Thursday, March 5, 2009

#570: website.

so instead of a quote, maybe i'll create a wedding website and print the address on the flap.

the website must be:
1) user-friendly aka dummy proof aka i'm not tech savvy aka maybe i won't create a wedding website
2) FREE
3) visitor-friendly

i checked out wedding channel and the free templates are eh but it looks easy enough to use.

any others you like? (and please share why.)

54 comments:

Dyanne said...

I tried WeddingWire and I wasn't impressed. We are considereing using WedQuarters, which is NOT free. Creating a wedding website has been more frustrating and time consuming than I had imagined, but I think its almost done, so YIPPEE!!

Anonymous said...

if you just want something simple, Wordpress is pretty easy. That's what I used for mine. It's just informational, though -- no rsvps or anything.

Abbie said...

I used www.projectwedding.com. They have quite a few templates and are VERY easy to use. They also have interactive maps that you are based on the locations you list throughout your site! Very cool.

Anonymous said...

we're using momentville... it's nothing crazy and SUPER easy to use. if you're curious about it i'd be happy to share my url with you (as long as it stays between us : ) save the dates haven't gone out yet)

holly | bijou lovely said...

We're using Momentville (www.momentville.com). It's free unless you want a bunch of space to upload pictures (although they do give you some space for free), the templates aren't spectacular but the website stays up forever and it is really easy to use! It had the largest amount of free features of any I've seen.

Anonymous said...

I'm using WeddingWire. The website builder is ok, I'm sure paid sites are better, but they have an online RSVP, seating arrangements, gift & thank you tracker, etc. I like the one-stop shopping idea. They power Martha Stewart's tools online.

I would caution that it does take MUCH longer than you think.

Lisa said...

I used mywedding.com. They are free, easy to use and you can more or less make it your own. The backgrounds are okay . . . Offbeatbride now has ability to make wed sites, too.

Anonymous said...

http://ewedding.com/. Great site, and for $60 you can have your own URL for the year. For example, for free it's http://ewedding.com/23.HTE43/janeandjohn.com, but for $60/1 yar it's www.janeandjohn.com

christina said...

we used mywedding.com as well. easy, simple...it worked out great.
http://www.mywedding.com/pattyandchristina/

we also cut costs by not having a directional card in the invite--we printed our website address on the invite for directions. saved paper & money...

Sara Clark said...

Google pages! It's $15 for a year but super easy to use, update, and navigate. And, you can choose your own domain name. It's worth the price, many times over.
I tried one off of theknot, which was a total pain to update and get around on.

Meg said...

Um. Honey?
Use blogger. You can buy a custom URL through "settings" for $10. We set ours up to have only one post on the page, so we just have a welcome page, with links to other posts down the side. It looks like a regular website, it's free or $10if you want a custom URL, you can put up whatever you want, and skip the wedding template BS, and you already know how to use the program.

Email me if you want tips/ a sample.

For serious. It's easy. You ARE a blogger, after all ;)

Anonymous said...

we are using http://www.mywedding.com/ and love it!!

jackiewd said...

theknot.com has free websites and you can use it for RSVPs, but I didn't use it so I can't vouch for it being easy to use.

Anonymous said...

I used iWeb from apple to make mine which was sort of free because it came with my computer, and they give you a 90day free trial to get a website name. I chose to pay the $$ to get a 1year subscription thingy. If you have a mac or access to one it was really easy to use and the results were pretty good (I thought anyway).

Sarah and Joey said...

i'm using weddingwire.com and have really enjoyed it so far. they have decent themes, some templated pages that make things easy, and you can also create custom pages from the ground up if you want something unique. i also like that you can set a password for the site--happy to share my url and pw with you if you're interested...

Anonymous said...

oops if you want to see what the mac website looks like ours is:
web.mac.com/saragrey

AmyJean {Relentless Bride®} said...

If i were to redo it, i'd definitely have used blogger and had Ellie (the girl who redid my blog) do my wedding blog... it would have been SOOO Cool! :) I think you can use google docs too :)
RelentlessBride

Kim said...

