How to Start a Wedding Site
#1. Purchase your domain
Once you know what kind of wedding business site you want to make, whether it's photography, planner, rentals, cakes, jewelry, etc.-- you'll need to purchase your domain from somewhere like GoDaddy.com.
Depending on your name, it can be fairly inexpensive
The site fee renews annually, like rent that allows you to maintain ownership. Note that it takes up to 48 hours for your website to propagate, meaning how long it takes for internet providers to update their records that your site name exists. In that time, you can still do the next step.
#2. FIND A HOST
When creating a wedding website, make sure to select a host that can handle your traffic. Cheap doesn't always mean good-- in fact it can unfortunately result in occasional (or possibly frequent) downtime. Some inexpensive hosts focus on getting as many sign ups as possible and stretching their bandwidth to the max, meaning 'bottlenecking' for you. So what should you do?
Select a host with great uptime and speed!
Zion Brides uses SiteGround to manage all of its traffic and is our recommended host. While certainly not the cheapest, their features and reliable uptime/speed (as well as customer service) is worth it. Also they usually have a fantastic start-up package for first-timers!
#3. Pick a template you love
After your site is propagated and ready to build, you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of choices available out there. The most common type we see (and what Zion Brides is built on) is WordPress. It's flexible, highly customizable, and has almost limitless support when it comes to the learning curve.
Ensure your site is modern and fits your brand to attract your ideal client
Expect that building your site will be time consuming. It takes anywhere from hours to days to build out a beautiful site depending on everything you're planning to put into it. If you're just planning on doing a basic photo site with a contact form and simple blog, you may be able to do it in a day or two. However for an e-commerce site where you'll be selling items or collecting payments, expect it to take longer.
#4. Customize it your way
Once you have a site to build off, add your own content, change the font, personalize it all to your business.
Have your site feel easy to navigate
Make sure it's clean, easy to follow, and (just as important) mobile friendly (meaning people on cell phones won't be greeted by a messy site).
Have a website already or just bought the template? Need some help on customizing your site on WordPress? We can have someone help!
#5. test and publish your site
After testing your site all the way through (including contact forms to make sure they're sending to the right email-- or sending at all), make sure it looks good on your mobile device.
Prepare to go live and showcase your work to customers
A common issue for people during testing is if their site doesn't look like all updates are showing, just clear the cache. Sounds tricky, but on most platforms this can be quite easy, especially WordPress.
Once you're done, hit Publish and get the ball rolling! Congratulations on your new website!
