Marriage they say is one of the most memorable days in one’s life and people are making sure they had the perfect wedding. Right from the invitation card, the gown, the venue, the receptions, the decorations, the theme, the photographers, everything has to be well planned out.
Wedding ceremonies are getting fancier day by day; even the wedding cards are becoming fancier. People nowadays are now making their wedding websites. It may sound uneccessary to some of you, but wedding website will surely add glamor and value to your wedding.
Here’s the thing, after the wedding and when you thought your headache is over, there are families and friends from different parts of the world constantly nagging you for the wedding photos and videos. It’s bugging, right?
Well that’s where wedding website comes handy to overcome all these chaos and headaches.
A fancy website for your wedding with all the details about your wedding – photos, videos, and everything.
In this age of jio and free internets, where everyone is connected online, a wedding website is something you should invest in to make your wedding fancier and stand out from the crowds.
So with all these in mind, here I’m sharing with you wedding website ideas for your grand wedding.
Wedding Website Ideas:
Based on the functionality, I’m dividing the wedding website process into two phases: pre-wedding and post-wedding.
Pre-Wedding:
Before your wedding, your wedding website can show the following details
a) Storyline: Your website will showcase a beautiful picture of you and your partner (or even your engagement photos) on the homepage. In addition to this, a small story about you and your spouse can be written on it. A story of how you met, how you fell in love (or anything you want to write). Or it can also display the timeline of your love story, for instance, the year you first met, the year or month you both started dating, your engagement date, etc
b) Venue: The pre-wedding website will also display the venue of your most important event. This can be displayed beautifully by embedding a google map (provided the venue is in google maps)
c) RSVP: A RSVP form can be integrated into the website so that you can collect the names, phone numbers, emails of the people who will be attending your wedding. The emails so collected can be used to send out for reminders, or can also be used to send them the links about your wedding photos and videos.
d) #hashtag: A web-page can be dedicated exclusively for the Instagram hashtags. The couple will choose the hashtag to be used for the wedding and request the guests to use the same if they happen to upload pictures on Instagram. And accordingly, all the pictures with the hashtag will be pulled out from Instagram and made available on the web page.
Post-Wedding:
After the wedding is over, one of the headaches for the newlyweds is the constant requests from the families and friends for the wedding photos and videos. This issue can be dealt with the help of a nice wedding website. Here’s how it’s to be done.
a) Photos: When the photos are ready, you can upload all the photos on your website and send the link to your friends and families. This will save you the time and headache of sending photos to everyone. Your friends and families can just visit the link and view the photos and download it as per their wish.
b) Videos: Wedding videos can be uploaded on your homepage. But for best practice, the video can be uploaded on YouTube and embed the YouTube video on your website. This will save you website space and bandwidth and of course the cost.
c) Password protected photos & videos – folder wise: If you don’t want to let everyone see your wedding pictures, or say if you want only your family to see the family pictures, and restrict your friends to just friends pictures, this can be done by password protecting the folder. You can upload all the family photos under the Family folder and set a password for it, and give the password to your families so that they can access the folder. Likewise, you can set a different folder for the Friends/General folder where friends pictures or other general pictures are uploaded and the password can be shared with your friends.
d) Thank you mail: To those people who had responded to your RSVP via your website, you can send them a mass ‘Thank You’ mail through the integrated MailChimp
Building your wedding website.
Now that the idea is ready, it’s now time to build your wedding website. You can either hire a web designer or make it yourself using some of the SAAS software or the open-source scripts available on the market. Hiring a web-designer may cost you somewhere in between 15k to 35k or even more depending on the web-designer and your customization needs.
Designing with Wix:
Wix is an easy to use website builder. You don’t need to know the codings or the technicals involved in designing your website. It’s a simple drag and drop where you can easily make your websites as creative as your imaginations. However, to use your own domain and remove the Wix ads, you will need to buy their premium version which starts at just Rs 29/ month (limited time offer) and yeah it comes with a 1-year free domain and 10Gb storage.
So at just Rs 348 for one year (plus free domain), which is less than the domain cost, you can get your fancy wedding website with 10GB of storage!
So get the Wix Premium Now before the offer ends. You can get in touch with me if you need help designing your wedding website with Wix.
Wix does have its own advantage and disadvantages, and many web designers and developers, I included, prefers WordPress for other more complex websites as WordPress offers more advantages in terms of SEO, website control, etc. But for a simple personal website, Wix will just do fine.
Designing with WordPress:
And if you are someone who wants to take complete control of your website and take complete control of the SEO, you can make your website using WordPress. WordPress has two versions, one which is a SAAS version and is available at WordPress.com. The other one is the open-source version which you can install from your Cpanel or download the script from WordPress.org.
To run your own website you will need to buy a domain name and a hosting. Some hosting provider gives free domain name with the purchase, however, sometimes this can get messy as you will be unable to retain the domain name if you want to shift your hosting.
Hosting will cost you somewhere around 3.5 to 5k per year depending on the hosting company you choose. The domain name will cost you around 800-1k per year. After purchasing these two you will be able to access the admin panel where you will be able to install WordPress. After installing WordPress you can install free themes or buy the professional ones from Themeforest or other such service providers.
Ps: You can reach me for your website needs! Check out my portfolio
