Wednesday 17 December 2014

The Top 7 Wedding Websites You Have Never Heard Of

1 - GUESTERLY:

Are you worrying that your future in-laws and relatives may not mingle and mix and on your wedding day? You can make sure that all your relatives and guests get to know each other by adding your own customized wedding magazine in their welcome bags. Guesterly, the brainchild of former Hearst magazine editors, designs a glossy magazine tailor-made for your special day filled with tidbits of funny and fun information and photographs of you,  your fiance, family members, relatives and all the guest.


2- WEDDING SPOT:

Unlike other wedding websites, Wedding Spot allows grooms and brides to compare venues side by side, including prices and amenities.  Wedding couples can enter specific search term and criteria to find the list of venues that are a perfect match for their budget, location, style and guest count. After choosing some of the few favorites, couples can simply enter a few more specific criteria to generate an instant price estimate at the same time an opportunity to set an appointment to visit the venue. Brides and grooms can, in a few simple clicks, get a lot of useful information without having to email, visit or call a variety of venues to get an information, this definitely helps in taking a lot of stress and saving time out of the process. Wedding Spot currently lists wedding venues in New York and California, and is continuously expanding their list of reception and ceremony venues daily. By the end of this year, Wedding Spot is expected to be available in all major cities in United States.


 
3- PRETTY PEAR BRIDE:

Shafonne Myers, a wedding planner found it difficult to get wedding fashion inspiration for plus size brides when she began to plan her own wedding. She launched Pretty Pear Bride to help other plus size brides who are struggling to find style ideas and a perfect wedding dress, it is the top world’s magazine and website catering to the curvy suite. Editorial stories include photo shoots of plus size bridal accessories and gowns and real weddings, it also includes a directory of best bridal salons that carry plus size stuffs and some other style ideas.



4- ALL SEATED:


AllSeated is one of the best must-use tools for creating floor plans and seating charts for every and any event. They have a very easy to-use interface and will create a professional digital map of your wedding venue floor plan and with their long list of room rentals, dance floors and table styles, brides and grooms, moms and dads, wedding planners and designers can create a perfect printable, floor plan and seating chart for the reception. You can also keep track of RSVPs and manage your guest list with this free tool.


5- BRIDE SIDE:

You may have seen a brides-maid photo where the dresses don’t quite fit right. It’s difficult to find one brides-maid dress to flatter each maids figure, but with fit algorithm of Brideside’s, you can try “at home program” and “fit videos”, your girls are sure to wear brides-maid dresses that fit like a glove. If you don’t believe it’s possible, you can check out their real wedding gallery to see the results.


6- BEVMO

For brides and grooms planning on stocking the bar at the wedding themselves, or at their rehearsal dinner or engagement party, BevMo can help create the perfect specialty bars and signature cocktails, you can also calculate how much wine, beer and liquor you need for the wedding party. Here is how it works: Once you get registered for free, the website will assign you a beverage expert. The expert will than find a local BevMo store where you and your partner can go for a private wine and beer tasting to help you select the right beer and wine for your big day. The website also has a section for party planning tips; this will help you learn more about choosing the right drink for your party, including wine pairing advice, cocktail recipes and measurement guides.


7- MAC DESIGN INC - WEDDING WEB DESIGNER:

Couples and wedding professionals who wish to design and create a personalized wedding website should take a look at MAC Design Inc – Wedding Website Designer website. For a very reasonable price brides and grooms can create a beautiful website with all the important details family, friends and guests need to know, like: when and where the wedding will be held, how you met, where you have registered, accommodation and travel information, and an insane amount of pictures of your love story. Wedding professionals can showcase their portfolio of work, provide list of services, add their biography etc to get a great exposure on world wide web.  Visit their website to see their wedding website design services and to learn more about wedding websites packages, pricing and functionality.

