Wedding websites are great for helping your guests find out more about your wedding and your story! While the most expensive option on this list, Riley & Grey has the most modern and glamorous wedding website templates and come with premium features included, like a custom domain and RSVP. Choose from over 100 HTML Wedding Website Templates. All created by our Global Community of independent Web Designers and Developers. Maddie is APW's Chief Revenue Officer. She's been writing stories about boys, crushes, and relationships since she was old enough to form shapes into words, but received her formal training (and a BS) from NYU in Entertainment and Mass Media in 2008. She now spends a significant amount of time thinking about trends on the internet and whether flower crowns will be out next year. A Maine native, she currently lives on a pony farm in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Michael, their son Lincoln, and an obnoxious mastiff named Gaia. Current hair color: Natural (gasp!). It was important to us to have an unplugged ceremony, so we had the first link be “Unplugged?” On that page we briefly explained what we were hoping for and promised to share professional pics later. We also linked to the Unplugged page from the FAQ. It worked *so* well. We did digital save the dates/invites and clicking them took everyone through to the site. ![]() We didn’t have to explain to one single person about the no cameras/phones. Maybe partly just lucky, but putting it prominently on the site was the real kicker. Here is our wording from our website: “Social Media Policy For those who have noticed the Meg and Ben-shaped holes in their Facebook lives, it won’t be surprising to hear that Meg and Ben are fairly private people. As such, they request that no photos are taken of their ceremony. They’ve brought in a pretty fantastic photographer named Gary [this linked to his site] who will be documenting it to ensure that our guests can enjoy the moment. If you have reception photos and would like to share them, Meg and Ben will be adding a page to this site for that. Email the photos to [email] and they’ll put them all up by the end of July. Meg and Ben request that this event remain off social media.” I hope that helps! ![]() I really wish we had done an unplugged/ camera free ceremony and right-after the ceremony. We had everyone circle around us, and husband’s aunt is in the background of multiple photos with her big camera up on her face, then during the family photos, especially of his family, they had handed off their phones and cameras to other people and were asking them to take photos. The result, there is not one professional shot where all 10 people from his family are looking at the camera. I recall at one point yelling “We’re paying money for Jim to be here; I swear I will send the photos on as soon as he gives them to me. ![]() But I’ve got about 30 seconds of this left in me, and then I don’t care if we’ve got the shot.” The most frustrating part of his family’s camera obsession: there were no good pics from any of their cameras/ phones etc, or if there were, they haven’t shared them with us. We got a handful of blurry shots from during the ceremony from his aunt and some pics from the group shots where there are even fewer people looking at the camera than the professional shots, but overall, the only thing gained from not discouraging people from taking pics during the ceremony was his aunt feeling happy to be using the camera during the ceremony. My point: if anyone reading this is thinking about going unplugged/ camera free: DO IT! ![]() I regret not politely asking people to put the camera down during the ceremony and professional photos. Not being a photo person myself, I was surprised by the people who stayed after the ceremony to watch us take formal photos, when there was food and drinks waiting for them at the reception. Thankfully, they weren’t directly disruptive, but it did add a layer of nervousness/feeling-on-display to a part of the day that wasn’t my favorite. If they were people I was really close to, maybe I’d have felt differently, but they were the parents’-coworkers-type guests. Maybe 4 years ago now, Slate had a debate about unplugged weddings. This was before the piece featured on CNN about key shots ruined by amateur guest photographers. The tech-y debater insisted that taking photos and live tweeting is how some people experience events now; it’s how they’re “present.” Whereas the manners & morals columnist just found it rude to be so obviously interested in people who aren’t in attendance or a future time of reminisence. Any advise for future bride on how to actually get people to look at the wedding website? I got married almost 2 years ago. I spent a ton of time on the wedding website – included most of the above and more (available hotel for reservations, maps, location details, etc). I put the website info on the save-the-dates and invites and emailed it to select people. However, I think only 5-10 people actually looked at the wedding website! It was such a let down to have to answer frantic questions from people by saying, “did you check the wedding website?” “it’s on our wedding website” •. You know, I think it’s possible that the landscape