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So you’ve set a date for your big day (congrats!) and you’ve just realized that there’s so much to do. Don’t panic.
The good news is, creating a beautiful and personalized wedding website to match your vision doesn’t have to be difficult - or even expensive. In fact, some website builders will let you do it completely for free. I’ll show you step-by-step how you can do this with free/cheap website builders, in this guide on how to make a wedding website.
Along the way, I’ll also share:
- The reasons why a wedding website is a must-have
- Some beautiful wedding websites and designs to get you inspired
- My top tips for creating a gorgeous wedding website that makes managing your big day easier
So, want to get started? If your answer is “I do!”, let’s jump right in.
What’s a Wedding Website For?
You may be wondering why you should even have a wedding website. Can’t you just send out invitations and details on Facebook or WhatsApp? Sure, but what if some of your guests don’t use these tools? What if the information gets lost in the barrage of notifications?
A wedding website will save you a whole lot of stress. How do you keep track of all those RSVPs? How do you make sure your guests have updated information without having to make last-minute calls or text messages?
Creating a website for your wedding is also a great way to share your story as a couple to your guests, and a great way to send photos afterward.
Why Make a Wedding Website?
A custom wedding website can be a memorable way to showcase your story, share important wedding details, and remember your special day after it’s happened without all the other distractions.
Furthermore, you can really make your website special to complement your unique wedding.
Here’s a breakdown of the benefits of a custom wedding website:
- It’s the single source of truth for up-to-date information: It’s the perfect place to post important, up-to-date details including the wedding date and time (“Save the date”), attire or dress code, directions, and order of the day.
- Include extra information: It gives you an opportunity to share information that doesn’t easily fit in an invitation, such as accommodation recommendations, transport options, and gift registry details.
- Easy to update: You can always make changes in no time.
- Let guests RSVP easily: Use your website to capture RSVPs. This can help you to generate a guest list automatically (including any special requirements).
- Your guests have easy access: A website is the easiest way for guests (even those who aren’t tech-savvy) to get information. If a guest forgets their invitation, they can still get details on the website. They can even pull the website up on their cell phone when they are on the go.
- You can add extra touches: You can embed videos, audio, a guestbook, and other features to make your website unique.
- You can share photos: Share memories with your guests through your online gallery.
- Control access to your site: You can set controls on your website, like password protection or photo download permissions. Because not everyone should see that video of the wedding party you will post there after the big day is over!
Tips to Make Your Wedding Website Special (and Useful!)
Before you choose a website builder and make the wedding website, consider what information is essential. Your site has to be easy to navigate, regardless of your guests’ technical ability.
- Make sure the key details are easy to find: date, time, and venue. If any details change, make sure to update your website. Your guests will probably refer to this site en route to your wedding, especially if they’ve lost or forgotten your invitation.
- After the key details are established, add your own personal story. We are wired for stories so a narrative of your wedding can make an impact. Add your favorite photos and sayings. If you don’t have a lot of images, there are also royalty-free images you can use to convey a mood for your wedding, but please make sure they don’t look too fake.
- Make sure your website has a form where your guests can notify you of any special requirements (e.g., dietary requirements (if they have allergies or are vegetarian, and so on.) Make sure they are aware of this form.
- Include your registry on your wedding website. If you have multiple registries, some builders have an integration option so your guests don’t have to visit multiple registries. If you are accepting cash gifts, you can integrate this option as well.
How to Make a Wedding Website - Step by Step
Creating a wedding website can be relatively quick and easy, especially if you’re using a website builder that offers wedding-specific templates. These are the main steps when creating a wedding website:
1. Gather all the wedding details
Before you start building your website, collect all the necessary information you’ll want to include. This could be anything from the venue and date to the story of how you met. A detailed list will make the actual setup process much smoother.
