Miss Turkey, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 29, Brand ManagementFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, ConsultantEngagement Date: February 2011Wedding Date: May 2012Venue: The Rittenhouse HotelAbout Me: I'm a marketer who loves a good glass of wine, anything pumpkin-flavored, every crime drama on TV and, of course, Mr. Turkey. It's funny to say out loud, but we're former coworkers turned betrothed---now planning a wedding in the city of Brotherly Love. For three years, we've been eating our way through Philadelphia, playing tourist at home, and cheering for every sports team in the 215. Although we've hit some unplanned snags along the way, we're determined to have a rocking party this spring with our loud, fun families and friends.
Yes, I know we’re throwing a great big rocking party for our wedding guests and that should be enough. However, with a 6:30PM ceremony our out of town guests, even those that arrive Saturday morning, will have a decent amount of time to spare. What ever will they do to keep busy?
To help our guests use their free time wisely, Mr. Turkey and I spent this weekend creating a section on our wedding website entitled “What to do in Philly”. We took this pretty seriously, as we always enjoy exploring when at an out of town wedding and haven’t always found a lot of help prior to our trips.
Mrs. Funnel Cake, Zürich, Switzerland/Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 24, Visual Communication DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Application EngineerEngagement Date: May 30, 2010Wedding Date: October 2011Venue: Catholic church followed by a botanical conservatoryAbout Me: I'm an American designer who moved to Switzerland for love after a fairytale beginning at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I love travel, photography, museums, learning German so I can speak with my mother-in-law, cooking (eating), cuddling, and I'm not afraid to try something new even if it terrifies me. My Swiss/Brazilian man and I are both down to earth people planning a traditional Catholic wedding in my hometown with some quirky cultural exceptions to reflect our different backgrounds. We look forward to celebrating with friends and family from all over the world in a classic, sophisticated fusion of heritage and love.
(Alternative title: Nothing we do is ever simple.)
Way back when we first began thinking up our Helvetian invites, we knew that we wanted to include a wedding website with an RSVP option. And almost as soon as I was engaged, one of my first wedding resources was The Knot, which has that handy free website function built in. I asked Mr. Funnel Cake if it was OK to have the wedding website be English only since this was the free option.
FC agreed that this was a good idea under the condition that we buy a custom URL because he didn’t want our wedding website to be http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/MissFunnelCakeandMrFunnelCake, and I don’t blame him. I bought a custom domain from Godaddy and the wedding website was dunzo. Or so I thought…
(Because you knew that part was coming!) When we were well into the process of finalising the invite design, the website came up again a lil’ something like this:
Mr. Funnel Cake: What are we doing for the wedding website?
Me: We’re using the free site on The Knot, remember?
Mr. Funnel Cake: WHAT? Nooo! We have to have the website in German and Portuguese too! We can’t have just English!
Miss Carousel, Dusseldorf, Germany/Garda, ItalyAge and Occupation: 29, International Product ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Front End DeveloperEngagement Date: May 29, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: I’m an American-Italian girl living in Germany with my Belgian fiancé, planning a wedding in Italy. I can’t wait to show our guests the wonderful Lake Garda, Verona, and want our wedding to be a fun filled, charming, day in the life of “La dolce vita.” Mr. C and I love spending time together, and have added wedding related activities to our cooking nights, dance lessons, and road trips. We love sampling restaurants, could listen to Sinatra all day, and are just a tad geeky and into technology. As we want all of our passions to be part of our marriage, what better way to start than by incorporating them in our wedding day?
In my previous post I explained the reasons why we decided to create a wedding wedsite and how reaching a successful final result helped us feel more confident in our potential as a team.
Step 1: Privacy settings
It is very important to decide how much information you want to make public on the web. Personal details on you and your FI (dates, ages, wedding date, locations) could easily be used by the wrong people to gain access to your identity, accounts and home. For this reason Mr. Caro and I have decided to install password protection to the site and to make it non indexed by search engines. This means that the site can only be accessed via a password and that it will never turn up on a search result list from a search engine.
