A Class Reunion Time Capsule
A class reunion time capsule is a set of sealed messages written by everyone in a class, a year group or a course — on their last night together, or at one reunion for the next. Each person scans a QR code, writes from their own phone with photos, video or a voice note if they have them, and the message is sealed the moment it is sent. All of them are addressed to the people the class nominates, and open on the date of the reunion to come.
Everybody means to stay in touch. Then there are jobs, cities and children, and the reunion becomes a thing someone ought to organise.
A sealed batch of messages with a date on it changes that slightly. There is now something waiting, it belongs to everyone, and it opens whether or not anyone has booked a room.
A reunion needs a reason to happen
A reunion has no natural deadline. Nothing goes wrong if it slips a year, so it slips, and the people who would have come at five years are harder to find at fifteen.
A capsule gives it a date that was agreed when everybody was still in one room. It is a small thing, but it is a fixed one: on that day a set of messages opens, written by people who were eighteen, or twenty-two, or forty, about what they expected to have happened by now.
It also removes the weak point of most class projects, which is that they depend on one person keeping a box, a file or a login for ten years. Here the messages are sealed and held for you, and they go to the people the class chose, on the date the class chose.
When a class writes one
There are two good moments, and they produce different capsules.
The last night together
A leavers' evening, a graduation, the final session of a course. Everyone is in one room for the last time and knows it. They write about what they expect to happen, and it opens at a reunion nobody has organised yet.
At one reunion, for the next
Ten years on, the room is back together and has opinions about how it all went. Everyone writes on the night, and the set opens at the next reunion — which now has a date, because the capsules do.
When the class is still at school
For school leavers the organiser is usually a teacher or a parent, not a pupil. Our terms require users to be at least 13, or the age of digital consent where you live, and photos or video showing minors need the consent of a parent or guardian. Asking for written messages only, in the lines guests see on the page, avoids the second question.
How it works on the night
One QR code for the whole class. Put it on the tables, on a slide behind the speeches, or in the group chat for the people who could not travel.
Scan
The code opens a page with the event's name and a few lines you wrote: what to write about, who receives it, and when it opens. No account, no app, nothing to install.
Write
A name, a message, and files if they have any — a photo from that evening, a short video, a voice note recorded on their phone in a quieter corner.
Pick the date
Each person chooses an opening date inside the range you fixed in advance. For a reunion that range should be narrow, so the whole set opens together.
Send
The message is sealed the moment it is sent. Nobody reads it first — not you, not the people who will receive it. Anyone who leaves their own address gets a copy of what they wrote on the opening day.
What to ask people to write
A blank box produces “good luck, everyone”. A question produces something worth opening. Put two or three of these in the lines guests see, not all of them.
About themselves
- Where will you be living when this opens, and who with?
- What will you be doing for a living, and will you like it?
- What are you sure of tonight that you expect to have changed your mind about?
- What would you tell yourself at the reunion, if you could?
- One thing you want to have done by then, specific enough to be checked
About the people in the room
- Who in this room will you still be talking to?
- A prediction about someone else — kind, and specific
- Who is going to surprise everyone, and how?
- The person you never properly thanked, and what for
- Which band, business plan or group chat will still exist?
About the place and the time
- The story from these years that will still be retold
- What a coffee, a pint and a month's rent cost this year
- The teacher, lecturer or supervisor you will still be quoting
- A photo of the room tonight, and one from the first week
- What everyone was listening to, watching and arguing about
Predictions about other people are the part everyone reads first. Ask for kind ones: once a message is sealed, its author cannot take anything back.
Set it up before the invitations go out
The QR code has to exist before the evening does. The useful moment to get in touch is when you fix the date, not the afternoon of.
When should a reunion capsule open?
Pick the reunion first, then set the capsule to it.
Five years
Everyone is still reachable and most predictions are already half-resolved. The easiest reunion to fill, and a good first date for a class that has never had one.
Ten years
The classic. Long enough that people have moved, changed work and changed their minds, short enough that nearly everyone can still be found.
Twenty years
Written for people you cannot picture. Voices in the recordings will sound young, and some of the predictions will have become family history.
Twenty-five years
The anniversary reunion. A long wait, which is a reason to nominate the recipients carefully and to read our preservation page before you choose it.
One agreed date works better here than letting everyone choose. If forty people pick forty dates, the messages trickle in over years and there is never an evening when the set is opened. Agree the reunion date, and fix the range tightly around it.
Who organises, and who receives them
Every capsule in an event is addressed to the same recipients, and the organiser chooses them before the link goes live. A guest cannot address a message to one classmate: they are writing to the people the class nominated, for the whole class to read.
So nominate them properly. Two or three people, not one — the organiser, a small committee, a shared address the class set up — and use personal email addresses. School and university addresses expire, usually at the worst moment.
When the capsules open, those recipients are emailed and can read and download everything. What happens next is up to the class: on a screen at the reunion, read aloud between courses, or forwarded to each author. Anyone who left their own address when writing also receives their own message that day.
This is the reason the idea survives ten years. The organiser holds the batch and the recipients are fixed, so nobody else has to still be findable for it to work.
What you give up, and what ten years means
You do not read them first. A message is sealed when it is sent, and the first time anyone sees it is the day it opens. You see who has written and when, and how many capsules are left — never what was said.
Every guest capsule goes through the same automated safety check as everything else on the site. One that fails is held, and you are told that one was held, not what it said. Beyond that, the tone is set by the lines you write on the page, and by the room.
And ten years is a long time for any company. We do not promise what we cannot know; our preservation page says plainly where the files are kept, what we commit to, and what happens to pending capsules if the service ever had to wind down.
How you get one
Tell us the date of the evening, roughly how many people will write, and who the capsules should reach. We come back with a quote, which depends on how many capsules you need, how long they are kept and how much room each person gets.
Once it is paid, you accept the event conditions and choose your recipients, and your link starts working. You get one link and one printable QR code, and you write the few lines people see when they scan it — you can change those at any time.
During the evening you follow a live count of capsules written and capsules left. If more people turn up than you planned for, more can be added while the event is running. A person can write more than one, and each comes out of the batch.
Class reunion capsule questions
What is a class reunion time capsule?
Do classmates need an account or an app to write?
Who receives the messages when they open?
Can we set one opening date for the whole class?
Can the organiser read the messages before the reunion?
How much does a class reunion time capsule cost?
Give the next reunion a date
Tell us when the class is together, how many will write, and who should receive them.