Personal Wedding Websites

 
Wedding websites are so popular now that there are now a number of web design companies specializing in wedding sites - or "wed sites" - offering an impressive array of useful wedding-related tools and features. There are even a number of large wedding sites such as The Knot, Wedding Channel and MyWedding that offer free wedding web sites to couples. While normally not as robust as their paid alternatives in terms of features available, they are definitely worth consideration. Some of the larger paid services include Nearlyweds, Wed Share and Wedding Window, with prices ranging from about $10/month to $80 for 12 months. View personal wedding website examples at Wedding Window >>
 
Most website services are template-based, meaning that you will be able to choose from a variety of different templates for the design of the site, then customize the template theme further by applying a color palette to match your wedding colors, choosing exactly which pages and how many pages to include on your site, or both.
 
When looking for a custom wedding website service, you should look for the standard features listed below (or for as many as are important to you for your site), and then try out the service before committing to purchase a hosting plan. Most of the reputable services out there offer a free trial period of normally at least a week with no credit card required when you sign up, so that you can set up your site and get used to updating it before you commit to it.

Standard Features to Look for in a Wedding Website Service

• Free trial period of at least 7 days
• Multiple well-designed template themes to choose from
• Ability to apply different color palettes to the template you choose
• Search function on their website to allow guests to find a couple
• Custom domain name service if you'd like to choose your own dot com web address for the site (note: this is usually an extra cost of around $15/year for your own custom domain name)
• Ability to upload unlimited photos, Word documents or other files to your site - many sites offer some type of photo gallery or slideshow function
• Ability to choose which pages you'd like to include on your site and leave out any others that are not relevant to your wedding - for example, you may or may not want to include a page mentioning the members of your wedding party
• Flexible pricing plans so that you don't pay for extra months that you don't need
• An account management area ("My Account" or something similar)
• Additional wedding planning tools included in the website package such as guest list tools, invitation mailing trackers, a calendar of events or checklist that integrates with your wedding date, etc.
• A wedding registry page template - you should be able to easily create registry links to your chosen bridal gift registry or registries
• One or more page templates that you can use to offer travel and/or hotel room info ("For Our Guests", etc.)
• An online RSVP tool so that your family and friends can reply on your website rather than through snail mail if they choose
• Ability to create new pages on your site so that you aren't limited to only the standard pages offered

First and foremost, spend some time looking at sample wedding websites when looking at wedding website packages. The best personal wedding websites, whether free or paid, ultimately come down to what is appealing to you and which features are important to your wedding. See what designs jump out at you and what could work with the style and feel you envision for your event. You might even come up with some additional wedding ideas or details you'd like to incorporate that you hadn't yet thought of for the big day; for example, providing a page of local area information and things to do for your out-of-town guests on your website.
 
No template will be perfect, however the advantage of using a website service that specializes in wedding website templates is that they've already done most of the leg work for you in terms of laying out the various pages that will go into your site, in addition to the overall layout of the site. All you need to do to start now (after selecting a color palette) is fill in the blanks with your own wedding information!
 
Our wedding website checklist was created and is updated by The Little Wedding Guide. To add anything that you feel we've left off from the feature list above, please contact us.

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