2. Decide what pages you want to create
Think about the layout and what specific pages you’d like to feature. Typical pages might include “Our Story,” “The Wedding Details” (date, venue, directions), “Accommodations,” “RSVP,” and “Gift Registry.” Prioritize these based on what you believe your guests will find most useful.
3. Choose a website builder
Select a website builder that is user-friendly and offers the design flexibility you need. There are many platforms like WordPress, Wix, or specialized wedding website builders such as The Knot. Consider factors like ease of use, customization options, and pricing. To help you pick the right one, we share our recommendations below.
4. Optional: pick a unique domain name
If you want to make your website easier to find and more personal, consider buying a custom domain name, which starts at around $10 for a year-long domain. This could be something as simple as ross-and-rachel.com. Make sure it’s easy to remember and spell. Otherwise, the website builders below usually offer free domain names on their subdomain (e.g. veronica-and-logan.wixsite.com/wedding).
5. Choose a template and customize it
Most website builders offer templates, which are pre-designed layouts that you can customize. Choose one that matches the tone and style of your wedding. Once you’ve picked a template, you can start customizing it by adding your own text, images, and other elements.
6. Set up the pages and add all details
Now that you have a framework, start adding content to the pages you’ve chosen to include. Make sure to add all the wedding details you’ve gathered in step one. Keep the information organized and easy to find, and consider adding a FAQ section to cover any common questions guests might have.
7. Add an RSVP form
An online RSVP form can make the process easier for both you and your guests. Many website builders offer this feature. Make sure to include fields for names, the number of guests attending, and any meal preferences if you’re having a sit-down dinner.
8. Optional: Include a gift registry
If you have a gift registry, adding a page or link to it on your website can simplify things for your guests. Make it easy for them to find and make sure the instructions are clear.
9. Publish it and share it with your guests
Once you’ve added all the content and are happy with the design, it’s time to publish your site. Make sure to review all the details carefully before you make it live. Once it’s up, share the link with your guests through save-the-date cards, invitations, or emails.
By following these steps, you’ll make it easier for your guests to find all the wedding information they need in one place.
Free Wedding Websites – The Low-Budget Alternative
We like to keep things as simple as possible, so website builders are the best option. Solutions like WordPress and coding from scratch are much more complicated and time-consuming. You can use most website builders at no cost and all you have to do is choose a wedding design you like and enter your personal touches.
What to look for in a Free Wedding Website Builder?
- Ready-made wedding website templates that also look good on smartphones
- Intuitive editor (no coding required)
- Ability to make changes at any point
- Photo galleries with slideshow features
- Wedding registry form
- Password protection and option to block search engines
- Guest book
- Ability to embed videos with ease
- Contact form and directions
- Multilingual options for international weddings
- Option to allow photo downloads
- Support from the provider
These optional features are available at an extra cost:
- Domain and email account included
- Convenient messaging options like automated emails
- Option to reserve gifts online
Recommendable Free Wedding Website Builders are Wix, Ucraft, The Knot, Webnode and Weebly.
Examples of Wedding Websites
Start off by taking a look at a few wedding templates by Wix. If you see one you like, all you have to do is click on it and start editing. It’s all completely free of charge and there’s no need to install anything.
These are just a few options available. There are many more wedding designs here.
Wedding Website Builders: Our Recommendations
There are many website builders out there. We’ve tested the most popular ones so you don’t have to. Here are the ones we recommend:
Wix
Wix is one of the most popular website builders with a whopping 200 million websites hosted. This comes as no surprise because it’s so user-friendly and comes with the most ready-made wedding designs.
With Wix, you can choose a beautiful theme, change its colors, fonts, and buttons, then add RSVP management options via Wix Events, shared galleries, hotel/Airbnb finders, and maps, all available in the App Market.
Next to the ad-supported free plan, there is also the Combo plan, which is $22 CA/month. You can cancel it at anytime. If you commit for a year, the price drops to $16 CA/month.
There are many more pricing options, but for a regular wedding website, Combo is really all you should ever need.