I really like www.mywedding.com They have a ton of different backgrounds and you can really customize it to make it unique. They have pre-made pages, plus you can add in your own.

Stephanie said...

Thanks for this post! I have been pondering this myself.

Earlier, I set up a save-the-date blogger page exactly like Meg said to do, just in case I couldn't find anything else that would work.

Anonymous said...

I'm using blogger with our 'couple' email. Big bonus... you already know how to use it!

Anonymous said...

I think a blog is a good idea - you already know how to use one, and they are free.

Erin said...

I would check out Wordpress. I haven't been on Blogger in a while, but the reason that I left was that Wordpress allows you to essentially have a website instead of a blog. You can make as many pages as you want, and make one of them a blog and the rest informational. You can set any of the pages to be the "home" and put the others in the sidebar. It's very easy to use and there are a lot of different templates, as well as great widgets. It doesn't do RSVP's, but it does everything else. Here's mine, under serious construction as the wedding is 18 months away and I've only fiddled with it a little. I'm planning on spending the $15 for a domain name when we get a little closer.

http://josefanderinwedding.wordpress.com/

Anonymous said...

another fan of mywedding.com. it isn't elaborate, which makes it simple. it is user and viewer friendly. plus your URL ends up being mywedding.com/(whatever you want). another plus is that it is not searchable by google, so if you choose to not put it on private it still cant be found without the direct url.

paint it. black. said...

I used iWeb. Are you on a mac? It was simple. Or just set up a new blog. I like that idea.

PixieGrin said...

google sites. it's free.

you can see mine here:
http://sites.google.com/site/frankwalshwedding/

if you need guidance, i would be more than happy to help you out.

Amanda B. Young said...

Love the idea of printing on the flap. I did a short summary of different website vendors a while back if this helps (http://theblissfulbride.blogspot.com/2008/09/wedding-website-links-to-love.html).

Someone suggested another blog though which also sounded like a pretty good (and easy) idea.

DCKate said...

we're using mywedding.com. TONS of great templates, completely idiot-proof, and best of all, FREE.

Jessica @ Mason Jar Bride said...

we used wix.com, which is a little more tricky than most website creators, but SO worth it. there's a pretty good help/FAQ section with tutorials. the templates are great and all our guests LOVE the website so far. take a look at our site: www.curtandjessica.com. good luck!

Anonymous said...

We're using www.momentville.com too and are very happy with it. We tried a few others, but this one is SUPER easy to use and they just added a bunch of new themes which are much nicer than some of their older ones.

Cardas Photography said...

I haven't used it myself, but some friends did theirs on ewedding.com

You can see theirs here:

http://www.ewedding.com/sites/timandilana/

We all loved being able to rsvp there as well as get directions and see cute pics of them together!

Erin Lepperd said...

I am a designer so graphic images are sort of important and most wedding websites are major cheeseball. We ended up using www.bridalfever.com. It is free and has a huge selection of cool templates.
You can check out our website to get an idea:
www.erinandchuckaregettingmarried.info

We named our website through godaddy.com. It is only $1 for a dot info. Good deal

By the by..I sort of majorly heart your blog. Props

Fraaargh said...

Well, interesting ! I have myself compiled a list of usefull wedding website links. I talk about it on my blog here: http://gniddewthere.wordpress.com
Good luck for your own wedding :)

Anonymous said...

mywedding.com is really easy...not super fancy, but it gets the job done, and it's a mix of templated and not-so-templated pages.

Check mine out: http://mywedding.com/rayandmelissa

jessica lynn said...

why not use a blogsite, thats what I did! create a new blog and use it as your wedding website. weddingbee and google can help you customize it {removing "comments" and how to only have 1 post show up on the main page, etc}.

Anonymous said...

I am using the knot't free templates and they JUST updated their free templates. I think they are MUCH better. It's easy to use. our web address is
theknot.com/ourwedding/firstlast&firstlast

Anonymous said...

