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FAQ
FAQ
Only the organiser of a celebration can see the full assignments. Open your dashboard, go to 'My draw names', pick the celebration, and you'll find the overview under the participants tab.
Open the celebration in your dashboard → settings → exclusions. Drag participants who shouldn't draw each other into the same group and save. The system will automatically validate that a draw is still possible.
First check your spam folder — invitation and verification mails sometimes land there. If you still can't find it, ask the organiser to resend, or contact us at hello@casadeau.com and we'll dig into the logs.
Go to your dashboard → 'My wishlists' → open the wishlist. From there you can rename it, change the date, add or remove items, set priorities, and tweak privacy settings.
As organiser: open the celebration → settings → 'Redraw names'. Note that everyone gets a new email and previously drawn names become invalid — only do this when truly needed.
Celebrations
Celebrations
In your dashboard → 'My draw names' → open the celebration. Each participant has a status badge: 'invited', 'name drawn', or 'wishlist ready'. You can nudge anyone with one click.
Open the celebration in your dashboard → settings → general → 'Group name'. Update and save. Participants will see the new name on their next visit.
Only the organiser can delete a celebration. Go to dashboard → 'My draw names' → settings → 'Delete celebration'. This is irreversible — drawn names, wishlists linked to the group, and chat history are removed.
As organiser: open the celebration → participants → 'Add'. Enter their name and email and we'll send the invitation. If you've already drawn names, you'll need to redraw to include them.
Open the celebration → participants → click the person → 'Remove'. If names are already drawn, the system will prompt you to redraw so the chain stays valid.
Celebrations stay active as long as your account exists. We don't archive or auto-delete — your wishlists, draw history and chat remain available year over year so you can reuse them.
When creating a celebration, enable 'Open join link'. You'll get a shareable URL — anyone with the link can join until you close registration and start the draw.
Yes. Invitations can be sent at any time — only the actual name draw needs the final list. Add new participants later and just resend their invitation.
Wishlists
Wishlists
Dashboard → 'My wishlists' → open the wishlist. There you can rename, change date, edit description, reorder items, set priorities, and adjust who can see it.
Old wishlists stay in 'My wishlists' indefinitely. Filter by year or scroll down — they're sorted with the most recent at the top.
Only if you choose to make them public. By default a wishlist is private; you control whether it's public, shared with specific people, or kept to yourself.
Open the wishlist → click 'Add your own item'. You can write a title, description, link, price, and even add a note explaining why you'd like it.
In the 'Add your own item' form there's an image upload field — drop a photo or paste a URL. We'll resize and host it for you.
Dashboard → 'My profile' → 'Interests'. Pick from our list or add your own. Friends with access to your profile will see them, and the gift finder uses them to suggest better matches.
Create a new wishlist in your dashboard and choose 'For someone else' as the recipient. You manage it and can share it with the celebration just like your own.
Open your wishlist → 'Add your own item'. Paste any product URL and we'll try to extract the title, image and price. You can also fill in everything manually.
Open the shared wishlist link, click the gift, and use the 'Where to buy' button — every item links to one or more shops where it's available.
Yes — wishlists are independent of celebrations. Create one in 'My wishlists', set it to public or shared, and send the link directly. No celebration needed.
Items are marked as 'purchased' globally as soon as someone claims them — across every celebration the wishlist is linked to. The buyer is hidden from you so the surprise stays intact.
Yes — when joining or creating a celebration you choose which of your wishlists to attach. You can keep separate ones for family, work and friends without overlap.
Account
Account
Dashboard → 'My profile' → scroll to the bottom → 'Delete account'. We'll ask you to confirm by typing your email. Once confirmed it's irreversible.
Profile, wishlists, items, friend connections, drawn names you organised, chats you authored — all removed. Wishlists shared with you that someone else owns stay intact (you just disappear from their view).
Log out → click 'Forgot password' on the login screen. We'll email a reset link. If you're already signed in, the same link works from 'My profile' → 'Security'.
Social-login accounts (Google etc.) don't have a Casadeau password — your password lives at Google. Change it in your Google account settings; it propagates automatically.
Dashboard → 'My profile' → 'Email'. Enter the new address — we'll send a confirmation link to verify it before the change takes effect.
Check spam, then verify the address you used is correct. Still nothing? Mail us at hello@casadeau.com — we can resend or fix delivery problems on our end.
If you've lost access to the email tied to your account, reach out via hello@casadeau.com from any address. We'll verify your identity and switch the account email manually.
If our mails are bouncing, your provider may have hard-blocked us after spam reports. Contact hello@casadeau.com — we'll work with you to whitelist us so future mails come through.