Wix Video Review
Pros
- Lots of gorgeous, designer wedding templates to choose from and modify
- Easy drag-and-drop interface
- App Market so you can add functionality such as RSVP management, shared galleries, hotel maps, and contact forms
- Ability to password-protect your website or create logins and passwords for users
- Hide your website from search engines
- Embed videos and content from social media
- Wix features a free plan and offers monthly pricing options for its premium plans (no need to commit for a full year)
Cons
- Wix can be a bit pricey if you want to use a custom domain name and have an ad-free wedding website
- Free registration forms are limited to 10 fields
- The sheer number of themes and templates are overwhelming, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of creating a cluttered website, which wouldn’t be helpful to your guests
- Wix site can be slow on phones
Overall, we recommend Wix if you just need a beautiful wedding website quickly and at no (or low) cost. You can change the colors, buttons, and fonts but you can’t change the theme drastically, so as long as you find a template you’re happy with, Wix is a good option.
Hostinger
Hostinger’s Website Builder, previously known as Zyro, is an excellent choice for couples looking to create a beautiful and functional wedding website. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface allows even those with limited technical skills to build a professional-looking website quickly and efficiently. You can even have its AI website generator build an entire website for you if you’re stretched for time.
With multilingual support and ten specialized wedding templates, Hostinger provides a versatile platform to keep your guests informed and engaged in the lead-up to your big day.
One thing to note, though, is that Hostinger is not a free website builder. But, it’s very affordable, as you’ll see in a second!
Hostinger Video Review
Pros
- The drag-and-drop editor is intuitive and easier to use compared to competitors like Wix
- Hostinger offers very competitive pricing options, with plans starting at $9.99 per month
- Its AI tools, from a website generator to a content generator, make it easy to enhance your site
- It offers ten modern, attractive templates specifically designed for wedding websites
- You can easily add a language switched and translations - ideal for international weddings
- Password protection: secure specific pages to make them accessible only to your guests
- The contact form builder is efficient and allows an unlimited number of fields, perfect for RSVPs
Cons
- Hostinger doesn’t offer a free trial and requires a subscription purchase upfront
- While it allows for some functionality through integrations, options are pretty limited
- The pricing options on their homepage can be confusing
Hostinger’s Website Builder can help you keep your wedding website organized and stylish. Sure, it may not have every bell and whistle in the book—like a free trial or a ton of fancy add-ons—but it’s easy to use, easy on the wallet, and comes with some pretty cool built-in features tailored for your big day.
Weebly
Weebly was acquired in 2018 by Square and remains one of the largest website builders with 50 million sites. Many website builders claim to be easy to use, but in Weebly’s case, this is true. Weebly’s layouts are structured so it’s hard to move things around (that is, hard to mess things up.)
Weebly’s available wedding themes are also responsive, but they don’t offer as many as Wix or Squarespace. The App Center makes it easy to add extra functionality with Weebly’s own apps as well as third-party apps.
Weebly also makes it easy to foster communication and collaboration. You can assign additional editors to your website so you and your partner or best friends can collaborate. You can also set up memberships on your wedding website to limit parts of your website to certain visitors.
Weebly Video Review
Pros
- Can publish a website for free
- Responsive templates
- Easy to use interface
- Added functionality with Weebly and third-party apps
- Structured layouts that are less prone to clutter or errors
- Ability to assign additional editors to your website
- Membership functionality and password protection features
Cons
- You don’t have full control over the placement of your elements (e.g. images)
- Blocks traffic from Russia, Ukraine, and China
- Since Weebly was acquired by Square, new features haven’t been added.
- Only 1 wedding-focused template available
Weebly is a great choice if you want a truly easy experience. Its structured templates make it hard to mess things up. However, it’s not great if you want multilingual or international websites.
The Knot
The Knot specializes in wedding planning and, of course, wedding websites. The Knot offers the most wedding-specific features, such as registry integrations, robust RSVP services, guest list management, and matching paper invitations.