Miss Carousel, Dusseldorf, Germany/Garda, ItalyAge and Occupation: 29, International Product ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Front End DeveloperEngagement Date: May 29, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: I’m an American-Italian girl living in Germany with my Belgian fiancé, planning a wedding in Italy. I can’t wait to show our guests the wonderful Lake Garda, Verona, and want our wedding to be a fun filled, charming, day in the life of “La dolce vita.” Mr. C and I love spending time together, and have added wedding related activities to our cooking nights, dance lessons, and road trips. We love sampling restaurants, could listen to Sinatra all day, and are just a tad geeky and into technology. As we want all of our passions to be part of our marriage, what better way to start than by incorporating them in our wedding day?
As many bees before me, Mr. Caro and I decided to make a wedding wedsite. We wanted to create a great wedsite that would amaze our wedding guests mostly because, considering our professions, it was kind of expected from us (we both work in the online sector, I in marketing, and Mr. Caro in development).
Aside from that, we had some great reasons for wanting a wedsite:
Single Point of Contact: since our wedding is mostly a destination wedding we needed to have a central spot for information on the schedule, travel options and locations
Easy Updates: When we first changed our venue, then the ceremony, it was easy to update everyone by updating the information on the wedsite
Interactivity: Our guests can comment on the wedsite, answer a poll, and after the wedding they will be able to upload all their pictures on the site
Wedding Planning support: We decided to forgo an electronic RSVP but will have our registry on our wedsite
Anticipation building: Reading about us, how we met and about the wedding planning progress made many of our guests feel more close to us and has helped build anticipation for the wedding
I am very happy and very proud at how it turned out. You can see the home page screenshot here:
Mrs. Biscuit, Morgantown, WVAge and Occupation: 24, Dental StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Chemist at a pharmaceutical companyEngagement Date: April 2010Wedding Date: July 2011Venue: Catholic Church, Lakeview Golf Resort and SpaAbout Me: I'm an engineer who decided to trek back to my hometown three years ago to become skilled in the arts of drilling and filling. I'm engaged to a pretty awesome guy who tests your assorted benzodiazepines by day and home brews by night. Together we have two fur children, Tsali and Tobias N. Fünkat. I'm a lazy perfectionist and eternal sorority girl who enjoys running, crafting, string cheese, good beer, and bad reality TV. We are planning a Big Fat Italian/Sicilian/Polish wedding filled with DIY details and are expecting 300 +/- 50 guests. Our whimsical summer affair is themed "Alice attends the Mad Hatter Vintage Garden Tea Party in a Ballroom. She Thinks That The Venue is Odd for a Vintage Garden Party, but is Tripping on LSD, so She Doesn't Really Care." Yes, I am the Dickens of themes.
To date, my most exciting project-turned-giant-pain-in-the-butt has definitely been the wedding website. You see, in undergrad, my focus within my major was Systems and Control Engineering, so I did my fair share of programming and it was something I really missed. So, clearly, I would want to code my own website from scratch. Right? Right.
However, life got in the way as it usually does. Between studying for my first set of boards last summer and attempting to juggle patients, classes, and my requisite hour of lazy time per day it became glaringly apparent that I could not spend 100 man hours making the Zeus of wedding websites.
My wedding website dreams were subsequently dashed. Read more…
Mrs. Giraffe, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 23, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Music Student TeacherEngagement Date: October 23, 2008Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Trinity Lutheran Church & Idlewild Country ClubAbout Me: Coming from the suburbs of the Windy City, you'll often find me with my foot in my mouth while laughing for no reason or telling bad knock knock jokes. I've been crafty for as long as I can remember, and will DIY something twice over before I have someone do it for me. I'm a semi-awkward, typeface obsessed, design junkie and have been know to break out my dance moves for no reason as well as try my best to be ridiculous at all times. My love of pop culture, wordplay, and graph paper almost rivals my love of Mr. Giraffe (who is just the bee's knees). After a 2.5 year engagement, we're planning a modern-in-disguise traditional wedding, and cannot wait!
Here’s the thing, hive, I was totally anti-wedding website. I thought they were nice, but I didn’t think people really needed them (unless you’re having a destination wedding)…I was seriously against them. I felt they were really just time (and maybe a little cash) that I didn’t want to spend.
