On Wedding Websites

I am a big believer in wedding websites. Love them*. It's an easy medium to get necessary information about the events (without having to ask the bride / groom) and very helpful when traveling out of town. Whenever we receive a save the date with a wedding website, I bookmark it on my computer for quick reference until the big day.

So, it goes without saying that Mr. Turkey and I put together a pretty comprehensive site, setting it "live" online approximately 9 months before the wedding. Fun fact - although save the dates did not go out until the fall, some guests found our site beforehand...several even noticed when I made the change to the venue. Goes to show you that nothing's private on the web!

Screen shot of our webpage front page - you can see that the images are rotating

Now, you might ask why I waited until after the wedding to share our wedding website with you.

Primarily, the reason was selfish. I was saving myself from having to do twice the amount of editing. If this post was shown beforehand, besides having to edit the URL and our names, I would have needed to remove references to anything tied to our date. Too complicated.

But additionally, I wanted to be able to let you know our thoughts on the webpage after the event - who used it, what we would have done differently, etc. You might have guessed based on some comments made during my post on the welcome booklet...there were a decent number of guests that did not use the site.

Not for lack of trying - website link on our Save the Date and on a Mini Moo card (as part of our invitation suite)

I can't count the number of times people asked me (or Mr. Turkey or my mom) questions that were answered on the website: from where we were registered to what hotels were reserved to the time of the reception. I was always more than happy to give the information, but if the request came via email, I often also included a link to the webpage (hoping to help with any further questions).

I share this not to deter you from making a webpage (because there were other guests who used it frequently), but to prepare you for the fact that no matter how comprehensive your site, some guests will not utilize the resource**.

You can see how some of our guests used the website as a communication tool, too!

But let's put those non-users to the side and talk about content.

Mr. Turkey and I thought long and hard about what to included on our website. We channeled the experience we had as wedding guests and decided on the following categories (can be seen above on the left-hand side):

• About Us (bride, groom, together)
• The Main Events (ceremony & reception info)
• Wedding Party (info about the bridal party)
• Our Family (identifying the parents)
• Wedding Day Information (attire, transportation, after party, brunch)
• Guest Accommodations (info on hotels)
• Directions 
• What to do in Philly (discussed previously here and here)
• Photo Album (because everyone likes pictures!)
• Registry

The "about us" section was the most debated. After all, these people were attending our wedding - shouldn't they know who we are? Well, yes...but the reality is / was, some of the guests were more familiar with one of us than the other. So, we decided it was worthwhile to provide some details. Mr. Turkey wrote the "about the bride" section and I wrote the "about the groom" with "short and sweet" as the theme.

The "How We Met" section

Despite our hesitation in including this on the website, it was probably the area where we received the most comments / compliments. People enjoyed reading our perspectives on each other and even those who knew us both well said they learned a few new things. Go figure.

We also received thanks for details included in the "wedding day information" section.

Some guests downloaded the trolley schedule before arriving

These details were helpful for those planning out their weekend plans

By including information online about the after party and brunch, our hope was that all the guests would know they were invited (not just the out of towners - same info was included in the welcome booklet). In terms of the trolley schedule, we posted that online for two reasons.

First, we had a number of in-town guests who lived near some of the hotels and we wanted them to be able to save themselves cab fare or an unnecessary walk (you ladies in heels know what I'm talking about). Second, Mr. Turkey and I have found it tough to "guess" when transportation might be for some weddings we've attended. I've made hair appointments too late, lunch reservations too early, etc. So, by putting the schedule online, guests were able to make their plans accordingly.

Lastly, many were appreciative of the info on what to do in Philly. Some were able to make early reservations for restaurants they wanted to try, while others made hair or nail appointments in advance.

Bottom of our "What to do in Philly" section

I didn't share much around our guest hotel info because, well, that's pretty usual for a wedding website. However, because we had 5 hotels with blocks, we tried to give as much information as possible in order to help people make a choice. This meant including the following:

• Hotel contact: address, phone number
• Rate and what it included (e.g. breakfast)
• Code / link to secure wedding block rate
• Date by which they needed to book a room
• Parking details and cost (e.g. valet only, self-parking)
• Distance to church and reception (if they preferred closer)
• Amenities / services (e.g. pool, fitness center, babysitting, etc)

Yes, it's a lot of information, but it saved some guests from having to click through each hotel's website to make a decision (for example, babysitting was important for some guests, while others wanted to be able to walk to the church). Would highly recommend to other brides with multiple options out there!

So, there you have it...our wedding website. Despite the fact that some didn't use it, we were still glad that we put the effort in and would do it again. After all, by doing the work up front here, we merely had to repurpose and reformat information to put into the booklets!

Did you create a wedding website? What information did you include for your guests?

*However, despite this love, I will admit that there is nothing more frustrating than an incomplete website (e.g. "coming soon" still listed on the site with days to go re: important information). I'd rather have no website in that case.
**For clarity, the people asking the questions were not grandparents or web-illiterate guests. In fact, my grandfather was a big user of the site!