It has over 160 free, professional wedding designs with modern layouts. It’s also really easy to set up — your wedding website can be up and running in just a few minutes on your phone or computer. You can use the All-In-One Wedding Planning app to manage your RSVPs. If you have multiple registries, you can automatically sync them with your wedding website so your guests can see your list in one place.
Pros
- Over 160 free wedding designs with modern layouts
- Free with an option for a custom domain for $20
- Robust RSVP services, including the option to manage RSVPs and push notifications in the app
- Message guests straight from the app or via text or email
- Custom privacy controls (password protection and search engine blocks)
- Matching wedding invitations
- Retail registry integration
- Cash registry integration
Cons
- RSVPs aren’t customizable, so your guests can send in meal choices but not additional requests
- The app doesn’t support major edits to your website. You’ll have to do this on your desktop or laptop
- The company is reported to have poor customer service
- Not multilingual
Squarespace
Squarespace is another major player in the website builder market. A favorite for blogs, portfolios, and online stores, Squarespace is also a good contender for wedding websites because of its sophisticated themes.
It offers over a hundred artistic modern templates that look great on mobile as their themes are responsive. You can have interesting visual effects like scrolling banners. If you don’t have enough photos, you can integrate their stock images too.
One of Squarespace’s most appealing features is live editing. You can change your content without having to switch back and forth between the site manager and preview mode, making the process much faster.
Squarespace Video Review
Pros
- Beautiful and sophisticated themes that work with mobile and desktop
- Faster editing capabilities with live content editing
- Excellent customer support with live chat. They even take the time to record screencasts when needed.
- Comes with form builders and newsletters so you can keep in touch with your guests
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Includes password protection options
- Add your own wedding registry
Cons
- No free options; the lowest cost is $16 US
- It’s not the most intuitive tool to use and requires a bit of a learning curve
- Slower page load time
- Does not support multilingual websites
- Templates are designed to look good with their own images, so the designs might not look as good if you use your own images
If you plan to publish a lot of content, like a wedding blog, for instance, Squarespace is a good option if you don’t mind paying a monthly fee.
> Try Squarespace for free 14 days
Webnode
Webnode has 40 million registered users, making it one of the largest contenders. It may not be the standard choice to create a wedding website but it is a great alternative if you are planning an international wedding. It offers multilingual website support with 20 languages supported so far.
Webnode comes with impressive designs that work well on mobile. You can make minor changes to them, like changing background colors and images, but you won’t be able to make significant changes. However, it’s one of the few site builders that provides functional (and SEO-friendly) multilingual features.
Webnode Video Review
Pros
- Offers a decent free option (if you don’t mind ads)
- Password-protection available
- Some of their plans offer email accounts (and they are very affordable)
- Backups so you don’t lose your precious work
- Multilingual website capability
- Comes with several wedding templates you can use
Cons
- No app store
- Basic blog functionality
- Features such as image galleries are minimal
Webnode is great if you need a multilingual site with only the basics, but it has less to offer than its competitors in terms of functionality. If you just want a nice-looking website for sharing basic information, it’ll work, but it’s not a great option if you want to add personal touches like more advanced image galleries or a membership area.
WordPress
What started out as a blogging platform has transformed into a website builder that lets you create fully functional websites. In fact, a whopping 42% of websites are made with WordPress (either WordPress.com or WordPress.org).
You can use the open source WordPress(.org) with your own website hosting service or use the beginner-friendly version of WordPress.com (they host your website and take care of system and plugin updates). Of these two options, we recommend WordPress.com since it’s more beginner-friendly. WordPress.com comes with a free plan if you don’t mind ads and don’t need a custom domain or a lot of features.
WordPress.com is a little more complicated to use than other website builders but it also offers a lot flexibility if you’re willing to work with and pay for custom themes.
