Cheater, Cheater

Cheater, Cheater

July 4th, 2010 @ 3:50 pm by Mrs. Sand Dollar
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I have a confession to make. I used a template site for my wedding website (cringe). Yes, I know. But I’m only slightly ashamed. Being a professional designer (and yes, website developer) keeps me pretty busy. And the thought of taking those potentially money-making hours away from my schedule to work on a personal site only up for a couple of months wasn’t really sitting well. And since I’ve been using WeddingWire for all my planning needs, I figured, what the heck? I’ll use their website tool!

And I am so glad I did! It was beyond easy, and they have loads of cute options.

I chose the fall leaves design since that was our color inspiration, and though it doesn’t match our wedding exactly (well, really only vaguely), I’m really happy with it. You can personalize your welcome message, and add a photo gallery along with your love story.

The features alone are worth it, as it would take me hours to code my own database for the RSVP option, and it even embeds my blog as a feed!

It saved me time, added great functionality to the whole planning process, and overall was just a dream to do. Now I can tell guests I have a website out there, and they can find the link to our registry and everything. As much as the designer in me cringes that it was not hand-crafted to match our wedding, the realist in me loves the penny-free process (yes, it’s also FREE!) and breezy completion. I’ve even corrupted a fellow designer bride to use it too!

What is the easiest to use wedding website site you’ve found?

Tags: houston, wedding-website |

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25 Responses to “Cheater, Cheater”

1 2 Last

Member

jmax (message) 104 posts, Blushing bee

weddingwire all the way! I love using it, and I love that people can RSVP online!

7/4/10 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

Member

Miss Brown Bear (message) 265 posts, Helper bee

I used weddingwire and I used the same Fall leaves theme!

7/4/10 @ 4:26 pm (reply)

Member

LittlestBirds (message) 2,605 posts, Sugar bee

We used ewedding, and I wouldn’t describe it as easy to use, but they had a template that was perfect for our theme and colors. I wrestled with it enough to make it do what we wanted. Glad to hear that even design professionals use the pre-fab sites, I felt a little guilty for not working with FI to code our own, but as you said, the effort saved is well worth it.

7/4/10 @ 4:31 pm (reply)

Member

ktkates87 (message) 78 posts, Worker bee

We used ewedding as well….still feel it sorta cheesy and wish I’d just taken the time to do my own layout but whatever! With the limited time between engagement and wedding (4 months) there were more important things to get together!!!

7/4/10 @ 4:57 pm (reply)

Member

elaineathon (message) 349 posts, Helper bee

Yay, WeddingWire! I also found it really easy to use with lots of great features. With everything else that needs to be done for a wedding, who has time to code their own website??

7/4/10 @ 4:59 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Earrings (message) 2,477 posts, Buzzing bee

we used a template site too mywedding.com
I’m just too lazy to design my own!

7/4/10 @ 5:05 pm (reply)

Member

MOHmama (message) 404 posts, Helper bee

For my own wedding, we made a really simple one ourselves. For my sister’s I wanted to go with mywedding because it had the most categories, but I wanted it to be more interactive for guests with polls and such, so I decided to just go with what I know….a blog. =p Wordpress has a few themes that have the “website” look and feel.

7/4/10 @ 6:15 pm (reply)

Member

animated_librarian (message) 290 posts, Helper bee

We used mywedding.com. It was easy and people have responded well to it. I am sure no one coming to the wedding cares that I used a template they are just glad there is one place to find all the information about the wedding they might need

7/4/10 @ 6:21 pm (reply)

Member

Joshs Girl (message) 197 posts, Blushing bee

Mywedding.com for us! So easy! And, we have loved the RSVP category; just wish we had opted for the maximum of two for rsvp’ing, per email address.

7/4/10 @ 6:37 pm (reply)

10.

Member

tashawilson (message) 118 posts, Blushing bee

i used myinvitationlink.com for my wedding invitations versus paper. you can use their uploaded templates or design your own. you can also add that special song for your guests to listen to. it comes with a RSVP link and a menu option as well. it’s presented like powerpoint, 20 slides. you can also add pictures of the wedding so that the guests may see. i really love it and the guests have replied they loved our presentation.

7/4/10 @ 7:07 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

Kristy

I checked it out. It looks awesome. Shame that as a bride that doesnt come from the US or Canada that I can’t use most of its functionality!!

7/4/10 @ 8:25 pm (reply)

12.

Bee

Miss Cardigan (message) 8,645 posts, Bee Keeper

We used a template site too, though I really wanted to try to create our own. It just wasn’t gonna happen, haha. Yours is really pretty!

7/4/10 @ 8:32 pm (reply)

13.

Member

Marinara (message) 392 posts, Helper bee

I didn’t realize it was cringe-worthy to use a website template! Isn’t that what most people do?

7/5/10 @ 1:06 am (reply)

14.

Member

littlemissmango (message) 1,818 posts, Buzzing bee

@Marinara:
Only if you’re a web/graphic designer like Miss SD!

The site looks great, thanks for the tip! I’ll have to keep WW in mind for that!

7/5/10 @ 5:26 am (reply)

15.

Guest

Lisa

The story is funny, but the site looks great. I’m going to use this site as well.

7/5/10 @ 5:29 am (reply)

16.

Member

sapphirebride (message) 1,747 posts, Bumble bee

My fiance does web development professionally and we still used a pre-fab site. We used ProjectWedding’s templates. We found them quite easy to use and loved the map options.

7/5/10 @ 10:39 am (reply)

17.

Member

pdxskigirl (message) 18 posts, Newbee

I used WedShare.com and have been really happy with it. I did use one of their templates, but was able to customize it (color, layout, modules) really easily too. They have both a free and a paid option; I started with the free version and ended up paying for them to host our domain name so I can keep the site going after the wedding (change the layout to lose the wedding only features, post picture, etc.)

7/5/10 @ 12:43 pm (reply)

18.

Bee

Miss Giraffe (message) 4,216 posts, Honey bee

I feel the same way as a designer! I just don’t have all the extra time to do it for myself.

7/5/10 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

19.

Member

Jamielee (message) 142 posts, Blushing bee

I used mywedding.com because it let me use my own domain name, and people have loved it, it has worked out really well for us!

7/5/10 @ 5:05 pm (reply)

20.

Guest

Hana

Also used mywedding.com for my cousin’s wedding but after reading your post I checked out weddingwire and it looks great! Thanks for the post - will direct some of our brides there!

7/5/10 @ 5:17 pm (reply)

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