How to Make a Free Wedding Website

Do Wedding Websites Cost Money?

The short answer is, it depends. How much you spend on a wedding website—or if you even spend anything—will ultimately come down to your goals and priorities when it comes to site functionality. If you’re okay with basic functions and customization, you likely don’t need to spend anything on a wedding website.

In fact, there are free website builders, like Mailchimp, that allow you to create a free wedding website that can meet your needs without all the long-term website costs.

How to Make a Free Wedding Website: 5 Steps

Learning how to make a website can seem intimidating, but with the right resources, you should be able to make it happen.

To figure out how to make a free wedding website, follow these five steps:

1. Find a Free Website Builder

Finding a free website builder isn’t difficult, there are many online. However, they’re not all created equal. As with anything you get for free, you’ll want to do some research to see what kind of quality you’re getting for such a good deal.

Which free website builder is right for you will depend on the complexity of the site you want and what you want to be able to put on there. Certain free website builders are going to be a better fit for a free wedding website and the types of media you’ll need to include, so keep that in mind.

When using a free website builder like Mailchimp, you need to first make an account for it. Signing up for an account should be free, you’ll just need your email address and other basic information.

When creating your account, keep in mind that you might be putting personal details within the website for your closest friends and family to access, so it’s important to choose a secure password that will help prevent others from accessing the backend of your site.

2. Choose a Domain Name

A domain name is a string of text tied to an IP address, and it is distinguished from a URL. The domain name is a brand name or some other identifying word or phrase you want to use, with a top-level domain—.com, .net, etc. An example of this would be google.com or amazon.com. The URL is the web address that contains the domain name. For example, where google.com is the domain name, http://www.google.com would be the full URL.

The URL is how your guests or others who need to access your site will find it.

Choosing a domain name is usually one of the most important parts of setting up a website. However, for a temporary website that’s only going to be for personal use, that’s not so much the case.

In general, you want to pick a domain name that makes sense. For example, you might choose something that includes a combination of your name and “wedding,” like https://www.johnsonwedding.com. That way, it’s easy to remember for guests and makes it clear what the URL is for when you send it to people.

Keep in mind that, depending on the URL, it may already be taken. You may need to be more specific, like adding on a year. For example, https://www.johnsonwedding2023.com.

For free wedding websites, sometimes users are actually given a subdomain. A subdomain is what comes after the main URL. Usually, it’s a subdomain of the provider. For example, https://www.provider.com/johnsonwedding2023.

It may not seem as official or glamorous as having a domain name all your own, but if you’re just looking for something that works and is free, a subdomain is an easy solution. Usually, using a subdomain won’t inconvenience anyone.

Important Considerations for Free Domain Names

It’s important to note that when you’re picking a domain name, it may say “free,” but that may not be true. In many cases, there are hidden costs. For example, a hosting company may offer a free domain in return for a monthly or yearly commitment to their services. This is not ideal if you are looking for a completely free website.

Another possibility is that you will be required to allow ads to show on your wedding website. For most, this is a non-issue, but it might interfere with how long it takes your website to load or frustrate some users.

When signing up for a domain name, make sure you read into what’s required of you to use it.

3. Figure Out What You Want to Include

You’ll need to decide what you want to include on your website. For some, this may be very simple with just a link to their registry and information about the venue. For others, a wedding website can be a hub of information for everything guests could possibly need to know about the website. For example, you could have separate pages for bridesmaids, groomsmen, and regular guests.

Keep in mind that if you include too much content or disorganized content, it can make it more difficult for visitors to find the essential information they need. First and foremost, a wedding website should be useful to guests, not a hindrance.

Another consideration related to what you want to include is website functionality. For example, if you want to be able to add post-wedding videos and photos or interactive elements. Some free websites may not have the functionality you’re looking for.

4. Design Your Wedding Website

A lot of people ask "how to make a wedding website for free," but not enough people ask how to do it well. That’s where design comes in.

While you don’t need to have an award-winning website design, you do need it to be navigable for your visitors. You don’t want it to be broken or hard to read, as that may make it virtually useless—meaning it is not doing its job for you or your guests, and you are back to square one.

Granted, you are not making a business website, so it is not as though having an imperfect wedding website will ruin the wedding. However, for a day that is supposed to be as close to perfection as possible, the last thing you want to do is to have people relying on a faulty website to get all the information they need to attend.

Often, a website builder will provide you with templates that you can use to set up the general structure of your site. The selection available to you will depend on the provider you decide to use, but usually, there are a few options to choose from depending on the type of page you are trying to create.

Once you find a layout that can work with what you want to include, you can tweak it to your wants and needs. You can usually change things like colors, fonts, and graphics to customize your wedding website. In some cases, you may also be able to move sections around to better fit the layout you want.

