Meeting originators grant permission to update (i.e., add, change, and/or delete) a field or fields of a meeting invitation that corresponds to a calendar entry on an electronic calendar, enabling a meeting invitee to update a meeting invitation and to thereby communicate updates that can be reflected in the corresponding electronic calendar entries of other people who are invited to the meeting. Update permission may be granted to one meeting invitee, to all meeting invitees, or to a selected subset of the meeting invitees. Update permissions are associated with the particular meeting invitation, and preferably expire once the meeting time and date have passed. For recurring meetings, a particular update permission may be granted for a single instance of the meeting, or to all instances, and this permission preferably expires after the last instance of the recurring meeting has ended.