PS: MAC Design Inc - Wedding Website Designer. recently launched a website for a personal wedding planner based in UK and Seychelles.  Take a look at the website of Mariyaz Kreole to check the standard of their work.




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Tuesday 11 November 2014

Top 10 Tips to Create the Perfect Wedding Website


I have recently got married and the truth is before meeting my husband, I did not really think I would get married. So I have never thought much about the wedding.

On the other note, the one thing I know very well is the technology, internet and specially website design and development. So immediately after saying yes we started planning and designing our wedding website because we wanted to do things differently.

Both of us are from web design and development industry and we have seen the spectrum of different websites ranging from good to bad and template cluttered to ugly. We thought of doing some research before creating our wedding website and we have found out ten most important things that make a wedding website breathtakingly impressive and spectacular. So whether you are an internet geek or a beginner, the following list is a perfect place to start when you are planning to create your wedding website.

1) CHOOSE MEMORABLE AND EASY WEDDING WEBSITE URL:

Consider securing a website domain name that has both yours and your partners name if available - this makes it a bit more special for you and will be more memorable for your family, friends and guests too. Try getting the combinations like these two examples:

- SuzieAndJonathan.com
- SuzieJonathanWedding.com

However on invitations, it makes sense to put the shorter URL so you can ensure your wedding website fits well on invitations. You can use URL shorteners like Bitly or Google's URL shortener.

2) INCLUDE VENUE INFORMATION:

It’s important to provide your guests as much information as possible for them to arrive on time and easily find the venues. You can have the following on venue page:

•    Phone numbers of contact personnel’s at the venue
•    Location map that can provide easy directions. The best way is to add a Google Map
•    Ceremony start and end time
•    Additional special information and instructions

Expert Tip: Include a link on your wedding website to download a document with phone number, location and any other important details for the venue. Some or most of your guests will want to get the map printed and have the venue information readily available on your big day.

3) PROVIDE INFORMATION OF HOTELS:

Find out the best hotels in the area and list them on your website to help your guests find the best hotel to stay, also try providing several options and a different price range. Ensure that you provide following useful information of hotel page on your wedding website:

•    Information of location
•    Contact details of the hotel including phone numbers and email address

4) PROVIDE INFORMATION OF REGISTRY:

There are many online stores who offer element for their registries. You can consider linking them directly to your registry from these pages. Some popular registries which you can include are:

•    Crate and Barrel
•    Bloomingdales
•    Williams-Sonoma
•    Macy's

Expert Tip: You can also add some items which are not part of an official registry. For example, you could add wish list of Amazon.com or add a link to any other specific item.

5) ADD A PROPOSAL STORY:
We all love a great love story, isn’t it? So give your family, friends and guests what they want. This is the best chance you have to talk about your proposal and share your personal stories and everyone will naturally get curious to know all the details.

6) SHARE A PHOTO ALBUM:

You can share photo albums on your wedding website and make a life story. Albums can be combined into various categories. Here are some ideas of organising your photos into different categories:

•    Pictures as a couple
•    Pictures of engagement
•    Pictures of your wedding
•    Pictures of your honeymoon
•    Pictures of your baby shower
•    Pictures of your baby
•    Pictures of your first home

7) USE RSVP FORM:
Your wedding website allows you to easily receive RSVP from your guests. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use Google Docs, add it in your wedding website, and set the form up to notify you when your guest has sent an RSVP.

Make this form sweet and short with a section for comments for your guests to send a personalised message. Here is a general idea of what fields you should include in your RSVP form:

•    Include a listing of all names of your guests
•    Will they be attending your wedding?  Add two fields “Accept with pleasure” and “Regretfully decline”
•    Contact info and email address
•    Food preference (Vegetarian, Non-vegetarian)
•    Comments

8) ADD A SPECIAL AND PERSONAL TOUCH:

 Whether you are creating your wedding website with your wedding colors or you and your partner have any favorite font, ensure that you add a sweet digital touch of your love to your wedding website to make it specially yours.