I use WeddingWire, and it works for my needs. The interface is similar to the program I use at work (ePublish), so I found it pretty simple to use. I like that you can build a custom page -- some of the providers I looked at limited your pages to their categories (registry, travel etc).

Feel free to take a look at my site, but please ignore the fact that I haven't had a lot of time to fill in extraneous info:

http://www.weddingwire.com/nickandliz

invisiblyrose said...

i like brides.com. it's easy, free, and you get to be yourintendedname.brides.com. only downside is, it's brides.com, and from your blog i'm assuming you are not both brides - but a minor detail.

karri said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda said...

mywedding.com

Free and amazing. Here's ours if you want to check it out:

http://www.mywedding.com/amandalovesnick/

Anonymous said...

I am using www.mywedding.com - it is super easy to use, you can personalize it and choose all sorts of backgrounds that are gorgeous, you can play music, RSVP, introduce your wedding party, tell your story, and add custom pages if what you want/need isn't there...hope this helps.

Amanda said...

Oops! It looks like a few people beat me to it!

Jessica B. said...

I love Project Wedding. The templates are pretty and there are so many to choose from. It's also really easy to use, and totally customizable. Shoot me an email and I'll send you the link to out site.

Drew and Lea said...

my fiance and i did ours on our own, bought the server space and web domain from godaddy and if you have a Mac, iWeb comes standard and has some pretty templates, he did ours himself (he did work as a webmaster for a year) but it works really well and saved us a ton of postage and sanity on all the little slips of paper you'd have to add in the invitation. Instead of any sort of directions or explanation at the bottom of our invitation, we just had our website - super simple :) ; www.drewandleonora.com

Anonymous said...

I used shutterfly pages. It's not technically a wedding website per say, but you can use it for whatever you like. And, my favorite part is that you can add lots of pictures. I found that it was pretty easy to use, and it is free. Plus, if you sign up with shutterfly, you get lots of special offers, such as cheap 4x6 prints, occasionally free photo books, etc. I think it's worth it, and you can't beat free.
You can see ours at www.joshandandre.shutterfly.com

Anonymous said...

As long as its user-friendly, informative and interesting that's fine. We would definitely appreciate the effort. Good luck!

KE said...

We're using mywedding.com too, because it has great security features.

Bad Kid Productions said...

Momentville.com is a great one. We used them and really like it.

Anonymous said...

I'm another bride using mywedding.com. I bought a custom domain name (you can use GoDaddy or DotEasy) and routed it to our mywedding site so it's not so cheesy looking on our invites.

We're saving money by not including response cards in the invitation. Instead, we're asking people to RSVP online at our site or to call us. Those who don't want to go online can just call us.

(Another tip -- We're also using Wishpot.com to register for our honeymoon by breaking it up into pieces, i.e. "Night at the XXX Hotel." They integrate with Paypal easily.

Anonymous said...

I used to hate the knot because their pages were so simple. HOWEVER, they just got new designs and they are much better. My fiance made a web page for us via googlepages (free with our names "wayneandbindu(dot)com" and then linked the knot site to it. We decided to go with the Knot because it has a free rsvp system that we are planning to use.

Unknown said...

momentville also purchases green energy credits to offset the carbon emissions of their servers.
Doesn't get much cooler than that!

Kimberly said...

Check out BridalFever.com!

Anonymous said...

here is our wedding website-it took a Sunday to create

www.annieanddafydd.com

(and yes, I spelled information wrong on the front page)

Nicka said...

I created a website of our own so we can keep the domain after we get married. I have a small site that is just set up for RSVPs, but I did that through TheKnot.Com since I already have my guestlist on there. If you have a friend that is a graphic designer, they can put something together for you that is unique pretty quickly and perhaps donate the design as a wedding gift.

Our website URL is nickaandrashad.com

Jeremiah K - The Perfect Pear l.l.c. said...

nice idea! I should plan this kind of things
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