Make a wedding website guests can actually use
Guests visit a wedding website to answer practical questions: when, where, how to get there, what to wear and by when to reply. Put those on the first screen, make the reply form short, and send every answer to a spreadsheet you can sort. The love story can go further down.
What guests actually look up
Think about the messages you'd otherwise answer one by one in a group chat. Nearly all of them are logistics. Give each a clear heading so a guest who opens the site on their phone in a station car park can find it in seconds.
| Topic | What to include |
|---|---|
| Date and times | Ceremony start, when to arrive, when the evening ends, last transport home |
| Venue | Full name and address, a map link, step-free access, where to park |
| Travel | Nearest station, taxi numbers, any coach you've arranged and its times |
| Where to stay | Two or three nearby options, any room block and its booking deadline |
| Dress code | In words people understand, with a note about shoes if the ground is grass |
| Children | Whether they're invited, said kindly and clearly |
| RSVP deadline | A date, repeated next to the form |
| Gifts | What you'd like, or that you'd rather nothing; a link if you have a list |
A reply form that's easy to fill in
Every question you add is one more reason for a guest to put it off. Ask what you'll act on: name, attending or not, the names of anyone in their party, dietary needs, and perhaps a song request. If you're inviting some people to the evening only, consider separate links rather than a form that branches. The RSVP website guide covers question wording in more detail.
When you describe the site, list the questions you want on the form. The built-in forms have fixed fields, so an RSVP with your own questions is a custom form tied to a site function: up to 30 plain-text fields, and a thank-you page with your own heading and message. Then check the preview to confirm the form asks exactly those, and ask for a change in a sentence if it doesn't. Each reply is saved in your dashboard, sealed at rest, and can be emailed to you.
Sending replies to a Google Sheet
A spreadsheet is where RSVPs become useful: one row per reply, sortable by meal choice, countable for the caterer. In Anticode's dashboard, add the Google Sheets connector to the site. It works through a small Apps Script web app in your sheet, and the form submissions to Google Sheets guide walks through it. Each reply is sent once, without retries, so if the sheet was unavailable at that moment the reply is still safe in your dashboard; compare the two counts before you give final numbers.
How Anticode builds a wedding site
As a wedding website builder, Anticode works from a description such as "a wedding site for Priya and Tom, 14 June at Ashcombe Barn in Somerset, with travel, places to stay, dress code and an RSVP form closing on 1 May". The Architect checks the plan and may ask which look you want. Luxury (Jost) and Editorial (Geist) suit formal invitations; Organic (Figtree) suits a garden or barn wedding. Each site keeps to one font family and one accent colour, so it can echo your printed stationery.
- Your photos. Upload engagement photos to the build; the model sees them and places them. Video doesn't play on these pages, so link to any film on a video site.
- Your address. Publish to a free anticode.dev address or connect a domain such as
priyaandtom.comon a paid plan. - Last-minute changes. If the coach time moves, change it in place in the visual editor or ask in a sentence. Your most recent versions are kept if you need to go back.
Pages are public: plan for it
There's no password protection on published Anticode sites, and each site serves a sitemap so search engines can find it. Treat the site as something anyone with the address could read. That rules out a few things couples sometimes add:
- Your home address or the address of family hosting guests.
- The dates you'll be away on honeymoon.
- Guest lists or names of children.
- Anything about the wedding you'd mind a stranger turning up for, such as a precise time of a small private ceremony.
What it won't do
- No guest logins or private pages. Everything published is public.
- No seating planner or guest list manager. Do that in your spreadsheet, or build a separate seating chart app that runs in the browser.
- No gift fund checkout. Link to your registry or to a payment link from your own provider.
- Free plan allowance. On the free plan a monthly number of submissions is visible and the rest wait for an upgrade; check this against your guest count.
Questions people ask
When should a wedding website go live?
Around when save-the-dates go out, with the RSVP form added when invitations are sent. You can publish the logistics first and add the form later from the same project.
Can guests reply without an account?
Yes. The form is on a public page and needs no sign-in from guests.
Can we take the site down after the wedding?
Yes. You can unpublish it at any time, or change it into a thank-you page with photos.