was just different two years ago. It doesn’t seem like a long time, but two years ago, my grandmother wasn’t on Facebook. I mean, there are always going to be people who won’t understand that all the information they could ever need is on the website. But for the most part, I think the tide is changing and it’s going to be less of an issue as time carries on. (And as guest lists are predominantly made up of people who grew up with computers vs. People who didn’t.) Short answer: sometimes I wish we’d gotten married in 2014.:) •. We got married two weeks ago. We used glo (which was awesome) and all of our electronic save-the-dates and invites linked right to our website (where people had to RSVP). It was STILL a struggle to get people to look at the info (the brunt of this was mostly felt by our parents, who fielded most of the questions from confused people). However, as the RSVP deadline and wedding day got closer, we sent out a few group emails with some reminders and graceful encouragement to check out the website for helpful information about the weekend. Eventually all of the info got passed on one way or another (most people definitely checked it out a couple days before hand). But I second the sentiment about “giving yourself permission to try just a little less hard” on the website. We sent out electronic save-the-dates (attached a standard PDF, but sent a [slightly-]personalized email including the website link to every guest/couple/family). We also did not include RSVP cards in our invitation — just had people either RSVP online or call me (only two people called). Doing it that way, two days before our RSVP deadline we had 105 hits on our website in one day (we invited 315 guests total). (I had also send out a reminder e-mail that day to people who hadn’t RSVP’d yet, but there were a few other days where site traffic spiked to near 100.) Our average has been probably 30 people looking at the website every day. Most popular pages were 1) the registry, 2) “about us” and 3) the RSVP page, in that order. I think if you put ALL the information online, people will use the website. If it’s just a nice bonus and all the essential information conveyed on paper, people won’t remember to visit it. We used weebly pro as our platform. It includes a form option so that’s what we used for the RSVP. We had some couples RSVP on one form (like Mrs. Smith rather than Mrs. Smith’s RSVP and then Mr. Smith’s) and people often didn’t RSVP “no” for the other people in their group who weren’t coming, just yes for the ones who were. But otherwise the system worked pretty well and I had a nearly finalized guest list 2-3 days after the official RSVP deadline. I knew we had at least one recovering alcoholic – no 2 – coming to our wedding, so I wanted to be open about our alcohol situation, so they could take any steps they felt appropriate. We also had a handful of guests who wouldn’t have expected alcohol at a wedding, and wanted them to have the heads-up in case of a moral objection. We also were dealing with a huge list of allergies, and I at least felt better having put on the website how we were handling that with our buffets. I’m sure a few people avoided dishes that were actually safe for them, but we also had no questions/requests about the food except, “Where’d you get the cake?!” •. To deal with this point, we made it really clear on the invites and website (and ceremony program) that “cocktails, dinner, and dancing” would immediately follow the ceremony. As a guest, I always preferred to know what was coming next. Also for food allergies, we actually had a spot where guests could indicate their restrictions on the RSVP card, and then worked super hard with the caterer to make sure that everyone would be able to eat well (and all of the dishes were really well marked for allergens). Our website was really important for our guests because our wedding was in the middle of nowhere. In our corner of northern Michigan, there is no such thing as a coffee shop within a thirty mile radius. That turned out to be key information for some of our guests, especially my family, who is from another state. We also had to make some of the park reservations ourselves to make sure everyone was together, so we put a simple form on the site to see who needed rooms. We’ve had sixteen wedding between this summer and last, so I also know couples who haven’t had a site at all. Those turned out fine. Really depends on the crowd and the wedding. Most of our guests are traveling for our wedding, where we live, and we really want people to enjoy their visit outside of our wedding if they have free time! So we made a pretty extensive list of our favorite things to do and, most importantly, our favorite places to eat. Question about the wedding party thing: We don’t have a page for the wedding party on our website, but my MIL insists that “people will want to know” who is standing with us, so I was planning on putting photos and short bios in our wedding zine/program booklet. Will that have the same effect as making other people feel left out? Do “people” at weddings really want to know who’s in the wedding party? Our friends just got married and opted to not have a wedding website. When we lost their invite and didn’t know