A wedding is once in a lifetime. And you want it to be a success. Naturally. Creating a website for your wedding may seem “too much” to some, but creating a simple site that brings together all the important information is much easier, cheaper and simpler than you might expect these days.
Let’s take a look at the different options.
Does your wedding need a website?
It depends. If you’re having a wedding in the woods with immediate family, a wedding website is probably unnecessary.
However:
- the more guests,
- the less customary the wedding,
- the more complicated the schedule,
the more you can appreciate the wedding site.
Email and phone is definitely a workable solution. However, the last thing you want on your wedding day is to have to navigate 37 family members to the guesthouse where the wedding will take place, as they have forgotten where exactly that is.
In other words, a wedding website can benefit you at all stages of your big day:
⬆️ Before the wedding: You can have a form on it where people fill in what they want for the food, the number for the best man (organiser) and quietly some basic information about you and your partner – which will be especially appreciated by extended family who may not know your partner in the first place.
➡️ Wedding Day pages can come in handy for important information:
- harmonogram,
- venue map,
- address of the guesthouse where guests are to stay.
⬇️ After the wedding you can add links to photos, take pictures with wedding gifts, etc.
So while a wedding website isn’t for everyone, in many cases I believe it is a handy tool that will save you a lot of work and hassle.
Main advantages of a wedding website
✅ The site is interactive -> people can easily save an address, open it in maps, fill out a form, etc.
✅ You can have everything in one place -> information, questionnaires, photos and people don’t have to wonder where what is and search through a stack of emails.
✅ The template solution is not expensive and you can knock it out in an afternoon.
✅ Busy photographers, hotels and studios may look at you with different eyes if you tell them you’ll link to them from the web, where their work will also be publicly visible.
What to look out for when creating a wedding website
⚠️ Don’t get overwhelmed by the creation. You have enough to worry about as it is. The web is supposed to be practical, not perfect. A few weeks after the wedding, it’ll probably disappear into the internet anyway. That’s why I’d recommend looking for a template solution rather than tinkering with a bespoke site.
⚠️ A free website is often the most expensive. A template solution will set you back anything between 500 Kč and 3000 Kč. Yes, it is possible to create your wedding website for free, however, if you don’t know how to do it (and even if you do), the time investment (researching, learning, creating) is definitely not adequate.
⚠️ The Internet is public. So if you don’t want Google to index your site and subsequently have Handsome Hubert show up at your wedding, you need to disable indexing. It’s also a good practice to hide photos (especially those from the party…) under a password that only wedding attendees will eventually have.
When you decide on a wedding website, what are your options?
There are three options:
- Despite the warning, you want to create the site yourself and for free. I’ve created a course that does allow you to do this (it’s also free), but I highly recommend this option given the purpose.
- Opt for a service that offers a template wedding website solution, pay for the service, choose a template, fill it with your own content and you’re done.
- You ask someone to help you with your site. A simple website can often be created by your photographer, or anyone in your family who is close to technology. Alternatively, I have prepared three simple templates for a wedding website as well, which you can find below.
The second and third options won’t go wrong. While the platform will be cheaper when you have a human helping you with the site, you will be able to customize the site more and not get stuck in a bind. It will also be faster.
Let’s take a closer look at both options, but the message is that unless you have experience with web development, I highly recommend avoiding do-it-yourself web development.
- Save no expense,
- it won’t be any prettier,
- it won’t be faster.
Trust me.
Let’s now take a closer look at the other two options.
Best wedding web design platforms
As a web developer, I hear a web development platform and I am tempted by the gag reflex.
For a traditional website, these platforms are not really suitable (in my opinion), however, for the purposes of a wedding website, I have no choice but to put my head down and admit that these platforms are basically ideal.
