Our top 5 wedding website builders

Why a wedding website?

Are wedding bells and ‘til-death-do-us-parts in your near-ish future? Congrats! Now let’s have a closer look at digitizing your big day with a wedding website.

What purpose do they serve, exactly? Wedding websites provide your guests with a central, digital “hub” all about your wedding.  

For instance, you might include information on your wedding’s locations(s), where to book accommodations, your gift registry, social media hashtags and maybe even the controversial Disney-themed dress code you’ve decided to implement.

Yes, there are many wedding website builder options out there. But when you’re in the heat of selecting centerpieces, auditioning hors d’oeuvres, and keeping the in-laws in line, you need something that just works. 

That’s why we’ve compiled our five can’t-miss wedding website builder picks! Now, let’s get you feeling fully informed before you commit.

But before we dive in…let’s talk domain names for a quick second.  

Why a custom .CA domain for your wedding website?

Registering a custom .CA domain, like “TheDavids.ca,” is the perfect way to lend a more personal touch to your wedding website. It just screams “you.” Plus, a custom domain is often way easier for your guests to remember (and look up), and can be good, couple-y fun to brainstorm.

Just be sure to register your .CA domain name before you start building your dream wedding website. Stats Canada tells us that over 98,000 marriages were registered in Canada in 2020…so you don’t want to risk your name being taken!

Our top 5 wedding website builders

1. The Knot  

One of the most popular and well-known wedding website builders out there, the Knot comes packed with plenty of free-to-use wedding planning features and attractive (somewhat customizable) templates. You also can easily incorporate your wedding registry and some excellent RSVP management tools to help keep tabs on all your guests.

What we like:  

• Nice selection of attractive looking themes to choose from.
• Website setup is straightforward and quick, with plenty of pre-built pages and sections to work with.
• Excellent guest list tool that lets you RSVP across multiple wedding-related events (think bridal showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties and the big day itself).
• Easily pull in your Facebook and Instagram photo galleries to give your website a more unique feel.

Cons:  

• With the free version of the Knot, you’ll have to contend with ads appearing across the platform. Your details also may be shared with the Knot’s third-party partners for—surprise, surprise—advertising purposes.
• The RSVP can’t be customized with more responses. Guests can only say if they’re coming and make a meal selection.
• There is a built-in vendor directory…but it might not be the most useful if your wedding is taking place outside of the U.S.

What it costs: the Knot is completely free to use…but to add a custom .CA website domain, you’ll need to shell out $19.99 USD per year.

2. Wedsites  

One of Wedsites’ biggest selling points is that they offer a far deeper level of customization, where couples can create a completely unique wedding website. Indeed, rather than working within rigid templates, you can build your own page layouts from the ground up—and without a steep learning curve. Couple that with some fairly robust organizational tools, and you’ve got a compelling wedding planning package!

What we like:

• Drag n’ drop website builder tool is intuitive to use and lets you quickly add, remove and customize sections.
• More in-depth level of customization is available over other wedding website builders.
• Suite of solid tools for RSVP management, seating charts, guest communication and budgeting to help keep you organized and on-track.
• Offers multilingual translation—unlike many other wedding website builders.
• Zero ads and hidden upsells.

Cons:  

• More premium features—like RSVP management—are only available if you pay.
• A higher level of customization can mean more time spent tinkering to get your website looking how you want it.

What it costs: Wedsites offers a free “lite” plan that provides free hosting, the ability to connect a custom domain and allows you to design and publish your website.

Stepping up to the $99 CAD “standard” plan gets you additional features, like online RSVPs, paperless invitations, premium support and more.

3. Minted 

Minted’s initial claim to fame was offering up beautiful wedding stationery (invites, save the dates, etc.) created by a wide global community of independent designers. With their wedding website builder tool, they’ve adapted many of those eye-popping designs into hundreds of templates to choose from. And if you want your physical invites to match your wedding website’s look and feel, any template you choose comes with the option to purchase matching stationery.

What we like:

• A massive, specially curated collection of gorgeous website designs and templates from independent designers.
• Very easy and straightforward to get started and use. All you need to do is add your details—et voila!
• A great way to create a unified look and feel for your wedding across digital and physical mediums.

Cons:  

• Most features (like custom photo galleries and password protection) are only available with the premium tier.
• The various templates themselves aren’t very customizable. You’re essentially stuck with whatever you choose.

What it costs: Minted is free to use when designing and building your website but upgrading to a custom website domain (and more premium features) will cost you $15 USD per year.

4. Joy  

Started by a couple of ex-Microsoft employees, Joy aims to be your one-stop, all-in-one wedding website (and planning) shop. It’s also one of the newer kids on the wedding website builder block. However, Joy has been generating plenty of buzz for being easy to use, covering many essential features well (like online RSVPs, guest list management, registry integration) all for the low, low price of…completely free. Budget conscious couples that want a wedding website with minimal fuss might want to give Joy a closer look.

What we like:  

• Extremely easy to get a good-looking wedding website up and running quickly.
• You can connect to a custom domain for free. In fact, the entire package is free, with no cheesy up-sells to be had!
• Send digital save-the-dates and invitations from your guest list.
• Over 100 website themes/templates to choose from.

Cons:

• Website layout options can be limited in terms of style and uniqueness.
• Design customization is essentially limited to changing colours and fonts.

What it costs: Like we already said, Joy is completely free to use from top to bottom. Now, there are murmurings of them adding paid tiers and more premium features in the future…but for now, bask in the free-ness and all it offers!