Pros
- Free option with ads and a generic domain
- Flexible pricing options
- Lots of plugins to add standard features (you’ll need, at least, the Premium plan)
- Option to add HTML code for further customization
- Easily preview and switch between themes
- Live chat support
- Switch between HTML and preview modes
- Generous storage and bandwidth
Cons
WordPress.com might be too expensive and complicated if you just want an easy wedding website fast. If you have the skill and budget, then you can build a truly unique website.
Ucraft
Ucraft has a strong lean towards creative, artistic sites, and offers a nice wedding template. We found the user experience a bit more complicated because it lacks a true drag-and-drop interface, but with some effort, you should be able to wrap your head around it.
Ucraft prioritizes design so its templates are made to make your images stand out. If you don’t have a lot of images, the company offers a vast library of royalty-free images you can use to craft your wedding website.
Ucraft has additional security and privacy features that we like, including the ability to show or hide content based on a viewer’s location, device, or logged-in status. As every other provider, it also offers free SSL so your guests can connect to your website securely.
Pros
- Show or hide content based on location, device or logged-in status
- Designed to make your images stand out
- A vast, 2+ million vector library
- 1+ million royalty-free images
- Multilingual support
- 24/7 live chat support
Cons
- Not as many features as Wix or Squarespace
- Doesn’t offer as much control over your design as other builders
- Lacks a true drag-and-drop interface
- Doesn’t have wedding-specific features; for example, it’s not possible to integrate a wedding registry
Ucraft used to allow you to connect your own domain name for free, but this is sadly no longer the case. Overall, Squarespace or Wix are a better option.
Webflow
If you’re the type who likes to get into the nitty-gritty details of website design, Webflow just might be the website builder for you. It’s perfect for those who want full creative control over the look and feel of their wedding website, letting you add interactions and effects for a more dynamic experience.
Though it’s more geared towards those with a technical knack, Webflow offers plenty of self-learning resources to help you get the most out of your site. If you’d prefer not to start your site from scratch, there is a good range of well-designed templates available for free, and it’s even possible to purchase wedding-specific templates from around $24,
Webflow Video Review
Pros
- Webflow offers a versatile, no-code drag-and-drop editor that allows for high levels of design freedom
- Well-suited for users with technical skills who crave more control over their website’s appearance and functionality
- Webflow University provides a wealth of educational resources, including courses, video tutorials, articles, and a user forum to help you get the most out of the platform
- A free plan is available, allowing you to publish up to two websites at no cost (albeit with an ad displayed in the lower right-hand corner)
- You have the flexibility to password-protect individual pages, collections of content, or your entire website.
Cons
- The platform can be overwhelming for users who are not technically inclined
- Personal support is limited to email and is only available from Monday to Friday
- The pricing structure is confusing, with a wide range of plans and options that can make it difficult to choose the most suitable one for your needs
- Some features, such as multilingual support, are not yet integrated into the platform.
In conclusion, Webflow offers amazing features and incredible flexibility, but it’s not for everyone. If you’re tech-savvy and want a wedding website as unique as your love story, Webflow might just be your perfect match. Just be sure to read the fine print, especially when it comes to pricing.
Final thoughts about how to create a wedding website
Many of these free plans include provider advertising. If advertising annoys you, or if you prefer to use a nicer web address like sandy-and-thomas(.com), all it takes is a small surcharge.
The chances are that you will only need your website until shortly after your wedding, when your guests have downloaded the photos. We recommend that you cancel your site after that point – unless you want to keep it as ‘memorabilia’. In Wix’s, Weebly’s and Webnode’s cases, your site won’t disappear but it will default to the free version with display ads. You, of course, also have the option to take your website offline completely after the wedding.
I hope our article has helped you to create the perfect website for your special day! If you have any further questions, please feel free to leave a comment below.
We keep our content up to date
05 Oct 2023 - Adding Hostinger and Webflow
04 Oct 2023 - General update
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