The wedding website

Every wedding can have a website for its guests: a home page, the story, the schedule, where to stay, the registry, a few questions answered, and a way to reply. You build it, or the couple does, and it lives at view.weddingcraftr.com/w/ followed by the address you choose. It never carries our name.

Making it#

Open Website in the wedding's menu and press Create the website. You get seven pages with a title already written in the wedding's language, a welcome line on the home page, and an address made from the two names. Only you can create it; the couple can edit it once you have shared it with them.

Each page is a fixed kind, so the site always looks like a wedding site and never like a blank canvas. Home has the names, the date, a hero photo, a welcome and an optional countdown. Our story and any extra page (up to three) are free text. Schedule lists the moments you choose to show, each with the time on the venue's own clock, a dress code and a note, and it reads the moments live, so a time you move on the run sheet moves on the site at the next visit. Travel and stay lists the room blocks you choose, with the hotel, the dates, a "book by" date taken from the block's release date, a booking link and a group code. Registry is links, https only. FAQ is questions and answers. RSVP is the reply page.

Words and looks#

The site can speak any of the five languages. Pick which, and one is the main language: it has to be filled in before you publish, and a page missing a translation shows the main language's text for that field. Each language tab shows a dot where the main language has copy and this one does not.

Choose a theme (Editorial, Garden, Coastal or Minimal), an accent colour and, if you like, fonts. An accent too pale to read on the theme's paper is refused with its contrast ratio, and only the listed fonts are offered.

Publishing#

Nothing a guest sees changes until you press Publish. Publishing copies every page at once, so a guest is never halfway through an edit, and you can keep editing the draft afterwards and publish again when it is ready. A publish is refused if the wedding has not been opened to the couple, if a visible page has no text in the main language, or if your plan does not include the website. The other side hears when you publish: the couple if you did, your team if they did. Take down turns the site off; an address you have used keeps working if you change it, and sends visitors to the new one.

Who can find it#

A site is hidden from search engines unless you turn on Let search engines find this site. Only sites that have done so appear in the sitemap. A password makes the site private: guests are asked for it once, and changing or removing it signs everyone out. A site with a password can never be searchable.

Guests replying#

On the RSVP page a guest types their name. If exactly one household matches, they go on to the same reply page as always, with the same meals and the same deadline, and the answer lands in your guest list. If several households match, they are asked for one more thing, the email their invitation went to or their postcode, and no names are ever shown. If nobody matches, they are told so, with your contact email if you gave one. A guest can try ten times an hour. Replies from the site stop when the reply-by date passes, or when you switch them off in the settings.

A household needs an email address on the guest list for the hand-off to work; without one the guest is asked to contact you.

The couple#

At Can edit the couple sees the same editor under Your website on their trip, on the web and on the phone, and can publish. At Can see they read it. In prep, before you open the wedding, they see nothing and cannot publish.

Your own domain#

Coming soon: pointing www. your couple's own domain at the site.