There. End of story.
Except…Except the Ostriches have one. And when she told us about hers, then I had to have one.
Gerbera commented on Miss O’s post that she used Yola to create her wedding site. Gerbera was even nice enough to share her site with me (thanks!). It was like a light bulb going off above my head. See, I all read have a paid Yola account and 1 site through them. Funny story, if you have a (paid) account with them, you can make up to 25 sites. I also never used the credit they give you for a domain name, so I got that for free too!
Mrs. Ostrich, San Francisco/HawaiiAge and Occupation: 30, Fashion Buyer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 38, CopywriterEngagement Date: October 4, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: Sweet ceremony by the sea and sunset celebration on the North Shore of HawaiiAbout Me: Born in the city of angels and residing in the city by the bay, I’m a fearless fashion buyer by day, a passionate blog author by night and a dreamy bride-to-be in between. I thank my lucky stars to live in such a stunning city that gives me gifts like organic honey lavender ice cream, movie nights in the park, tucked away beaches, legendary record stores, '80s dance parties, awesome sports teams, stellar flea markets, and vintage bookshops. Oh, and I love to dance! We always find every excuse to escape to the beach, and decided a little seaside wedding in Hawaii is our idea of bliss. Full of our favorite people, music, food and sparkly lights, this is one sunset celebration we will always remember.
Today, hive, I’m going to share my journey on how to make your own, one-of-a-kind wedding website…the easy peasy way.
I bypassed the other wedding website options—Wedding Channel, Wedding Wire, The Knot, etc.—since I knew of another site that could make our website exactly how we wanted it:
Mrs. Lox, BaltimoreAge and Occupation: 33, Government WorkerFiance's Age and Occupation: 35. IT ConsultantEngagement Date: May 8, 2010Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Vandiver InnAbout Me: I’m an East Coast gal born and bred and a suburban brat turned city rat for the last year. Now Mr. Lox and I enjoy walking all kinds of places, having the coolest things around in our backyard, and especially our garage parking. I love gadgets, toys, Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream, monkeys, and our insane cats. I’m a blonde by birth and a redhead by choice. I’m that girl in the cubicle farm with all the cool toys and the file cabinet covered in magnetic poetry. I still use smiley faces in my emails, whether people like it or not. This is not the first rodeo for Mr. Lox nor me. And together, we are planning an intimate afternoon wedding on a budget we can afford by ourselves.
Well, it happened. I mean, I didn’t think it would, but it did. Oh no, I thought I was such a cool, laid-back bride. And only smart cool people are coming to my wedding. That is the joy of a small affair later in life. It’s all cool and laid back and made of awesome. Until today, that is.
Today, a wedding guest lost her mind. See, it started when she got our STD (*snicker*), apparently. She promptly visited the website and signed our guestbook there. “We have saved the date, now we just need to find a room.” I may be all calm and stuff, but I know passive aggressive when I see it. And I know this woman…have for all of my life. I was frustrated. Before the STDs (*snort*) went out, I got a list of recommended places to stay from the B&B where the wedding is (theirs being at the top of the list, of course). And I added said list to our wedding website to get the news out to our guests. So I was irked. But, you know, I just let it go. I’m cool, so that’s how I roll.
See how chill she is? I can’t even do yoga in sweatpants, let alone a gown. (Source)
Mrs. Cardigan, AustinAge and Occupation: 21, Student/Soon-to-be Special Education TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 20, Student/Soon-to-be Accounting Systems AnalystEngagement Date: August 16, 2009Wedding Date: January 2011Venue: Vintage VillasAbout Me: I'm a native Austinite who was raised as a die-hard Aggie. Luckily, I'm a pretty persuasive girl because I managed to convince my high school boyfriend (now fiance!), Mr. Cardigan, to ditch his hardcore Longhorn ways and join me up at A&M, where we currently reside with our adorable dogs, Cullen & Ranger. We're currently planning a bright, cheery wedding with a ridiculous amount of DIY projects that I can't wait to tackle! I love crafting in any form, reading, and margaritas (I think I love them the most!). Organization is what keeps me sane and I love helping others, which is probably why I ended up as an education major. It gets a little chaotic sometimes when you're planning a wedding among all of the papers, projects, finals, and certification exams, but we're having the time of our lives and we can't wait to get started on our journey as husband and wife - and we're so excited to share our wedding with the hive!
