What a site!

Our wedding website, that is! :) I guess you could call it a trend for brides and grooms today to set up a website where guests can visit to learn about the couples' wedding events, accomodations and information about the city where the wedding will take place (particularly if its a destination not all would be familiar with).  I said 'guess' and used the italics on the word trend because, unlike mason jars and colorful bridal shoes, this one has been around for years and seems more accepted as a standard these days.

Needless to say, Javs and I did decide to include this wedding trend in our plans and created our very own wedding website!  We had a couple of criteria that we wanted to keep in mind while creating the site: 1) that we used a free website option (there were so many available and we just couldn't rationalize spending $$ on something that we could get for free!) 2) that it was customizable (we wanted to have some control over loading pictures, arranging information and determining pages) 3) that it was relatively easy to use for guests who might visit and 4) that it still kept the 'us' feel that we've been trying to keep in mind throughout our planning!

Javier and I researched http://www.projectwedding.com/, http://www.ewedding.com/, http://www.weddingjojo.com/, http://www.weddingannouncer.com/, http://www.weddingwindow.com/ and http://www.mywedding.com/.  They all where free and offered a variety of 'themes,' but in the end - it was http://www.mywedding.com/ that offered the right combination or flexibility and us-ness (word I just made up) that we were looking for.

Theme....it took some time to pick.  There were some beautiful, flowery  and many heart focused themes that just didn't seem to fit our feel.  We started looking at many fall themed sites (mywedding.com had, no joke, a million options), but a lot of them felt a bit too cheesy.  We were trying to think about our wedding (we don't have a 'theme' for our wedding, but certainly have stuff we're excited about and are centering decisions around.)  Ash Lawn has amazing views and incredible nature that is all around.  Wedding guests, get pumped for some awesome views.  In addition, we've been focusing a lot on neutral colors in our palette.  So, we started to look up more 'earthy' themes and finally found one that we thought worked well :)

Content  Probably my favorite pages on the site are the Bridesmaids and Groomsmen & Usher pages.  For a variety of reasons we asked our wedding party to write their own bio for the website.  We thought it'd be fun to give them a chance to introduce themselves to our guests and were amazed how each individual's personality totally shown through in their write ups!  Read them, they are awesome!

The rest, Javs and I put together on a delightful Friday night, drinking Cville hard cider given to us as an engagement present. We focused mostly on the Accomodations page because we knew it was the most important.  With a football game scheduled for October 13th, we wanted to encourage guests to book those hotels!

Cville Pages  When I asked Javs to review the site one more time before we sent out our Save the Dates, he asked if we might combine the three pages we had devoted to Charlottesville (in addition to the page devoted to Ash Lawn).  He was, legitimately, worried that it might be a bit much to give each aspect of Cville its own page.  Its funny, I would never call ours a 'destination' wedding, but based on the rubber we've burned between DC and Cville so far - its painfully obvious that we're not planning a wedding in our (or my parents') town of residence.  But even during our quick and appointment packed visits I'm constantly reminded of how in love I am with Charlottesville.  I. love. that town.  And while I did select to share just three of the aspects of Cville that make it so amazing - I thought it important to include.  If our guests do have the chance to enjoy some of this town I love while they're at our wedding - maybe they'll leave understanding, just a hair, why we love it so much.  Javs laughed at me, but assured me it was fine to keep all three :)

Pictures  We also decided to include some pictures. We're having....a lot of people at the wedding.  And while it would have been awesome to have each of our guests present at all of the funnest (another made up word) moments of our courtship, the truth is you guys weren't always there.  (Although some of you were at a lot of them!)  Either way, we thought it might be fun to share some of the fun and sometimes silly moments we've shared through our years together.  (It was all that goofy stuff that made me want to marry him anyway ;)  I just looked through them trying to pick my favorite and couldn't.  (but this post has been a little picture shy so I grabbed this one to make reading this post look less like such a task.  We're getting ready to watch the 'A Bug's Life' show at Disney last year!)

Registries We threw these on here too!  If folks do want to get us a gift we wanted to make it easy for them to find the registries.  We didn't even realize it when we selected mywedding.com but they had this nifty tool that went and found our registries and then automatically showed the buttons.  Too cool!  Technology is amazing and I am constantly awed by it.  (thats right.  I work for a software company.  In their technology department....)

Alright, now go check it out yourselves!  (maybe a good distraction break for your Friday afternoon :)