedule — and see exactly who opened it. Every link is shortened and tracked per guest.
The guests who did not open it get a different message next time, not the same one again. That single distinction is the difference between a reminder and a nag, and guests can tell which one they are receiving.
RSVP reminders, on your schedule
Set the whole sequence up front. Each step targets only the guests who still have not answered, so replying gets someone removed from the follow-ups instead of ignored by them.
Personalized, with party size already filled in.
Short and human. No link fatigue.
Out-of-town group only.
"The caterer needs numbers Monday."
Joy Messaging Plus vs. Text My Wedding
An honest comparison — Joy does more here than most wedding websites, so the interesting differences are at the edges rather than the basics.
| Capability | Joy Messaging Plus | Text My Wedding |
|---|---|---|
| Wedding website | ✓Keep using it | —We link to yours |
| Text messages to guests | ✓Included | ✓The whole product |
| RSVP reminders | ✓Built in | ✓Sequenced and targeted |
| Hotel and travel reminders | ✓Built in | ✓Sent to a group, not everyone |
| Scheduled multi-step sequences | ◐Limited | ✓Unlimited steps and dates |
| Two-way replies | ◐Limited | ✓Shared inbox, unlimited |
| Custom groups and segments | ◐Basic | ✓Unlimited, reusable |
| Day-of run-of-show messages | —— | ✓Timed to the minute |
| Planner or co-host access | —— | ✓Shared account access |
| Photo and video collection | —— | ✓Guests reply with photos |
Comparison reflects publicly documented features and is checked periodically. Joy and WithJoy are trademarks of their owner; Text My Wedding is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Joy.
Joy, WithJoy, and where Text My Wedding fits
What Messaging Plus does well, what it does not do, and how couples split the work between the two products.
What Joy's Messaging Plus covers
Joy's messaging add-on sends text blasts to your guest list, RSVP reminders to people who have not responded, and hotel or travel reminders. For a couple who wants three or four messages to go out over the course of an engagement, that is genuinely enough.
Where it runs out is depth: a message arc you set up once and forget, conversations that go both ways without limits, and the wedding day itself, when messages have to fire on a schedule because nobody is going to send them by hand.
Is it Joy or WithJoy?
Both. The company's site is withjoy.com and the product is branded Joy, so couples search for it either way — and both spellings appear in this page for exactly that reason.
It makes no practical difference to the export: the guest list downloads the same way regardless of what you call it.
Keeping the Joy website as the destination
Your withjoy.com page is where the RSVP, the schedule, the travel information and the registry live. Nothing about that changes. Every message we send can carry that link, shortened and tracked so you know who opened it.
In practice couples end up with a clean division: Joy answers questions, Text My Wedding makes sure the questions get asked in the first place.
Running both without annoying anyone
If you keep Joy's messaging on alongside ours, split them by purpose rather than by audience. Let one system own RSVP reminders and the other own everything else. Two systems sending near-identical nudges is the fastest way to get a guest to stop reading either.
Most couples eventually consolidate, because one message history per guest is easier to reason about than two.
The day-of messages nobody plans for
The shuttle time changes. Photos move from the barn to the oak tree. The ceremony is delayed twenty minutes because of a storm cell. These are the messages that actually save a wedding day, and they all go to different subsets of people.
Because they can be written and scheduled in advance and adjusted from a phone, your planner can send them while you are having your hair done — which is the entire point.
What it costs to switch
Nothing structural. You export a file, import it, and rebuild a handful of groups. Your website, your RSVP page and your registry are untouched, and if you decide the arrangement is not for you, the guest list you exported is still sitting in Joy.
The realistic time cost is about an afternoon: twenty minutes for the import, the rest spent writing messages you would have had to write anyway.
Text templates for Joy couples
Drop-in wording that points back at your Joy site. Swap the names, dates and link for your own.
Website launch
Hi Nathan! We're getting married Sept 11 in Hudson, NY. RSVP and all the details: withjoy.com/amelia-and-julian 🤍
RSVP reminder
Nathan, RSVPs close Friday and we're still missing yours — one tap: withjoy.com/amelia-and-julian. Hope you can come!
Welcome drinks
You're invited to welcome drinks Friday, 7pm at the Hudson Tavern. Casual, no RSVP needed — just come.
Day-of, wedding party
Wedding party: photos at 2:15 by the oak, not the barn. Bring your shoes, we'll bring the champagne.
Joy and Text My Wedding questions
What is Joy Messaging Plus?
It is Joy's guest-texting add-on: text blasts to your list, RSVP reminders to people who have not responded, and hotel or travel reminders, all sent from your Joy account. It is a solid basic texting layer for couples already on Joy.
Why would I use Text My Wedding instead?
Three reasons come up most: multi-step sequences scheduled months in advance, unlimited two-way conversation with guests, and wedding-day coordination messages timed to the run of show. Cost across a large guest list is the fourth.
How do I export my Joy guest list?
Open your guest list in Joy and click Export All Guests. Upload the file in Text My Wedding under Guests → Bulk Import, choose the worksheet with your guests, and map the columns. Joy exports a single Name column, so map it to First Name.
Do I have to stop using Joy?
No. Keep the website, the RSVP page and the registry. Every message we send can point at your withjoy.com URL, and nothing about your page changes.
Is it WithJoy or Joy?
Both — the company uses withjoy.com and brands the product as Joy. Either way, the export and import work the same.
Can guests reply to messages?
Yes, in their normal messages app, as much as they want. Replies land in a shared inbox that you can give your planner access to, and RSVP answers update your headcount automatically.
Can I use both Joy's messaging and Text My Wedding?
You can, but split them by purpose so guests never get two versions of the same reminder. Let one system own RSVP nudges and the other own announcements, wedding-week logistics and day-of coordination.
Keep your Joy website. Bring the texting here.
Import your guest list and schedule the whole message arc in one sitting.
Free to build your guest list and preview messages. You only pay when you are ready to send.