You’ll also want to replace the standard text that comes with the template. These kinds of modifications, including the ones mentioned above, should be easy to do, even if you have no coding experience.

The most important thing when designing your website is to ensure that everything is easy to read and easy to find.

5. Launch Your Wedding Website

Once you have your website created to your preferences and specifications, you can launch it for your friends and family to peruse. Thankfully, this is a simple process. Whichever website builder you use will have a “Publish” option that launches your website into live mode—meaning it is accessible for regular Internet use.

While having a website for your wedding is both convenient and fun, you may not want everyone to be able to access it. This may be the case for two reasons:

1. You’re only inviting a certain number of close family and friends.
2. You don’t want information about your wedding out there for anyone to stumble upon.

The best way to limit who is able to have access to your wedding website is to make it private. To make it private, you will need to set up a password and ensure that those who need it have it.

Keep in mind that privacy settings may differ between website builders, and some free website options may not have this feature.

Tips for Building Your Free Wedding Website

Even once you have everything you need to set up a free wedding website, you still have to take the time to put it together. That prospect might sound intimidating, but we have some tips that can help you build your free website.

Make sure your wedding website is designed well

One thing you should do is double-check your website for any potential problems it may have, even if it is somewhat minor. Granted, you should not spend this time checking it over at the expense of more important things, especially if you are going into minute details. However, if you can afford to spend this time on the task, it is well worth it, if only to make a good impression on your would-be guests. Plus, it will help prevent you from having to go back and spend more time trying to fix parts of your website later.

You want to think about how you’re laying everything out as you go. For example, you want to put the most important information at the top of the page. And if you have several pages, make sure the homepage has vital information and also helps guide users to other information they might need about the wedding.

You may also want to avoid putting too much copy in one place. Large walls of text will likely mean that people will be glossing over it. Organize information in smaller sections that provide concise information.

There are two things to try to look out for when editing and proofreading your website. First, you want to make sure that the grammar and spelling are good enough for the information you are providing to be easily understood by your guests.

You can use free websites, such as the Hemingway App, to check your grammar and spelling. Apps like these are a lot more in-depth than a simple spell check, and they can do a world of good to ensure that there are few to no problems with the text.

Check the website for bugs and broken links

The second thing you need to keep an eye out for is the end-user experience. While the website may seem like it's working, you need to test that all of the functions work properly. For example, imagine how stressful it would be if the RSVP form was not working.

Problems like this can be caused by something as simple as an error in a single line of code. If that’s the case, you may not even realize exactly how it came to be broken. However, with a free wedding website, this usually won’t be an issue since you’ll likely be using a template. If you do find yourself in this situation, the provider should have resources to help you troubleshoot.

Click on each and every link on your website to make sure that they work and go to the destination you wanted them to. Such breaks can leave your website a confusing mess, which is the last thing you want when you’re trying to convey vital wedding information to guests before the big day.

To confirm that your website is working, try out all the features ahead of time. This may include clicking buttons to see where they lead you, submitting trial forms, going through all the pages in your navigation menu, and checking video playback.

Limit or section off your image use

Another common issue faced when making a wedding website is that they overuse images or other types of files. This is a problem on multiple levels. First, it may make it difficult for users to navigate an overcrowded website. And second, too many types of media can slow down your website loading speed.

This may discourage people from completing tasks like submitting their RSVP form or cause them to abandon the site altogether and send you a barrage of messages with questions.

A good way to utilize images without overloading your wedding site is to limit how many pieces of media you use on each page.

Consider including a guest book

A digital guest book is a great way to allow your wedding guests to share their excitement and love for you and your partner. You can set up a form that allows guests to add their messages and have them added to the page. While it’s not necessary, guests—and your future self—may appreciate it.

Include the URL to your wedding website on the invites

Whether you are inviting people digitally or through paper invites, having the URL included on it in a font that is clear enough to be read is vital. If the text is too small to be legible, people with worse vision may be unable to go to your website and RSVP. It can also lead to you having to field even more guest questions, adding to your list of to-dos.

Your website should be easy to find and easy to access in order to make your life easier.

Connect your website to other resources

When designing your wedding website, there is more you can do with the build, including linking it to your other wedding resources. For example, in addition to your wedding website, you can also have a Facebook page that can be linked to your wedding website. The wedding website can be linked through the Facebook event page, which, in turn, gives your guests another avenue to access the website and RSVP.

You may also want to link out to funding pages, your registry, the event space’s website, and more so guests can gather any information they may want or need.

Get Ready for the Big Day with a Wedding Website

Whether you want your wedding website to be as detailed as possible or include just the most necessary information, creating a free wedding website should not be too difficult. Plus, it is an excellent resource for your guests and takes some of the pressure off you when it comes to providing information to each and every guest.

With Mailchimp, you can easily create a beautiful website for your big day.