A Quick Guide to Crafting the Perfect Elopement Website
Are you considering eloping? Do you want to share your special day with family and friends, but would like to consider other options such as a destination wedding? The average cost of a wedding is approximately $28,000 according to Knot’s 2021 Real Weddings study. The highest expense is the reception venue, vendors, photography, and engagement ring. You can avoid many costs associated with a wedding by eloping. If this is you, creating an elopement website will enable those important to you to share your special day each step of the way. With an elopement website, sharing memories with loved ones can be quick and easy. The website ensures the benefits of a big wedding while keeping the day private with your partner. Continue reading to discover five things to add to your elopement website.
#1: Pictures
We recommend having a large assortment of pictures of you and your loved one on your website.Picking the right photographer is extremely important to having a successful elopement. No matter the destination you choose, capturing the beautiful scenery with you and your loved one is priceless. Although the ceremony will eventually end, these pictures will stay with you forever. Having these pictures on your website will allow your family and friends to experience this ceremony even though they might not be in attendance. We’ve made it easy for you by selecting a few notable photographers in the Utah area who we trust will shoot the best photos possible for your website. The three photographers we recommend are Halie West, Sam Stern, and Victoria and Joe from Knots in the Pines.
#2: Your Love Story
In addition to pictures, a fun and romantic way to celebrate your engagement and upcoming elopement is to share your love story. Writing about these details can make the whole website feel very personal. Topics to write about can include how the two of you met, experiences that have shaped your relationship, and how the proposal took place. You may even want to mention how you chose to elope and what the destination means to you! Not only can this be a fun way to look back on your relationship up until this point, but friends and family will enjoy reading about how the love has grown between the happy couple since day one.
#3: Registry
When planning your elopement, you’ll hopefully have many supporters at your side. Your wedding should be something that you celebrate. Your friends and family want to spoil and celebrate you. Let them! By adding a registry to your website, you are making it simple for your guests and supporters to shower you, and even better yet, gift things you actually want or need. Especially with today’s technology, making a registry that you can share with others or put on your website is easier than ever. There are many online tools like With Joy, Zola, The Knot, or even an Amazon Registry. By placing your registry on your website ahead of time, you can even use some of the gifts to help pay for the elopement destination or your honeymoon. Having these gift ideas all in one place on your website makes it easy for your guests as well as the bride and groom.
#4: Message Board
An elopement has a small, tight knit feeling when you gather with the people you love. Because your elopement may be smaller, not everyone will be in attendance. Having a message board on your website means that even those who were not there can still be a part of your big day. It enables loved ones to leave cute messages for the couple and send them well wishes for the new chapter in their life. This is something that can be cherished forever. Whether it is words of wisdom or a fun memory you shared with either the bride or groom, it means so much more when you have it all written in one place with the people that make you laugh.
#5: Reception Timeline + RSVP
When planning an elopement, you must decide if you want to have a reception and figure out all the details for it. For instance, how many people you want to attend, what type of food or refreshments you’d like to serve, decorations, activities, music, and more. If you do plan to have a reception, to make the planning process easier, it is helpful to know who will actually be able to attend. Directly on your elopement website, you can create an RSVP section where those who are invited can declare if they will be attending. This way you are able to get a more accurate headcount to know how much of everything you will need, such as tables, chairs, food and drinks, and can make the necessary arrangements with your vendors. Refer to the elopement checklist to guarantee no little details are forgotten for your celebration. Another detail you could include is a timeline of your event to ensure people are there for important moments. Close friends and family enjoy being there to see moments such as the cake cutting, the first dance, and any speeches. Therefore, constructing a day of timeline will allow guests to assure they arrive on time to attend all the special moments.
Idea for external link back to this blog post:
We suggest that one external link back to our blog post comes from Pinterest. This is because Pinterest is a very popular sight among brides planning their wedding/elopement to get inspiration, so there will be a lot of traffic surrounding the “pin” that would then link them back to our website. Our blog would fit perfectly within the other type of wedding content of interest that is already on the platform. Pinterest is also a good place for backlinks because more backlinks are created when other users share or re-pin our content.