One of the most fun things about sending out our save the dates has been seeing the hit counter rise on our wedding website! I put so much thought and effort into creating it, so it’s so exciting to know that people are actually visiting it!
To be honest, I kind of feel like I copped out a little on the creation of the website - my original intent was to start from scratch and create a kick-ass website with its own domain name and all that jazz. But I really don’t have ANY talent in the area of web design, and I’m too cheap to actually purchase a domain name. So it was decided that I’d use one of the nifty little free wedding website creators. But which one? There are SO many options and I was kind of overwhelmed by them!
I went a little crazy when I was trying to choose one. I can’t even remember which all websites I tried out, but I created at least 4 different websites and then subsequently deleted them before I actually settled on one. Read more…
Mrs. Sand Dollar, HoustonAge and Occupation: 24, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 22, Electrical TechnicianEngagement Date: January 8, 2010Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: MacLean ParkAbout Me: I'm a domestic diva down to the core. I heart cooking, sewing, baking, decorating and making sure we have a hand-crafted home. The best part about the wedding is I get to incorporate it all! I make sure I put my art degree to good use by screen printing, craft knife cutting, and a whole lotta graphic design. We're having a big-time party on a small-time budget, and I promise to show you a boot-scootin', barbecue-eatin', finger-lickin' good time! Mr. Sand Dollar and I spend most of our time on DIY projects or traipsing around the outdoors with our two pooches Rory and Juno. I'm looking forward to sharing our journey with all of you!
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.
Mrs. Pashmina, NYC/Catalina Island, CAAge and Occupation: 28, Arts EducationFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, IT AdministratorEngagement Date: April 26th, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catalina Country Club, Catalina Island, CaliforniaAbout Me: I'm a laid-back Cali girl who moved to NYC for school, and ended up staying for love. My fiance is a quick-witted Jersey boy, a self-proclaimed Foodie and the funniest man I've ever met. Together we love exploring the city streets embarking on our next misadventure---and yes, this often involves eating off food carts and trying "the next big thing". I'm the girl in the sundress, snapping photos and collecting trinkets of memorabilia along the way. As a girly girl at heart, I am excited about our romantic natural island wedding incorporating our American & Filipino traditions.
Early on I decided that I wanted to make a wedding website for two main reasons: 1. I knew that I wanted to share a lot of information with our guests. Most of this could be found easily on the web (and primarily on the web). 2. This information could be provided to them quickly. Much earlier than when we would eventually send out our invitations.
Image from eWedding.com
I started looking at the free websites provided by the big wedding sites, primarily TheKnot.com and Brides.com. But I just was not happy with their free designs, because, well, they looked cheap. I wanted a website that people could go to that didn’t look any different than any other website. I especially didn’t want it to look cheaper than any other website they would go to. Read more…
Mrs. Pin Cushion, Oakland, CAAge and Occupation: 25, Nurse Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, PhD StudentEngagement Date: November 23, 2008Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Radonich Ranch, Los GatosAbout Me: I'm the 3 Cs: crafty, creative and quirky (oh, that's not a C? Close enough!). I'm also a recycling fanatic, fluent in bad accents and I have the loudest laughter this side of the Mississippi. I have not just one sweet tooth, but a whole mouth full of sweet teeth. I cry at 97.4% of all movies I see, but my fiance's always there to hand me a tissue. My geek-chic fiance and I are planning a wedding full of color, cookies and handmade goodness and I can't wait to spill the beans on all of our crazy ideas!
After Mr. Pin Cushion and I (and my parents, and my parents’ employees, and my ex-uncle’s dog walker) created our Save the Date cards, we figured it might be a good idea to set up a website… considering we’d put a web address on the cards (I told you I have these glimmering moments of genius). Neither Mr. PC or I know anything about web design. But we like to challenge ourselves (and raise our blood pressures from stress while doing so). So instead of choosing one of the lovely build-yourself-a-very-nice-website-the-easy-way, we forged ahead with our own website design using iWeb.
