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Riserva sends a small, deliberate set of emails — the ones a guest needs, and nothing that reads like marketing. This article is the map: what exists, when each one fires, and what Riserva doesn’t send. Riserva delivers guest email for you — there is no provider account to create. Settings → Emails is where you shape it: who it comes from, which moments send, the wording, and the design. (If its delivery badge ever reads Log only, delivery isn’t configured: every message is still built and recorded on the reservation’s timeline, it just isn’t delivered — contact Riserva support.) See Email settings.

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The emails Riserva sends

Confirmation and rescheduled emails carry an add-to-calendar file (reservation.ics). When a reservation moves, the new file updates the event already in the guest’s calendar rather than adding a second one.

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Reservations your team makes

A reservation booked by staff gets the confirmation at once, when it has an email address:
  • Book reservation in the admin sends it for a Phone reservation. A Walk-in gets none — the guest is standing at the desk.
  • The Book reservation tile on the POS register sends it whenever an email is entered (the field reads “Email (for the confirmation)”).
  • A party seated from the waitlist gets none.
All of these follow the Reservation confirmed switch in Settings → Emails, and a payment link paid later sends nothing extra. A guest without a confirmation still gets the reminder and the rescheduled and cancelled emails. If such a guest wants something in writing now, open the reservation and use Send reminder email: it sends the reminder immediately, and it counts as the reminder, so the automatic one won’t follow.

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About charge-later reservations

On an experience that saves the card and charges later, the confirmation and the reschedule email each carry one extra line naming the exact moment and amount — “Nothing was charged today. Your card is saved and will be charged $119.99 on Sun, Sep 20 at 9:00 AM EDT.”, “…when you check in” for an “At check-in” experience, or “…at the end of your visit, unless you settle it at the counter” for an “At the visit” experience. On a reschedule it reads “Your card is still saved and will now be charged…” with the new moment, because the charge follows the visit. The line appears only while the card really is saved and unpaid — a reservation paid at checkout never sees it. The Payment failed email is the only notice a guest gets about a declined saved card: Shopify sends none of its own for saved-card orders. It is sent when the card genuinely failed. It tells the guest their reservation is still held, states the amount owed, and — when there is a payment link — offers a Pay now button; without one it says “We’ll be in touch to arrange payment, or contact us by replying to this email.”, so follow up with a payment link or a call. If Riserva never learns the outcome of a charge, the reservation still becomes Payment due for you to collect, but the guest is told nothing — telling someone their card failed when it may have worked is worse than saying nothing.

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About the cancellation email

The refund line only appears when money is actually moving. A cancellation with nothing to refund says nothing about refunds at all — it never promises a guest money that isn’t coming.

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About the reminder

It goes out once per reservation, in the 24-hour window before the slot, and only to confirmed reservations that have an email address. If a reservation is cancelled before the reminder is due, no reminder is sent. Reminder timing is fixed at 24 hours; it can’t be changed.
Good to know Reminders are sent by a check Riserva runs every hour on its own, and again whenever your team is using the admin (at most every 15 minutes). A reservation booked less than a day ahead gets its reminder at the next check. Staff can also send it early from the reservation page with Send reminder email — it then counts as the reminder.

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About the waitlist email

Only one send happens per party, even if a host presses Notify twice — a guest who gets told twice assumes they were double-booked.

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The alert to your team

New reservation alert is the one email addressed to your staff, not the guest. It goes out when a reservation is made online — through the booking window and checkout — and names the guest, the party, the date and time, and the guest’s email and phone. Reservations your team makes in the admin or on the register don’t send it: whoever booked it already knows. It goes to the Alert addresses you type under that email in Settings → Emails → Notifications: up to five addresses, separated by commas (for example tastingroom@yourwinery.com, manager@yourwinery.com). Each address gets its own copy. Leave the field empty and no alert is sent.

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An email that exists but isn’t switched on

  • Payment due — would email a guest their payment link when you create one on a reservation. Today you copy the link and send it yourself. It shows a Not sending yet badge under Notifications in Settings → Emails.

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What Riserva doesn’t send

  • A post-visit thank-you or review request. If you want one, the Klaviyo and Shopify Flow connections can start one from the guest’s check-in.
  • A no-show notice. A guest marked a no-show gets no email from Riserva.
  • Text messages (SMS). Riserva sends email only.

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What the emails look like

One narrow column on soft paper, dark warm ink, and a single accent used on the button and the confirmation code. A heading carries the experience name; everything else is plain and readable. If the experience has a photo, it appears as a banner across the top of its emails automatically — each experience’s emails look like that experience with no setup. (You can switch this off, or set one banner for every email, in Email settings.) The body is a details card — label on the left, value on the right — with Date, Time, Party, Confirmation code and Location, plus situational rows (Previously, Amount due, Refund) when they apply. Add-ons and special requests appear underneath only when there are any — along with the experience’s Good to know note, if you’ve written one on the experience page (arrival details, parking, dress code). The opening and closing lines of each email are yours to rewrite, per touchpoint, from Email settings. The greeting and the reservation facts always stay — your words change the voice, never the details. Every email also carries a plain-text version with the same facts in the same order, so it reads correctly in text-only clients and scores well with spam filters. Dates and times follow your Regional formats setting, and emails always spell the year out — people open them months later.
Good to know Anything a guest typed — their name, their special requests — is escaped before it’s rendered, and links that aren’t ordinary web or email links are refused rather than shown. A guest can’t smuggle anything into an email you send.
Two things can’t be changed, and it’s worth knowing what they are:
  • The winery name in the eyebrow line and the footer comes from the reservation’s location name, falling back to a tidied version of your store domain. (What guests see in the From line is separate, and you do control it — see Email settings.)
  • The “Manage your reservation” link goes to Riserva’s built-in manage page on your storefront (/apps/bookings/manage), personalised per guest so it opens their reservation directly — no code or email to type. It can’t be pointed at a different page from the admin. See Let guests manage their own reservations.
Everything else — who the email comes from, which emails send, their subject and opening/closing lines, the colours, the images and a footer line — is on the Email settings page.

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Where to check whether an email went out

Open the reservation and look at its timeline. Every attempt is recorded there, including failures. A message that couldn’t be delivered shows as a failed notification rather than disappearing quietly. Emails never block anything. A delivery failure or a bad address can’t roll back a reservation, a refund, or an order.
What things mean on this screen: What things mean: What your guests see