What should a wedding website include? A checklist

What should a wedding website include?

Think of the site as the page your guests open when they ask, "Where do I need to be, and when?" Everything else is secondary. This checklist goes from most useful to nice to have.

Which details do guests need first?

• Every function. List haldi, mehendi, sangeet, ceremony and reception separately, not as one block. Each should have its own date and start time.
• The venue for each function. Name the place and give the full address. Functions often happen at different venues, sometimes in different towns.
• A map link for each venue. Guests will tap a link rather than copy an address into a map app. A link per venue is the single most-used part of most wedding pages.
• Who is invited to what. If only close family is invited to the haldi, say so, or better, show each family only the functions they are invited to.
• A contact for questions. Name one person, such as a cousin, with a phone number, so the couple is not the first call.

How do guests reply?

Add a clear way to reply. A link that opens on a phone without an app or an account gets more answers than a form that asks people to sign up. Ask for the number of people coming and any dietary needs, and leave room for a message to the couple.

If you are inviting guests to some functions and not others, give each family its own link so they see only their own functions. That avoids replies for events they were never invited to. Our guide to collecting wedding RSVPs online covers this in detail.

What else is worth adding?

• Your story. A short paragraph and a photo or two. Keep it brief.
• Dress and customs notes. If a function has a colour theme or a custom guests may not know, mention it in a sentence.
• Travel and parking notes. Short and practical: where to park, how long it takes from the airport, which gate to use.
• A photo section. Guests take far more pictures than the photographer. Tell them where to upload theirs, and what happens to them. In Mangalyam, guest photos wait for your approval before they show, unless you turn on automatic approval, and every wedding gets 5 GB of free photo storage.

What should you leave off?

• Details that are not final. A wrong time on a website causes more trouble than a missing one.
• Private information such as phone numbers of people who have not agreed to share them.
• Long text. If a section is longer than a phone screen, split it or cut it.

How do you publish it?

Draft the page, preview it as a guest would see it on a phone, and publish only when the dates, venues and times are final. In Mangalyam, your hosted wedding website has your own design and is published only when you approve it, and it is free for couples. You can also keep your checklist of tasks with due dates in the same place, so "update the website" sits next to "confirm the caterer".

A quick final check

Before you share the link, ask two people who have not seen it to find the time and venue of the reception. If they find it in under ten seconds, you are done. If they hesitate, move that section higher on the page.

How should the page be ordered?

Order the page by what guests ask, not by what you find most meaningful. A sensible sequence is: the schedule of functions, the venues and maps, the reply link, travel notes, your story, then photos. Guests who want the story will scroll; guests who want the time should not have to.

What should each function entry say?

Use the same pattern for every function so guests learn it once:

• the name of the function,
• the date and start time,
• the venue name and address,
• one line on dress or custom, if any,
• the map link.

Write times the way your guests say them, and state the city if guests are travelling from abroad. If a function has a gate time and a muhurat, show both and label them.

How do you write the contact line?

Choose one helper per side of the family if the families are large, and name them with a phone number. Ask them first. A line such as "For travel questions, call your cousin by name" works better than a generic enquiry address that nobody checks during the week of the wedding.

What about language?

If your guests read more than one language, put the key facts in each: function names, dates, times and venues. The story can stay in one language. Keep sentences short, because a relative reading on a phone in a hurry is not reading for style.

How do you keep photos orderly?

Photos arrive in a flood after the wedding. Decide before the day how you will handle them: tell guests where to upload, say that you will review what appears, and set up the approval choice. A short sentence on the page, such as "Share your photos here after the wedding", is enough.

What mistakes cost the most?

• A schedule that disagrees with the invitation card. Check both against the same source.
• A map link that points to the wrong gate or the wrong town. Open each link on your phone before you publish.
• Making every guest see every function. If the haldi is private, show it only to the families invited.
• Publishing before the page has been read by someone who did not write it.

How do you test it on a phone?

Most guests will open the link in a chat message on a phone. Open it that way yourself. Check that the text is readable without zooming, that each map link opens, that the reply link works, and that nothing important is hidden below a long story. Then ask an older relative to find the reception time; their path through the page will show you what to fix.

When do you update it?

Treat the page as the single source of truth. When a time changes, change the page first and then tell people to check it. That habit keeps the family from working off an old message in a group chat.

Ready to build yours? Start your wedding site and add each function, venue and reply link.

See wedding website for how it works in Mangalyam and wedding planning for the rest of the tools.