Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
Wedding Websites
September 20th, 2007 @ 11:30 am by Ms. Dahlia
Being fairly technologically savvy- (Well, Mr. Dahlia is, seeing as he works in IT; me, well, I’ve taken Introduction to Java, and have taught myself basic html using this excellent tutorial- really, it is, if you ignore the blinking things and really bright colors)- one of the first things that we talked about was a wedding website. We knew that we wanted one, and absolutely didn’t want to use a premade template.
Now, if you are looking to take the path of least resistance, MyWedding.com and WeddingAnnouncer.com both offer free wedding websites. If you register with Bed Bath & Beyond, you can get a free website from them as well.
But like I said, the easy way is not the way for us.
To gather ideas, I dug around in places like google and indiebride for websites that I liked. And I did find some that really stood out to us:
Nice, simple homepage, although there is no link to it at the top.
The flower motif carries throughout the site.
Kelly and Aaron have a nice, simple site.
Again, the clean, simple homepage
Pictures!
And Alec and Katie have a very awesome, design oriented site.
I love the way the motif is used
Again, continuity with the flourish.
So, using these favorite websites, we considered their common elements:
-consistent use of color
-horizontal navigation bar
-use of one motif throughout
We also noted that the style really does seem to reflect the atmosphere of the wedding. So we have a start for the design of our site. What about the content?
All of the sites shown above have brief biographies of the bride and groom, information about the wedding and reception, information for the out of town guests and registry information. Two (Thryn and Gabe and Alec and Katie) also have guestbooks. All of them have photographs. Two (Alec and Katie and Kelly and Aaron) have information about the bridal party.
Mr. Dahlia and I are planning on having information about the wedding and reception, info for the out of town guests, and the registry information. How much biographical information is good? Will guests want to sign a guestbook? Or know more about the bridal party? Is there anything else that is useful to include?
What suggestions do you have for our wedding website?
17 Responses to “Wedding Websites”
My fiance and I also set up a wedding website as one of our first acts on getting engaged. One thing I would advise, that you don’t mention, is having it password protected. The home page might be free to anyone who comes across it, but I prefer that the rest of the information we’re providing (about your bridal party, the site of the ceremony and the reception, hotel and travel arrangements, registry details) be available only to those with a password.
I designed my own webpage from scratch as well, and the biggest hit for us has been an interactive map with “things to do”, as my entire family will be flying in from out of town (we are getting married in my fiance’s hometown). I used Google Maps and put a little point on each attraction and wrote a little about what there is to do. When we had our engagement party in the same city, it was a huge hit with guests! We also have a little information about us, the story of our proposal, a little blurb on each member of our bridal party with a picture (this was also useful, as people at the engagement party recognized who was in the bridal party and could ask them questions), all the information for out of town guests, registry information, and a guest book. I am also in the process of adding a “pictures” section too, with pictures from the engagement party, engagement photos, eventually adding wedding pictures as well (it is easier than me e-mailing out copies of pictures for everyone who asks).
If you want to actually see the website to get any ideas, send me an email…. ethidiumbromide (at) gmail (dot) com.
I wish I could have had one. Another big thing on the DIY list would have been too much for me though. Of the wedding websites I’ve looked through, I like http://www.weddingtracker.com
Okay it costs, but the designs are cool. One of my favorite features is the “About Us” info. We did a video love story at our wedding and it was great for people who didn’t know our story or the bride/groom too well. With the “About Us” you can do the same thing and get people aquainted with your wedding before the big day. It’s especially nice if you have people from out of state who never had a change to meet your beloved. And you don’t get to really hang out with these people on your wedding day.
I agree with security. I’ve seen a few sites that just have names and addresses much too accessible.That just seems a tad risky.
The only tip I really have is that having a guest book for your visitors to sign is great. My first day back at work after getting engaged, the first thing I did was set up a wedding website! The link was also included on the Save the Dates we sent out. So many of our friends and family members have signed and left well wishes for us… it definitely made us feel very loved, since most of our guests live out of town.
My website at the moment is with weddingannouncer.
I didnt want to pay for a wedsite, but at the same time, I dont like the fact that I cant really personalize it.
