12 Tips for Creating the Ultimate Wedding Website in Under an Hour
Congratulations! You got engaged… now what? Take a second or two to bask in the excitement of being a bride-to-be, because once you start planning, the real work begins. As a married person, I completely understand the joys and challenges of wedding planning. Oh yeah, it’s Lindsay here, Brit + Co’s Creative Content Producer. Planning your own wedding requires you to be a detail-oriented, expert event planner with ZERO experience. Even if you try to do a low-key, cost-effective wedding, things still add up (to a big, giant headache). That’s why we’ve partnered with GoDaddy to help you create a pain-free wedding website on a budget. GoDaddy’s GoCentral product has unlimited designs and tools that make it super quick and easy to build a wedding website. Besides, who needs another thing to worry about?
In our digital age, a wedding website is crucial for staying organized, sharing memories, and keeping your guests informed. To demonstrate the ease and diverse capabilities of GoCentral by GoDaddy, we helped a real-life, newly engaged couple build their website. Meet Katrina and Chris! They’re a fun, down-to-earth couple who love playing golf together and make you believe true love is possible. With these 12 tips, they were able to make their wedding website in no time. So, all of you happy couples out there, take note.
Ultimate Wedding Website Checklist
Decide on the Basics
1. Engagement Photos: Creating your site will be significantly easier if you have a solid set of photos of you and your boo. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to throw down big bucks for a professional photo shoot. If you want to keep it on the cheap, try calling in a favor with a friend.
2. Wedding Theme: Spend a minute or two thinking about your wedding theme. You’ll definitely want something that represent you both as a couple. Trust me: A little groundwork here goes a long way. Deciding on a wedding theme early will help guide you in your decision-making, from the design of wedding invites to your final venue choice.
3. Wedding Website: Now that you have your photos and theme, it’s time to create your website. GoCentral by GoDaddy offers easy-to-use, mobile-responsive templates that will have even the technologically inept feel like a total pro. It has everything you need to keep your guests in the know. You can even build and edit your site on a table or mobile phone, making it easy to update your details on the fly. There are also super helpful tools that allow you to collect RSVPs and email your guest list to send them updates and thanks yous. It’s only $6 a month, making it an unnoticeable line item in your overall budget. The best part? You can get a website built in under an hour, leaving more time for cake tasting and honeymoon planning.
Introduce the Key Players
4. The Happy Couple: Of course, everyone visiting your wedding site will know you and your beloved to some capacity, but not all. So, create a place to talk about yourselves. Plus, reliving the happier moments in your relationship will help alleviate some of the wedding planning stress. Just be sure to keep it short, sweet, and fun.
5. The Bridal Party: Celebrate the members of your squad by highlighting them on your site. Showcase them in more candid moments with a photo gallery to really let them shine. Plus, your guests will have a point of reference when your besties are struttin’ down the aisle.
6.The Family: I don’t know about you, but I love when my friends and family come together and get to know one another. However, this happens much less frequently as you get older, which is why including a little bit about your fam is key. It may not be one of the more common practices, but it definitely adds a sweet touch.
Nail Down Your Details
7. Where and When: This is probably the most obvious thing to include on your site, but you’ll want to make sure there’s a quick and easy place for your guests to access this key information. Better yet, include it in multiple places!
8. RSVP: One of the great features of GoCentral by GoDaddy is their RSVP tool. It’s set up like a contact submission, so your guests share their name, email, and any warm wishes.
9. Schedule of Events: Hosting welcome drinks? Sunday Brunch? To help communicate any additional wedding activities, include a schedule of events complete with time, date, and location.
Make Things Easy for Your Guests
10. Registry: Whether you want gifts or not, it’s best practice to communicate this to your guests. Obviously, they’ll want to contribute to your new lives together. Nowadays, there are so many different tools to aggregate registry items into one, making it even easier for you to link out.
11. What to Wear: You’ll want to make sure you give your guests guidelines on a dress code. It doesn’t have to be super strict, but if you’re having an outdoor wedding, it’s nice to help them prepare accordingly.
12. What to Do: If you’re having a destination wedding, or expecting a good number of out-of-town guests, it’s super thoughtful to curate a list of places to eat and things to do while they’re in the area.
BOOM! Making a site is so easy these days that you can create your wedding site in an afternoon, leaving plenty of time for other things.
What are some other tips for brides-to-be? Tweet them to us @BritandCo and include the hashtag #GoDaddy.
Photography: Kurt Andre
Hair and Makeup: Misty Spinney
Models: Katrina Cho and Christopher Kuester