GETTING STARTED WITH YOUR WEDDING WEBSITE
Wedding websites have certainly come a long way over the last decade! What was once a luxury option for your wedding has now become an essential tool for communicating with your wedding guests. No longer do your guests have to wait until they receive your invitation in the mail to book their hotel accommodations or worry about misplacing the invite once it’s in their hands – let your wedding website do that work for you!
Now more than ever, in the current climate of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, wedding websites have become a crucial piece of the wedding planning puzzle. So many couples have had to, unfortunately, postpone and reschedule their wedding day due to COVID-19 and the restrictions that have come along with that. For all of these couples, we’re encouraging them to use their wedding website as the main form of communication for their wedding party and guests about hotel accommodations, wedding weekend itinerary and any updated information. This is a one-stop shop for updates instead of having to reach out to each guest individually. For the couples who have weddings later in the year and are unsure about having to postpone, it could be helpful to include a note in their invitations reminding their guests about their wedding website. We love this wording for the card from our friends at Magnificent Milestones. They can still rely on this tool to streamline updates about any future postponements!
Now let’s get into the nuts and bolts about creating that all-important wedding website!
What to Include: The Info
A standard wedding website typically houses an overview timeline of the weekend festivities, hotel accommodation details, guest transportation options and may even include some fun details about your relationship such as your engagement story and an intro to your wedding party.
This tool can be used throughout your planning months and can be referenced on your save the dates and wedding invitations. Think of how much paper (and $$) you'll save if all that important information is housed online! As you have more details locked in, you can continue to update the site and keep your guests informed.
When creating the site, be sure to be clear and concise with your information. The hotel room block details should include everything they need to know from booking instructions to block cut-off dates, so guests don't miss their opportunity to get their hotel room booked!
The overview timeline should be just that - an overview of the weekend. Give them what they need to know and keep it at that: times of major events, locations (including addresses), and any attire instructions.
What to Include: The Fun Stuff!
Keep the rest of the site fun and playful! Include photos of you and your beloved, photos of your pets, or photos of your wedding party.
Provide guests with a list of your favorite local restaurants, museums and attractions that they may want to check out during their down time. We’ve seen a huge uptick in couples who are not originally from Chicago hosting their weddings here, so most of their guests are unfamiliar with the city as well. We sort of view their weddings as “destination,” so it’s super important to give their guests lots of suggestions of fun local things to do on their trip!
Getting Started
The only sort of "con" to creating a wedding website is that among the free options available, they tend to be limited in terms of design options. Most will not allow you to customize beyond the content, so you're limited to their colors, layouts and font styles. If you're willing to splurge on a paid website, you'll have more customization options, but most couples aren't interested in adding that line to their wedding budget.
Sites like The Knot, Zola, and Minted which already have wedding-centric materials included in their services can be a great way to keep your wedding website “on-brand” with the rest of your invites and other materials. These sites, as mentioned above, don’t offer a lot of customization but are optimal for brides and grooms who don’t have much design experience. These platforms allow you to select from their themes and color palettes and plug in your photos and original copy.
Alternatively, more general website builders like Wix and Squarespace allow for complete customization while still offering structure for design beginners. Both platforms allow you to choose from templates designed to house wedding websites, but give you the freedom to change color palettes, fonts, photo size, and more. Wix and Squarespace will also require a monthly subscription to publish your site with a custom domain.
A great in-between option is Riley & Grey, a site full of luxury wedding website templates. They are certainly wedding-centric, but offer more options for customization at various price points, different than some of the free options.
Going Virtual
With many aspects of our lives taking place online right now, having your wedding planning and execution bulked up online is the natural way to go. Whether you’ve had to postpone your wedding day due to Coronavirus or have to get creative in the planning process with limited resources at the moment, your wedding website can be the perfect way to keep all of your wedding planning organized. Update your guests on change of dates or locations and any other details they may need to be aware of in this time of uncertainty. You may also consider moving your guests RSVPs online to your website to keep from having to reprint extra pieces of your invitations due to a wedding postponement.