I leaned heavily (like, fully body weight) on Mrs. Cupcake’s iWeb tutorial. And I bumbled and fumbled my way along. After I managed to makes something that I was pretty pleased with, I gave myself a hearty pat on the back and let Mr. Pin Cushion do the more internet savvy part of actually getting it online.
Some screen shots to show offer our handy-work:
The home page (in which, by posting, I shout, “Anonymity, Shamonymity!”)
Mrs. Frog, Phoenix, AZ/Chelan, WA
Age and Occupation: 29, Public Relations
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Online SalesEngagement Date: February 8, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Amy's ManorAbout Me: I'm an opinionated Midwestern girl now living in the Valley of the Sun marrying a laid back Northwestern guy. I'm equal parts sass, silly and sweet. I'm fiercely loyal with a strong devotion to my family and friends. I have a not-so-secret obsession with apple juice, a new obsession with DIY projects and I love a really good cheese plate...with lots of wine. After 7 blissful years of dating, I'm having the time of my life planning the destination wedding of my dreams to my Mr. Frog-turned-Prince Charming.
OK, so that’s not our actual wedding website address but you won’t be surprised to know that this post is all about our wedding website. After deciding on the date and location and then determining our venue, it was the perfect opportunity to find our internet home base.
We knew we wanted something simple but it needed to have at least one of our colors and preferably… be (our favorite wedding word, which coincidentally is also our favorite four letter word - mind out of the gutter people) free.
I searched through all of the usual suspects (allow LMGTFY to help, click here) and ultimately found that mywedding.com was the best choice for our needs. Not only do they have a variety of unique templates but they offer customization options and it’s all… ding, ding, ding – FREE. Cue the choir of angels.
Mrs. Chick, HoustonAge and Occupation: 28, Rights and Reproduction ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Computer ProgrammerEngagement Date: November 15, 2008Wedding Date: April 2010Venue: A farm outside of HoustonAbout Me: Mr. Chick and I met almost ten years ago at Baker Blues, a college jazz party. He was attracted to my intensity, and I was mesmerized by his trivia pursuit skills and his dorm furniture adorned with his initials. We've grown more sophisticated through the years, with our love of wine, owning a house together, and parenthood (of a cat), but we have not lost our silliness or childish sense of humor!
Since Mr. Chick and I both have names starting with the letter “A”, we have always called ourselves the A-Team. Not to mention that I totally learned how to speak English from watching every episode of the show when we moved to the States. Read more…
Mrs. Dolphin, Gainesville, FLAge and Occupation: 24, Graduate Architecture StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Interactive Interface DeveloperEngagement Date: February 14, 2008Wedding Date: May 2010Venue: Plantation Bay Country ClubAbout Me: I’m currently a Graduate Student at the University of Florida studying Architecture. I enjoy playing Scrabble with my Fiance, rooting for the Florida Gators, making any drink that involves a blender, cleaning (yes... I’m crazy), design... GOOD design that is, the new Pepsi with natural sugar, taking pictures, discovering new places in the U.S., and obsessing over doing (and designing) everything myself for our upcoming wedding!
Mr. Dolphin immediately started building us a wedding website the day after we got engaged (a whole 2 years ago). So, at the time, we quickly picked some wedding colors (blue & green) and he got to work. Now that our invitations are out in the mail (eek! I’m jittery with excitement!), we felt we needed to update our wedding website, since we are referring our guests to our website in our invitations, for further details (directions, detailed menu, registry, etc).
Okay… so I have to tell you—Mr. Dolphin and I have been putting off the wedding website redesign for weeks. As I like to say, we were avoiding it like the plague. This past weekend, Mr. Dolphin took matters into his own hands and forced both of us to sit down and redesign the site. I was kicking and screaming the whole time, as I felt watching my recorded shows, Grey’s Anatomy and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, were more fun.
With the redesign (well, it was more of a color change, and landing page change), our new color scheme (aqua & yellow), and our new design palette I developed over winter break, were incorporated.
Before: our old design colors and fonts… Read more…
