Dear Libbie

We are thinking of using our website home page as our wedding invitation, in stead of sending wedding invitations out.  Our questions are (1) Will our guests take offence and/or see this as poor etiquette? (2) How do we get a web invitation to look beautiful?   (3) How do we let our guests know about our wedding website?

Steffi & Chris

Hallo Steffi and Chris

Wedding invitations are very, very special, whether you have them designed or make them yourself or buy them ready-made ... or have them on your wedding website. Thinking the website option through is sensible.

Your first question is about wedding etiquette:

To me the main point of a wedding invitation is all about telling your guests that they are very dear to you, so dear and special that you want them to share your wedding day with you. The second point of your wedding invitation is its elegance and style, which reflects your style and elegance.

Can these aims be achieved with a wedding invitation on your wedding website? Yes, certainly!

Only your guests get your wedding website address ... so being invited remains as special as always. I do not want to criticize friends and guests I do not even know, but isn't taking offence when you are honoured with an invitation a bit ungracious, however you are invited?

Your website wedding invitation can be elegant and stylish, too ... and should be, but more about that later on.   

We do think the type of on-line wedding invitation does matter. Marketing should never be part of your wedding invitation as this boils down to manipulation of your guests. Therefore we recommend that you subscribe to a personal wedding website service that respects your privacy, as well as your guests' privacy. With an OurWeddingPage.co.za personal wedding website you get your own wedding website: guests are not taken through a marketing-orientated wedding portal, and no ads will ever pop up on your personal OurWeddingPage.co.za website. Other similar services are available ... just check what you get.

Another point to consider: wedding invitation are generally made of the highest-quality paper and soon thrown away by 90% of your guests. This means that wedding invitations are rather eco-unfriendly. To my mind doing your bit for our planet is always etiquette.

Your second question is about elegant wedding invitations

Paper wedding invitations have set very high standards and created a beautiful, graceful tradition which I believe we should honour on-line.  And that can be done.

We are not talking here about cheapie or 'free' wedding invitations whereby guests' e-mail addresses are collected for spamming purposes.

What we recommend is using a professional graphic web designer. And if you do decide to create your own on-line wedding invitation we believe you will take as much trouble with it as you would have if you were making paper invitations for your wedding by hand. (One huge advantage: you'll be making only one!)

Web designers create wonderful virtual wedding invitations, with lovely text effects, wording, any visual texture and any designs you may have in mind. We are in the process of linking our clients up with graphic designers; so do come back, or contact a local graphic artist in the meantime.

Also think on which page you want your wedding invitation: your homepage is one option. Your wedding calendar page is another option. Also note that we can change the title of any page on your personal wedding website, if you request it. You can, for example, throw together the 'bride' and 'groom' pages and rename the resultant open page 'our wedding invitation'.

Other points to consider:

*Ask to see examples. Designers can e-mail you examples or refer you to website examples. Many use templates, exactly like most designers of paper invitations.
*Get an all-inclusive quote: rather get a quote for the job than a quote of x amount per hour. This means you know how much you will pay.
*If you want to repeat the design on your guest cards, wine bottle labels, wedding ceremony program and other wedding stationary ask the graphic designer to release the design to you by e-mail. You can then take the design to any local printer who does small runs and have them print it.

*A suggestion: have a few cards hand-made or printed for yourself, the bridesmaids, the parents and your sisters. They are the only people who are likely to keep their invites ... sad but true. But at least you did not send out a hundred cards, or two hundred ... and envelopes and rsvp cards.

Thirdly: how to let your guests know about your wedding website

We've evolved into techno beings! It will save you lots of time, money and effort if you e-mail your website address to guests.

One disadvantage is that not all your guests are online. You also may not have everyone's e-mail addresses ... but we guess you'll have many more guests' e-mail addresses than land-mail addresses!

Most e-mail services are set up to automatically create a live link to any website address typed into the message body. When reading your e-mail invited guests simply click on the link and get routed to your website .... and they won't get your address wrong! 

But possibly the most stylish option would be to send out a simple card or a save-the-date card with your  wedding website address

... but .... yes .... doing no printing is almost impossible! The best you can do is to minimize this expense.