Using one-on-one coaching, webinars, and events, career coach Amie Birt has more than five years of experience guiding job seekers through the job search process. She is inspired by her goal of assisting others in finding purpose and belonging in their careers.
Inviting coworkers or clients to meetings via email is likely to happen at some point in a professional career. If you’re unsure of what to say in an email inviting someone to lunch, you can read up on email writing tips and strategies. You can use this to write your own meeting invitations.
In this article, we outline the steps you can take to write a formal lunch meeting invitation, offer advice on how to write a formal lunch invitation, and offer a template and examples of lunch invitation emails.
Here are steps you can take to write an invitation email for a lunch meeting:
The first step to writing a meeting invitation is to write a subject line. One strategy for writing a subject line to an email about an event is to include the event and the time in the subject line. For example, you could write, “Lunch Wednesday at 1 p.m.” This way, its clear to the recipient that the email is a time-sensitive invitation.
Next, you can begin the email by writing a salutation. The level of formality may depend on your industry and your professional relationship with the email recipient.
You can use the first sentence of the email to invite the recipient to a lunch meeting. Be sure to propose a date, time and place for the lunch so the recipient has all the information about the meeting ahead of time.
Next, you can include any additional information in the last sentence of the email. Here are some examples of other information to include in your lunch meeting invitation email:
Next, you can write a salutation and your name to sign the email. If you use an automatic email signature, you can disregard this step.
Before you send the email, you can reread it to ensure all the information is correct. Rereading an email before sending it can also help you correct spelling and grammar errors. This can give your email a more professional tone.
Lastly, you can add a recipient to the email. Adding a recipient to the email as a last step can help you prevent sending the email before youve reviewed it.
A lunch meeting invitation can offer a client or other professional contact the opportunity to meet over lunch to discuss business topics. Most people use email to communicate with their professional contacts about a lunch meeting, though occasionally you can extend an invitation to a lunch meeting in-person, on the phone or over text. The method of communication can depend on several factors, including your profession, industry and business relationship with the person youre inviting to lunch.
Here are a few tips you can use when youre inviting someone to a professional lunch meeting over email:
Creating a lunch invitation for the first time? Do take note of its basic elements below:
Heres a template for how you could format a lunch meeting invitation email:
Subject: [Email subject with event, day and time]
[Salutation] [Recipients name],
[Sentence inviting the recipient to a lunch meeting.] [Sentence discussing the reason for the event, if necessary.]
[Sentence with additional information about the lunch meeting, including your level of flexibility on the date, time or place, as well as any materials the recipient may need to bring to the meeting.]
[Your name or email signature]
Below are examples of invitation emails for a lunch meeting:
Subject: Lunch at 2 p.m. Wednesday
Your contract for office supplies is expiring at the end of the month. Are you available to meet for lunch at 2 p.m. on Wednesday at Martys Cafe to discuss renewing your contract with us?
Simons Office Supplies has enjoyed serving your businesss needs over the past three years. Im looking forward to discussing your contract further. Please let me know if another time or place for the meeting would be more amenable to you.
Subject: Marketing strategy meeting Friday
Im seeing great progress on the marketing benchmarks we set at our last meeting. Id like to get together to further discuss strategy. Are you available to meet Friday at noon for a lunch meeting at Caparellis?
Please bring the quarterly reports so we can discuss the progress of the campaign. Im flexible on the meeting time if noon doesnt work with your schedule.
Im looking forward to meeting with you!
How do you write a lunch invitation?
How to write a lunch meeting invitationHow do you write a meeting invitation?
How to structure the meeting invite emailHow do you announce a business lunch?
16 Tips for the Perfect Lunch Meeting