9) ADD YOUR VENDORS LIST:
 I am sure you would want to show some love to the vendors who make your wedding special and beautiful. Here is your chance to promote them and let them know how delighted you are to work with them. You can add a listing of their wedding services websites with a small description of how they supported you and why you love them.

10) DON’T FORGET TO ADD A WEDDING DATE:

 Make sure that you don’t forget to add your wedding date on your website, ideally your wedding date should come on the home page in bigger and bolder font, in addition you can add the date on additional pages, perhaps at the top area of the web page (the header) or at the bottom of each page (the footer).

Tuesday 4 November 2014

6 Benefits of Putting your Wedding on the Web With Wedding Website Design



How do you feel about creating a wedding websites? Some people find them a good outlet for narcissism, while others find them to be a helpful guide during modern digital times. Sure, 90% photos of yourself on your wedding website with an accompanying interesting story about how you met your partner is a little extreme (and totally unhelpful), building a simple site to share important event details and stories, images from your relationship is not. Personal wedding websites are one of the fastest growing trends in UK and around the world today. Call them self obsession, call them too much information or call them a complete waste of time, but there are several reasons why creating a wedding website is a really good idea for wedding planning. I know this because when I got engaged I spent a ridiculous amount of time creeping on other people's wedding pages, gathering ideas and seeing which "wedsite" (yes, that is an actual term) builders had the best customization. I also sifted through the myriad options for free and paid wedding website services.

Here are some reasons why you need a personal wedding website and what your website should include to be at maximum benefit for your guests.

1- SAVE ON INVITATION CARD COSTS:
If you are having invites printed, you know how quickly the price will rise by just adding another piece of paper to the mix. By directing everyone to your site in any engagement party, shower, or wedding correspondence, you'll save time, money, and effort on printing costs.

2- RSVP AND REGISTRY INFO:
Not only can you manage your RSVPs through your wedding website, but you can create your own unique RSVP forms that reflect your personality. We came up with some quirky answers to replace the usual "yes" and "no" answers like, "Yes! I've been looking for an excuse to ditch the kids!" or "No, it's too close to college football season." We also asked for guests' email addresses in case we needed to follow up with any last minute wedding details. Having a separate tab for your registry info is also helpful, as guests can easily find where you're registered and can click directly to those sites.

3- IT'S EASY TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOUR GUESTS:
Many wedding website designers offer guest book and RSVP sections. Ask guests to sign the book or enter their email addresses to be notified of site updates or changes. Then happily send one email instead of making 150 calls. Easy to stay in touch, right?

4- IT'S ECO FRIENDLY:
No matter how you use it, your site will probably save you cash on paper and stamps, not to mention the trees you've saved by using less paper and carbon emissions you've spared by not loading the mailman down with a whole lot of envelopes. Whether you prefer to go completely paperless and use your site for everything or just plan to ask for revs for a portion of your wedding-related festivities, every little bit helps.

5- SET EXPECTATIONS:
It's hard to convey every detail about your wedding to your guests on one little invite. Isn't it? And it's annoying when they call/email with questions like "where should I park?" and "what's the dress code for the event" or "Can I bring my kid?". You can easily set expectations for the wedding and add in all those little details in your wedding website that either don't fit on your invite or seem odd to list. 

6- CONNECT WITH YOUR GUESTS:
It may sound cheesy, but your guests love learning more about you as a couple. They love seeing your pictures, reading stories about how you met, and appreciate understanding your unique personalities. Your guests get more excited for the event because of the personal touch you add to your personal wedding website and this ensures they will have a better time at your wedding and increases the likelihood they will attend and have a great time at your wedding. If they are close friends and relatives, they will be more likely to keep checking your website for stories and after wedding events. 

It's also a chance for them to weigh in with comments, song suggestions or questions they have. It's truly a two-way form of communication with your guests. And, it's just plain fun!

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