Wedding websites

I love wedding websites. And by that I don't mean the ones that tell you what dress to wear, what flowers to choose, what shoes will best show off the results of the ultimate diets which they also happen to detail. No, the wedding websites I rate are the ones that are like a massive online invitation – and more.

The joy of wedding websites is that you can add more detail than you can with your average invitation – unless you are sending out a telephone directory – and without the risk of people losing vital bits of information. By all means send out a myriad of information by post, but frankly opening some wedding invitations is like a ticker tape parade. Those of us who are disorganised, messy or have small children are particularly susceptible to losing the vital bit of paper that gives us the vital details of the wedding list – particularly if not with a more established purveyor of wedding goodies like John Lewis or similar – the address to RSVP, menu choice if having multiple options (see earlier post on this!) etc. Basically all elements that will be tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot if the guest loses the bit of paper. Then there are things that may be useful to the guest such as maps, venue details and instructions, timings etc. Only the dappiest guests are likely to lose the actual stiffie – or whatever creative equivalent you may have concocted – but it does happen. Particularly when people are travelling.

For the uninitiated, the wedding website is a whole website devoted to your big day. What better? You can make it as complicated or as simple as you like – from a one page replica of your main invitation to a multi-page site featuring multiple tabs.

Before you throw your hands up in horror at the thought of all this techiness, the answer is yes, you can do it. And you can do it by yourself. This is partly because the advent of the wedding website has made it easy peasy. Check out this link via Mashable and the world of wedding websites will be opened up to you! These are all US based sites but should work internationally but if you are in the UK and want to use something closer to home – if such a thing exists or matters in cyberspace – then try Getting Married or Wedding Site Both are great fun, simple to use and a new channel for all that untapped creativity you didn't know you had until you thought about getting hitched.

So what to put on it... mix, match and omit as you fancy:

Number one: The essentials. Date, time, location. But you already knew that.

Number two: Details of your wedding list. Particularly if you have lists from multiple retailers.

Number three: A map. Or a Googlemap link should do the job

Number four: Useful information. Will there be a cash-only bar? Does the venue have restrictions relating to high heels? Is parking available? Should taxis be booked in advance if the wedding is in a rural location? Any dress code?

Number five: Details of local hotels, B&Bs and self-catering. If you fancy giving your guests an easy ride when it comes to finding a place to lay their heads. Equally it may be useful to drop in some local taxi numbers to help them to find their way home.

Basically this is your forum to do what you wish. My favourite to date was one by friends who planned to live in a smallholiding in the Highlands of Scotland. Instead of having a wedding list you could buy them things they were going to need to make their dream of the good life complete. On the website there was a cartoon map where you could click on the pigsty and pledge to buy them a piggy or the pigsty, likewise with the henhouse and vegetable patch. The groom was quite techy and I have no doubt that this was a bit complicated to create and beyond what the template-based providers offer but the point is that having a website offers a lot of possibilities to do anything you like as well as helping your guests out a bit.