where or when the reception was (in another venue, in another town than the ceremony), we were left to awkwardly approach strangers on the wedding day to avoid bothering the bride and groom. It doesn’t sound like a big deal at all, but it was really stressful to be in a strange place and to not know where we were going. We might have just stressed about it more because we go to people’s weddings for a living, and we are always really organized about it, so we were worried we were terrible guests for losing their invitations. All that is to say, people definitely will look at your wedding website for info if you chose to have one, especially folks who worry about bothering you with a bunch of questions when you’re trying to plan your wedding. Well, now, “formal etiquette” doesn’t say you can’t tell people about your registry ever. If by “formal etiquette” we mean “what Grandmama thinks is appropriate”, the accepted thing is to tell people where you’re registered, *if* they ask. But until asked “where are you registered?”, one doesn’t want to appear too eager for gift$sn$tuff. Having tried this experiment (aka, how it was done until 10ish years ago) with my own upcoming wedding, I can tell you that word-of-mouth is a perfectly effective way for people to find out where you’re registered; people have purchased from our registries at about the same rate as website-advertised registries. Also there are creepy aggregators that vacuum up your registry info even if it’s not on your website, so if someone googles your name + wedding they are likely to find it anyway. If you didn’t love the idea of the internet at large knowing your china pattern, and/or you don’t really love the idea of a present wish list, pick one or two places to register, tell your mom and partner’s mom about it, receive presents and approval of Grandmama, the end. This could probably be a topic for its own thread, but throwing it out here – any thoughts on website privacy? Unfortunately there is someone I am quite nervous about finding out details of our wedding, but about half our guests are traveling from out of state (and more than that traveling enough to need a hotel), and so I think we really need a website. I hear passwords are hated by guests, but I need to balance our guests’ convenience with our privacy and everyone’s safety (I hope I am overblowing this, but you just never know). Would love to hear any thoughts on this. We didn’t have a wedding website, and privacy was one factor. I agree with KitBee- guests can either make note of the password, or they can make their own hotel arrangements by, I dunno, using Google. Wedding websites are still a rather new phenomenon- before they existed, people seemed to manage to get themselves to weddings. I think they’re a nice feature to offer your guests, but as it’s a favor you’re doing for them, I think you’re entitled to handle it in a way that makes you feel comfortable. I guess I worded my original comment really poorly. Let clarify: I was trying to assuage her concerns that “passwords are hated by guests,” by saying that for her website (because it sounds like she wants one, which is enough reason in and of itself, but also as I said I think they’re a nice favor for your guests AND as you added, helpful for the couple as well), her guests can either manage the password situation or fend for themselves. At no point did I suggest not having a website. That wouldn’t be helpful advice, as this post is about how to have a wedding website, and not how to forgo a wedding website. She wanted to know how to have one, but safely. I was just pointing out that if any of her guests really hated the idea of a password, then they can forgo the convenience of using her site, rather than sacrifice her security. (I hope that was more clear; I clearly botched the first comment because you were not alone in reading it the way you did!) •. I’d read horror stories about homes being broken into because robbers learned the owners would be gone from their wedding websites, so I gave ours a really easy password, and it displayed the hint: “This is the only State in the United States that the bride and groom have been in together. [case sensitive]” We weren’t long distance or anything, so it let anyone who actually knew us enter the password, while making us a slightly tougher (but admittedly not impossible) mark for thieves. We did have one person half-complain that she couldn’t get onto the website, but when we pointed out that there was the hint, she admitted she felt foolish. Obviously, that formula won’t work for someone who knows you, though. Another option for the techy DIY-crowd, if you want more freedom than what the standard wedding websites will give you: we are using Google Sites for our wedding website. It’s free, and my fiance purchased a domain name for $13 for a year and set it to redirect to our site, which was surprisingly easy to do. We selected a simple template with a white background (I think it’s actually called “Simple Theme”) and I designed a header image that matches our invitations. I added a map with directions and we set up an RSVP page with a Google Form for the RSVPs. I think the hardest part was turning off the “Comments” section on each page. I will say that I think