Each Casadeau account needs its own email. Workaround: most providers (Gmail, Outlook) support 'plus addressing' — yourname+kid1@gmail.com lands in the same inbox but counts as a separate account here.
For now you add participants one-by-one when creating a celebration. Bulk-import via CSV is on our roadmap — let us know if you'd find it useful via the feedback board.
Exclusions
Exclusions
As organiser: celebration → settings → exclusions. Pick a participant and add the people they shouldn't draw (e.g. partners drawing each other). The system enforces this during the draw.
As many as you want, as long as a valid draw still exists. If your rules over-constrain the group, the system will warn you and suggest which exclusions to relax.
No — exclusions are only visible to the organiser. Participants only see their own drawn name. The exclusions stay invisible to keep surprises intact.
Your Drawn Name
Your Drawn Name
Only the organiser has the full assignments overview. Each participant only sees their own drawn name. Even we don't peek — assignments are stored encrypted.
Email
Magic-links expire after 24 hours. Request a new one from the login page or ask the organiser to resend the invitation. Still stuck? Mail hello@casadeau.com.
Log in and check 'My draw names' in your dashboard — every celebration you joined or organised lives there. If it doesn't show up, contact us with the email of the person who invited you and we'll find it.
Invitations
Invitations
As organiser: open the celebration → participants → click the person → 'Resend invitation'. They get a fresh email with a working link.
Draw Names
Draw Names
Whenever you want — as long as you've added at least the minimum participants (3 for a basic draw). You can wait until everyone has joined, or draw earlier and let late-joiners replace empty seats by redrawing.
Open the celebration → participants → 'Draw names'. Once you confirm, every participant gets an email with their drawn name (and only their drawn name).
Yes — odd, even, doesn't matter. The minimum is 3 participants; anything above that works.
In the celebration settings, enable 'Avoid last year's pairs'. The algorithm will exclude the assignments from your previous draw with this group, so everyone gets someone new.
In settings, set 'Picks per person' to 2 or 3. Useful for small groups where you want everyone to give multiple gifts.
Yes — we use a cryptographic random source (the same kind that secures HTTPS) and shuffle within the constraints you set. Nobody, including us, can predict the outcome.
In the participant list, toggle 'Participates in draw' off for yourself. You'll keep organiser controls but won't be assigned anyone, and won't be drawn.
Same flow as Secret Santa — create a celebration, add participants, set the date to the birthday in question, and draw. Birthday-specific celebrations also auto-link to the birthday calendar.
Open the celebration → settings → 'Redraw names'. The same group is kept; only the assignments are reshuffled. Everyone receives a fresh email.
There's no upper limit. We've handled celebrations of 100+ participants. For very large groups consider using exclusions to keep things manageable (couples, departments, etc).
As organiser: participants → click the person → edit. The participant can also update their own name in 'My profile'.
Open last year's celebration → settings → 'Duplicate'. You'll get a fresh celebration with the same participants — change the date, optionally enable 'Avoid last year's pairs', and draw.
Only the organiser has this overview. In the celebration → participants → 'Show assignments'. Participants only see their own drawn name.
Celebration settings → exclusions → adjust the rules → save. If names have already been drawn, you'll be asked to redraw so the new exclusions are respected.
Each participant can add a postal address in 'My profile'. The person who drew them sees that address only when they open the recipient's wishlist — never publicly.
In the participant list each person has a delivery status. If something bounced, you'll see it there. Resend individually, or contact us if a whole batch failed.
Open the celebration → chat. Anonymous questions appear with a generic avatar. Reply in the same chat — your answer goes back to the asker without revealing who you are.
In the celebration chat, toggle 'Ask anonymously' before sending. Your name is hidden from everyone except yourself; the recipient sees a generic avatar.
Open your drawn-name page → 'Add a poem'. Write directly in the editor, or upload a PDF/image. The recipient sees it only after the gift exchange date.
After drawing, click 'Share invitation' on each participant — you can pick WhatsApp or Messenger and the message + link is pre-filled. They click the link, log in, and see their drawn name.
Messenger sometimes wraps URLs in its in-app browser, which doesn't share login state. Tap the three-dots menu → 'Open in browser'. Or copy the link and paste it into Safari/Chrome directly.
That's a WhatsApp limit, not ours. Send to 5, then go back and share with the next 5. Or copy the invite link once and paste in any chat manually.
As organiser: celebration → participants → click the person → 'Resend invitation'. They get a fresh email with a working link.
Open the wishlist of your drawn name → click the gift → 'I'll give this'. The item is hidden from other gift-givers so nobody buys the same thing.
You can join a celebration via a shared link (WhatsApp, Messenger) without ever entering an email. The organiser shares the personal link directly and you log in via that.