We knew from the beginning that we wanted to design our own website from scratch. Steve--who works in IT and deals with computers all the time--knew that it would be pretty simple to design a site using iWeb on his Mac. This way, we'd be able to create something that reflects our personalities and uses our wedding colors. When thinking of how it should look, we actually found inspiration from the Minted website.
When picking out our save-the-date cards from the site, we loved how it displayed the cards on top of what looks like linen fabric. The contrast between the linen texture and the cards (as well as the flowers in the corner) looked pretty and cool--like the card is sitting on top of a table instead of a plain background--so we decided to use that idea in our website and save-the-date email designs. First up was the website:
We found a picture of linen on Google and used it for the side panels of the site. We created the yellow band on the top and used cranberry text to tie in our wedding colors. The script font is Monterey BT, which we downloaded for free here. It's similar to the infamous Feel Script that I've seen used a lot (which is also on our save-the-date cards) but we didn't feel like paying $99 for a font, even though it is gorgeous. Monterey BT is lovely too, so we're happy with our choice. The other font here is good ol' Georgia.
[NOTE TO IMAC USERS: One initial issue we had with this site was that when we viewed on computers other than our own, the Monterey BT font wouldn't show up. This is because these other computers didn't have the font downloaded onto them. Our solution was make the sections with Monterey BT (like our header) into images, and uploaded them to the site as such. This way, we wouldn't have to worry about people not being able to see the Monterey BT text. Another issue we encountered was with the other font. Originally we used Palatino, but when we looked at our site with Internet Explorer, the Palatino font didn't format correctly. So we switched to Georgia, which apparently is an Internet Explorer-friendly font. We actually included a note on the site pointing out that it's better viewed with the Firefox browser, which PC and Mac users can download, but the changes we made make it view-able with Internet Explorer now too. Something to keep in mind of you decide to create your own iWeb website!]
We purchased our site domain and hosting from Go Daddy. It took some time and energy, but we're happy with the result! If you're looking for an iWeb tutorial, check out this Weddingbee post. We didn't use that tutorial but it seems we followed a similar process.
As for the content on the site, we created the following tabs: Our Story (a quick bio for each of us and our proposal story,) Venue (with location and times for the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception,) Hotels (with our hotel block info plus alternative hotels in the area,) Gift Registry, Who's Who? (where we introduce our parents, sibling and bridal party,) Directions (including the map we DIY'd) and Contact Us (where we listed a specific email for people to contact us.) The design is the same from page to page, but we included different pictures of either us or the venue/hotel, depending on the page. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback on the site, which makes us very happy!
Onto our email. We wanted it to tie in directly to our website design, and we also wanted to the same photo and wording as our our Minted cards. Here's what we came up with:
I removed our last names, etc. but you get the idea. We designed it using Power Point, then saved it as a .pmg file. We used the same linen image as our site for the background, and the same fonts/colors. To email this out, we embedded the image into the body of the email (using Picasa and Gmail--let me know if you want step-by-step instructions!) and included this note below it:
"Having trouble seeing the image? Visit [website URL] for all of our wedding details! Please note that our website is best viewed with Firefox. Click here to download the Firefox Browser."
Wow, this looks so great! I am showing this post to my fiance - he is in charge of our wedding website as well!
ReplyDeleteThey both look great! We did exactly the same as you, email STD's and Mr. Milk designed our website!
ReplyDeleteThey look great! We had a lot of fun creating and writing content for our website, although we did use an online templates from Brides. Not quite as creative as yours, but still a fun project!
ReplyDeleteI have been OBSESSIVELY looking at your wedding website! It's beautifully done, and the email Save The Dates were GREAT! I think when (IF) I ever get married, I will do the same as y'all - send out a few paper StDs and do the rest online! Brilliant! :)
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