Guide to Writing a Wedding Website Welcome Message

There are plenty of details that go into wedding planning, many of which need to be relayed to the masses rather than on an individual basis. With that comes the creation of your wedding website.

Your wedding website helps to provide your loved ones all your wedding details—which can help them prepare for your upcoming nuptials. It can also act as a kind of digital wedding planner, helping you to keep all of your wedding ideas and information organized.

Your wedding website highlights where the wedding ceremony will be, what the dress code is, who’s in the bridal party, and even provides some background on the couple's personal love story. Most importantly, this is the place your guests will also go to get the location, details, gift registry, and other fun and pertinent information about your wedding event. But before you get to any of that, you have to construct your wedding website welcome message to guide guests through your website and build joyful anticipation around your big day.

Where to Start

The first things you’ll need to do when creating your wedding website is choose a wedding website URL and the design of your website. The URL will tell people how to find your wedding website—and the design will shape the visual experience once they’re there. (Not a designer? Not a problem. Zola has plenty of wedding website templates to help you create a beautiful wedding website!)

Once you’ve locked in your URL and design, it’s time to start actually creating the content for your website.

To start your welcome message for your special day, give it a headline. This should be an announcement and invitation for guests to share your excitement for your upcoming celebration. Some welcome message wording examples include:

• We’re Getting Married

• We’re Making It Official

• Can’t Wait for You to Join Us on Our Big Day

• Celebrating Our Commitment of Love

After the headline, start with a greeting and a brief introduction that includes what to expect from visiting your wedding website. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, because as guests navigate from section to section, they’ll get the in-depth information they’re looking for with regards to location, accommodations, and events surrounding the day. And there’s no need to be as formal or deliberate as, say, wedding invitations wording; an informal, friendly sentence or two will sum it up nicely.

Below are some examples of wedding website welcome wishes:

• Welcome, family and friends! We’re excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you.

• Hello to our family and friends! We can’t wait to celebrate our wedding day with you. You’ll find all the exciting details throughout our site.

• Welcome to our wedding site! We’re happy to share this exciting time with you and have created a space that shares everything you need to know about our big day..

Share the Details

Put your own personality into the greeting and intro. Then, highlight a few key features of your website that provide information for your special day. For example, let guests know they can easily RSVP online (which also makes it easy for you!), point out travel accommodations, and share a few of your favorite things to do and places to eat for those who are visiting from out of town. These kinds of details are especially important for those who are planning a destination wedding.

Since your wedding guest list likely isn’t that familiar with the place you’ve chosen, give them a mini-tour of areas you like, where to stay, and why the destination means so much to you. Again, you can be thorough in the separate sections of the website, but tease out a few highlights for your guests in the welcome message with information that’s personal to you as a couple.

Lastly, sign off with a reminder about the date and a thank you for having your guests join you for your celebration. Use each of your first names or initials in closing. A sample wedding website welcome message may read as follows:

Welcome, family and friends! We’re excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you. You’ll find all the exciting details throughout our site, including a link to the hotel where we’ve blocked off rooms, a place you can RSVP online, and a list of a few of our favorite restaurants around town. We’re regulars at <favorite place> and hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

We can’t wait to see you in <wedding destination>, and thank you for all your love and support! The countdown is officially on to <wedding date>. See you then!

Love, <couple’s first names>

You want to create a message that is warm and inviting, so it conveys your excitement, but don’t overthink it. Ultimately, short, sweet, and to the point is best. Once guests click the link that takes them to your website, they’ll be able to navigate through it at their own place. Plus, it serves as a resource for them to check again and again as the wedding day draws near.

Taking Guests Through Your Wedding Website

Once you’ve sent out your welcome message and guests arrive at your website, the information should be laid out in a way that’ll be easy and fun for them to read. As mentioned, by choosing from over 300 wedding website design templates, you can customize the look and feel of your website to match your personalities and your overall wedding theme.

Each wedding website design has a main page, which includes a tagline, wedding date, plus stories of how you met and the proposal. This draws in your guests and puts them in a happy mood as they continue to navigate the site. From there, the following tabs house separate pages of information that will cover everything from online RSVPs to registry information for wedding gifts to the social media hashtags you’re planning to use to celebrate your big day. (You can even create a page to share your Save The Dates!) These separate pages keep the site from looking too cluttered with text—without sacrificing any of the information your guests to plan for the event.

• Wedding Party
• Events
• Travel
• Things to Do
• Photos
• Registry
• FAQs
• RSVP

This allows all of your guests to get to know more about who’s involved in your wedding, where it’s taking place, and other important details. Since not every guest may be familiar with each other, it’s a way to start connecting people from both sides and generate excitement around your big day.

1.Wedding Party

Share the members of your wedding party with an anecdote or description of who they are to you as a couple. Aside from the two of you, they will be one of the main parts of your wedding day. Let others know why you’ve chosen them to stand up with you at the ceremony.

2.Events

This is the place where you’ll list the date, time, and location of the wedding venue. This includes the ceremony itself, a cocktail hour, and reception. Many couples also have additional events that all guests are invited to, such as a welcome party or a brunch scheduled for the day after the wedding.

3.Travel

Map out the logistics to make it easy for guests who are traveling from out of town. Let them know the closest airport, as well as any accommodations where you have reserved a block of rooms. Additionally, if you’ve prepared any special travel between the ceremony and the reception, include that information here as well.

4.Things to Do

Create a list of fun things to do and places to eat that you like as a wedding couple. Invite guests into your world with your unique insights and recommendations. It’ll be helpful for guests who aren’t as familiar with the location and can serve as a reminder for locals, too.

5.Registry

This section populates the items you’ve registered for through the Zola website and makes it easy for guests to see what’s available to purchase online. They can browse by categories, such as furniture and kitchen, as well as browse through your chosen experiences and gift cards. Rather than worrying about traveling with a gift or bringing it to the reception, guests can have one shipped directly to your home through your wedding registry.

6.FAQs

This is where you’ll answer all of the burning questions friends and family have been asking since you got engaged. Many common ones are if plus-ones and children are allowed, if there is a dress code, and if there are any travel accommodations they need to know about for the day of the wedding. It’s nice to have a go-to resource for everyone to reference as they please.

7.RSVP

Giving guests the opportunity to RSVP online may take off the pressure of sending in their responses by mail. Add a deadline request to this page to let people know when you’d like to hear from them. The feature also allows people to respond for themselves and a guest or for their entire group.

When in Doubt, Spell It Out

Add as much information as you’d like to each of these sections to make sure guests have all the details they need to feel prepared and excited to celebrate your big day. Having a central place for them to get this information will help to alleviate the stress of responding to multiple people individually about similar questions. It’ll be readily available to them whenever they want.

But Don’t Stress

The website can be updated as you go, or you can wait until you have all the details in place before you decide to launch it. The good news is that by using a website builder design template, it gives you an outline of where you need to fill in the information. Once you’ve crafted your wedding website welcome message, take the rest section by section, or tackle it all at once. Soon, you’ll have everything you need to share the exciting details of your big day.

Zola, Your Best Wedding Website Option

Creating a beautiful wedding website doesn’t need to be a hassle! At Zola, we have everything you need to design the perfect wedding website, including a huge library of wedding website templates to help you design a website that feels true to you, your partner, and your style. And not only can we help you create a wedding website, but with Zola, you can also set up your wedding registry—and add it to your website with a click of a button. (And if you don’t get all the gifts off of your registry? Not to worry—Zola offers a 20% discount on all registry items for six months following your wedding date.)

Ready to get started? Set up your wedding website and wedding registry at Zola today!