I am using my wedding website as an example for this post.
In the past year, I have talked to many brides and they all had the chance to check my wedding website at some point. Since they all asked me different questions I thought it would be a great idea to write about having a wedding website.
From the beginning of the planning process we knew there was going to be a wedding website for us. With my family living in another country and his family living in a different state we thought it would be a good idea to include our own website on the invitations and have the guests R.S.V.P on the site. This idea will save you time, money and stress.
With the tradition of sending invitations and expecting guests to confirm their assistance though regular mail most couples have faced wasting money in stamps, invitations weight and even the R.S.V.P's getting lost.
Now, take into consideration the average age of your guests, will they be able to use the website? Perhaps you want to give them another method to confirm their assistance such as a text message or a call.
Take a look at the picture below to understand how the guests confirmation can be sent through a website and you get an email with their response. I suggest you also create an email for your wedding and that way you keep everything more organized.
When you decide to have a wedding website, treat it as another project. Your website should be friendly user, organized, and contain the most important information you want to provide to your guests about the wedding, including the venue and the surrounding areas.
Having a map in you website will help your guests plan accordingly to their plans, most of the times guests traveling out of town for a wedding also want to enjoy the time before and after. It is a good idea to show a list of hotels, airlines, transportation, restaurants, bars and activities around the venue.
If you choose to block rooms at a specific hotel for your guests then that is the most important information to add to the website. Include the name of the hotel, the rate, the address, the amenities included and the extra fees such as parking, internet, and resort fee if applicable.
In our case, we were not comfortable asking our guests for gifts. We just really wanted to share the day with them and enjoy their presence. The closer you get to the wedding, the more the people ask you about a wedding registry, and reality is , that they want to give you something. We decided to just add our website on the invitations and include the registry link to our website. This worked perfectly!
In addition, our website had an interactive app in which our guests requested a song to be played at the wedding. I hear you... you might be saying " how crazy!... my friends are going to request horrible songs"...well, you have the final decision. With this app in your website you can check on the songs and then give it to your DJ or band, if you don't like it, you don't add it, that easy!
Now, you must wonder how to start the website. In this case one of my bridesmaid is web and graphic designer so I decided to ask her to create it. A good advice is to ask your bridal party for things that they know how to do, they are there for you. Having them helping you will save you time and money.
There are many sites where you can look for templates , buy the template and build your website. Some of them sites are wix.com, wordpress.com and ewedding.com. Then you can search for apps that you want to add to you website and link it, you will have a lot of fun.
Enjoy!
