This one's for all of my techy (or wannabe techy) brides out there! Grab your computer and some coffee and get comfy and ready to tackle piece-by-piece the techiest part of the wedding: the wedding website. This is a great piece of planning that you can conquer from home.
Creating the wedding website can be a daunting and time-involved task. Where do you even start? Let's first start by picking a platform to use for the website. There are a few well-known companies that offer wedding websites specifically. These sites are The Knot, Zola, and Minted. They each have some beautiful templates to choose from and their own styles/components. If you order your invitations through Minted, you can even choose a website that mirrors the style of your invitations so that you have consistency throughout your website and printed materials. I suggest that you take the time to check out all 3 options and see which one best suits your wedding and also which platform is easiest for you to navigate/use. If you are feeling extra adventurous and want to build your website from scratch, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace are all website creating sites that will allow you to completely customize your wedding website. Keep in mind that The Knot, Zola, and Minted websites are all curated specifically for weddings and have pages for the registry, RSVPing, and the accommodations and wedding party bios. You will have to create these on any other platform.
Now that you've chosen your platform, let's talk about the content!
Wedding Party Bios
Once you know your wedding party, writing bios for each member can be a fun way to reflect on how much each person means to you and your partner. Here are my tips for writing the best wedding party bios:
~Keep it short! Especially if you have more than 5 bridesmaids/groomsmen. This way, your wedding party page won't scroll down for ages and people might actually read all the way though everyone's bios that took you so much time to create.
~Accompany it with a fun picture! Whether it's a funny candid of the person who the bio is about, or a pic of you both together, graphics really add a nice element to break up all of the text on the page.
~Tie in something personal. Make sure each bio is different and special for each individual. You can talk about a brief memory or activity that you like doing with that person, or you can tie in a sorority motto or quote that resembles your relationship with them.
Registry
The registry is the fun part of the website. It's the place that you can write down all of your hopes and dreams for your home. Don't be afraid to dream big and add some bigger ticket items to your registry. You'll also want to balance that out with a lot of smaller-medium ticket items that your average guest could afford. Some great and common places to have registries are: Williams Sonoma, Target, Macy's, Bed Bath and Beyond, Amazon, Walmart, and Ikea. Can't decide on just one store? Have multiple registries! More stores= more fun! This is the part where you get to walk around the store and tag everything you want with a little price gun (if you don't opt to do it online). Sounds cool, right? Keep in mind that if you have 100 guests, you should have at least 100 different gift ideas for them to choose from. You'll notice that you might even get to ask for a lot of items that are fun and would be deemed "unnecessary" because there are only so many necessary items that you will need. Another great thing for people to put money towards will be your honeymoon fund. Some wedding websites will allow you to set this up on your registry page.
Accommodations/ Travel
This page should include any hotel room block that you might have for your guests, along with a booking link. If your wedding is not a destination wedding, it is likely that at least some of the guests will have to travel for it. Make this page fun and get your guests excited to travel to a fun destination. You can utilize this page to give your guests a brief background on the significance of the city you are choosing to have your wedding in, and you can talk about some fun (or your favorite) things to do in the area or link to activity websites. Don't forget to include some pictures of the hotel and the city to hype everyone up!
RSVP
It is most likely that your wedding website will allow you to upload a spreadsheet of your guests, their plus ones, their family members, and their addresses. From there, you will be able to build an rsvp form that customizes for each guests and their family. You can customize the rsvp questions to include meal choice, allergy information, or which specific wedding events that guest is invited to (you can hide events that they aren't on the invite list for, such as the rehearsal dinner). Each website works a little differently so you may need to look into how to set your rsvp link up and customize it. You can either send the rsvp form link out to your invited guests to rsvp from, or you can put the link on your invite. Inviting your guests to digitally rsvp allows them to see your beautiful and informative wedding website, and it is also really helpful to keep everything in one place
"Our Story"
There will also be a section where you write about your story and how you and your significant other met. My advice for this piece is to keep it short and sweet, leaving out any boring "fluff" or extra details. If you need a starting point, it helps to talk about how you met, your first date, and when he proposed, and fill in just enough in between so that the story flows nicely. You might even want to tie something in about how certain components of your wedding are reflective of certain parts of your story, if you have chosen to incorporate some sentimental things into your wedding. You should also think about what point of view you want to write the story in, so it is uniform throughout. Do you want to say "Serena and Logan met while..." or do you want it to read "We met while..."? You should use this same point of view when writing your wedding party bios.
And last but not least, make sure you fill your website with fun pictures of you two! If you have engagement pictures, they are usually used here. If not (I know everyone can't really get out to take them right now), use the fun ones that you have. The pictures help tell your story and show your guests how excited you are for the wedding.
I hope you've had a great time getting techy with this blog post. Stay tuned for the next post on free samples!