the website becomes much more important for if you have a lot of out of town guests and/or you’re doing a destination wedding. The majority of our guests were flying across the country from the northeast to AZ for our wedding. So we included a lot of our favorite restaurants and things to do on our website which many people told us they used and enjoyed (we included a lot of goofy commentary and ‘insider tips’). We also included an FAQ on the weather, the vibe of the wedding, and some funny questions (How do I deal with all the rattlesnakes?). We got a lot of compliments on our RSVP system and it worked really well for us. In the invitation guests were instructed to RSVP online by following a link on our website to a survey through SurveyMonkey. There we had an easy survey asking about alcohol preferences, which events people might attend, and of course, their RSVP answer. Our story not exactly classyin a nutshell is that basically we were a pair of horny virgins who thought to ourselves,”Well this is probably a bad idea.SCREW IT!” And then everything worked out and we found each other to be rather high quality and compatible human beings. Maybe we will rewrite it as a spoof or maybe skip it. I would’t find it at all weird if you left it out. You could even sub in some info about things you have in common if you like. Shelley and super awesome partner both love doing pizza and movie night or mountain biking or attending outdoor concerts. Or other things you like about your self as a couple, Shelley is mortally afraid of spiders, lucky she has awesome partner, who is even more deathly afraid of them and they freak out together when encountering these demons. On the mode of humorous and endearing if you know what I mean. I want to let guests know what to wear without having a dress code. Our wedding will be essentially a backyard picnic/BBQ with lawn games and dancing. I want people to be comfortable, but not too casual (no jeans, shorts, etc.). After I tell people the venue, their first question is “what should I wear?” So I was thinking of adding this to the FAQ page on our website – but how do I word this so I am informing, not instructing?! Is it considered semi-casual? Any examples of wording is appreciated:) •. I could not tell you etiquette, but I’m having a semi formal wedding, followed by a casual reception (with a four hour gap), and I added a dress code in with information about the weather and the bonfire and everybody seems happy with it. “Up at 7000 ft in October at night it can get chilly! Most guests will want long pants and jackets. We will be having a bonfire as well, so while the ceremony is daytime semi formal, the reception will be very casual! Please don’t wear anything that can’t get smoky!” It may cross the line into instructing, IDK, but it’s worked really well for my guests. Since we’re having a small wedding with more or less the same dress code, we’ve kind of been able to get around this by asking key people for “advice.” Basically, “we’re trying to figure out how to tell people no suits but no jeans; do you think ‘________’ would work?,” which both gives us feedback and allows us to be a bit more direct with people who might not read into less direct language. I don’t know if this will work for your people, but next time someone asks you what to wear, you might “try out” some language on them. I think dress codes are so helpful as a guest! I went to a beach destination wedding and EVERYONE was asking the couple what to wear because they didn’t have anything about it on the website. The bride (wanting to be nice) said “oh, whatever you want to,” but confided in me that she still wanted it to look like a wedding. I would so much rather be told what to expect in advance than arrive over or under dressed and feel uncomfortable. I don’t know why it’s considered rude to tell people how fancy (or not) your wedding is going to be and that they should dress appropriately. Then you have the uncle who was told our wedding was casual by another family member and showed up in shorts! He clearly didn’t visit the wedding website:) •. For ours I made an silly infographic staring Mila Cunis and Matt Damon to show people what to wear. But they only saw that if they clicked a “more details” link next to the text “The ceremony will be outside on the terrace and the reception will be both inside and outside. Dress to look sharp and stay comfortable!” You can see mine if you want to be nosy. For what it’s worth, no one bothered us with silly questions. But we also forced everyone to RSVP though the website which might be the only reason anyone saw the guest info. Most of our guests visited our website. We know that because of the number of times people said, “Your website is so cute! What hotel should we stay? Are you registered anywhere?” We had the simplest possible layout, with prominent links for accommodations and gift information. We didn’t even have an about us page, it was literally ALL useful info, that people somehow completely missed. I don’t even know what part they thought was cute. It was mostly a waste of time, and we were really glad we used a free one.
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March 2018
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