Im a graphic designer, but web is not my thing. I attempted t do my own css and html… but that didnt go well.
Especially if you want your guest to RSVP by internet… a template is definetly the way to go.
here is my wedding website, for those interested!
http://www.delucapepin.com 
For ours, the OOT info — where to stay, how to get there, what to do — is really the focus. So far, it’s seemed helpful! We’ve also had a fair amount of people sign our guestbook, so I say include it.
Make sure that you don’t list “too personal” information. I once heard of an angry/jealous bride who looked up another (”nice”) bride’s wedding website– and using the information on that site (date, locations, vendors, FULL NAMES), she managed to call all the vendors (including the ceremony/reception locations) pretending to be the “nice” bride and cancelling everything!
Sorry if that was a little hard to follow… but it was a lot of drama that needed to be cleared up due to a “helpful” wedding website. I guess, just make sure the info you’re giving out is info that you’d be OK with an enemy/frenemy knowing.
I’m so glad to hear about your wedding website experiences! I’m an amateur sort of web designer (I do graphic design for work, but I’m a self-taught coder) that has made websites for my sister’s wedding and friends, but I’m so stumped on my own! I guess I just want it to be better than all the other ones I’ve made! What are you writing yours in? HTML? CSS? ActionScript? I’d love to hear more about it!
One thing that was really useful for us was to include a “Contact Us” link that had contact information for all the key players but in a new email address that we set up and had it dump into their regular email. That way, it wasn’t their real email out there on the web and if it started getting junk, we could block and change it. Also, they didn’t have to log into anything special to get to the email.
It was used for things like RSVP’s to showers/after honeymoon party, contacting someone to ask about the registries (although that info was included on the website under contact us, the theory being that if someone wanted to know where we were registered, they’d go to contact us to find out and there it would be, just so that it didn’t look to greedy as its own link), etc. We even used it for our contact info on the registry so that when we were sick of junkmail from Bed, Bath & Beyond (or wherever), it was easy to get rid of.
The domain for the website was http://www.mylastnamehislastname.com. The emails
looked like this:
Susie: bride@ourdomainname.com
John and Sarah: parentsofthegroom@ourdomainname.com
Elizabeth: maidofhonor@ourdomainname.com
We used first names only on the webpage and none at all in the email addresses.
we used http://www.weddingtracker.com. i just wanted something informative for our guests. and i liked that i found my color motif in one of their designs. if anyone wants to browse: http://www.dorothyandhenry.com
we used http://www.wedquarters.com and I can’t say enough how enjoyable the process of putting the site together was- this was the first wedding project we did.
Our family & riends all LOOOOOve it and it has the wedding colours,info about the wedding without (venues),a guestbook,album and a page for friends to request songs they want to dance to.
The site has been a hit!
wedquarters cost like $25 a year but its totally worth it!
You can view the site to see how awesome it is, http://www.damisandtoyin.com…
will be passwording it after the wedding though!
The part of our website that got the most comments was the quiz. Folks loved it! When we returned from the honeymoon, we added a wedding quiz and a honeymoon quiz, as well as the crossword puzzle from the program, and what became known as Sarah’s Famous Math/Not Math Game.
We (that is, he) did it all from scratch, so it’s definitely no-frills, but we tend to be no-frills folks in general, so it fit.
Include links with maps (also consider including a map/directions sheet with the wedding programs so people can drive to the reception). Check out (free) http://www.weddingmapper.com for an interactive map of ALL the wedding related spots on one map. Very popular.
I agree w/ all the above, especially about keeping privacy.
The website is useful for collecting RSVP’s and meal choices.
Also — Don’t give away all the surprises about your wedding; keep as much quiet as possible so people can really enjoy discovering everything at the wedding.
There are a lot to choose from. You just need to know what you’re looking for. Having my own URL was most important and a good look and feel. We used http://www.designourday.com and were pretty happy.
Hey there — thanks for featuring our wedding site.
We were really happy to have such a great working relationship with our print/invitation designer (Kym Degenaro from Sauci Creative). She gave me the design files and I made the site using the same graphics. We still get nice comments on how the whole thing worked together. I’d be happy to work with anyone looking for something similar, as I do freelance web design!
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