There are countless of them, in the table below you will find a comparison of the most famous and interesting ones.
| Options | Site price (5 months of use) | Templates | Template in Czech | Form option | Special Features |
| Wix | 1250 Kč + 200 Kč domain | Yes | Some | yes | no |
| Mioweb | 8000 Kč | ? Not found | ? | yes | no |
| WebFlow | 2500 Kč | Yes | No | yes | no |
| Webnode | 1500 Kč | Yes | Yes | yes | no |
| SolidPixels | 2400 Kč | No | No | yes | no |
As I said, for the purposes of a wedding website, you need the site to be easy to navigate and not too expensive (paying for premium features doesn’t make sense for our purpose)
.Through this lens, the clear winners are Webnode and Wix. Personally, I find the differences between the platforms small enough that I would be happy to look at the templates the platforms offer and make a choice based on them.
If you’re not the technical type, feel free to reach out to someone to see if they can help you with a website template.
Web development with a pro
As I wrote, I think a simple custom website would cost you (for example, me) around 10,000 CZK – a lot more for many of my colleagues.
That’s why I would try to avoid the “bespoke website” route. A tight wedding budget, in my opinion, goes to investing… more sensibly.
However, I found the tools, while not bad, to be generic. They are not tailored to the needs of a wedding website.
That’s why I created three simple templates that are tailored to weddings (disabling indexing, allowing a gallery under a password, proven structure) and which, at £1,900 (with a video tutorial and 15 minutes of human help to set it up), can proudly match the price of tool-based, generic solutions.
There are 3 templates to choose from.
Jana
Modern template – the most popular of the whole range. It stands out with your photos as well as with photos from photo banks.
Marie
Beautiful illustrated template suitable if you want to avoid using photos on your site.
Eva
Clean white minimalist template, ideal if you have your own photos.
With the fact that each template – including domain, hosting, setup… (just with everything) costs 1900 CZK and your website will run for 6 months.
With the fact that the template – including domain, hosting, settings… (just with everything) costs 1900 CZK and the site will run for 6 months.
What should not be missing on a wedding website
Whatever way you decide to build your website, below are a few things from our experience that are definitely good to have on your website.
Date
Day, time, place… Really the date is very important and don’t be fooled – just because you’ve announced it 5 times doesn’t mean it’s not worth it after 6.
Daily Schedule
When and where the wedding starts. What is the approximate schedule? When will there be more crossing and when can drivers toast? You may not have a minute-by-minute schedule, but an outline of the program is helpful.
Gift List
Optional item, however, this is basically a standard and while you may find the form a bit odd, know that there is no better form than getting 4 sets of dishes…
Form
If your site allows you to add a form – optimally with a simple link to a Google spreadsheet this is great, you can use it for:
- confirm participation,
- determination of interest in accommodation,
- indicating interest in individual menus,
- various special requests (someone is vegan, can’t gluten, no way to get there, etc.)
The story of you two
No need to overdo it, but a few words about how you met, how the proposal went, etc… will definitely make all aunties happy.
Tribute to the band, photographer, florist, venue…
This isn’t an obligation, and in the end it doesn’t really matter. However, if you mention at the time of arranging that you will list the band/florist/caterer on the website, it may make them happy and if they are busy, you may even increase the chances of them making time for you.
contact the organizers (typically the witness)
If you don’t want the bride and groom’s heads to explode, put the number of a best man on the site who will be able to answer any organizational questions.Photos
Your close-up photos with your partner will definitely please.
You can put a gallery on the site and announce that people will find photos in that gallery even after the wedding.
Miscellaneous specific information and requests
Sometimes you want to get people ready, there’s going to be a special dance, a special guest, special entertainment. If it makes sense to let people know in advance (so they can prepare for it, for example), the site is the perfect place to let them know about such things.Final Summary
A wedding is once in a lifetime and is meant to symbolically manifest your decision to spend your life with your partner.
It should not be an organizational noose that you put on six months before the date and take off three days after the date.
Unfortunately, this is often the case.
A wedding website may at first glance seem like an unnecessary luxury, another worry.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Quite the opposite.
When you get it right, the web can make planning a wedding fundamentally easier, it’s not expensive, and you’ll still have a nice memory (either online or by making a backup).
Anyway, I hope the big day works out, with or without the web!
