Among all the hectic planning of the big day, consider creating a wedding website with a website builder. Not only are they perfect for helping with the planning, communicating information, and ensuring the event runs smoothly, but they are a digital keepsake of your wedding (something to show future generations).
Overall, if you want the best-looking wedding website – and want the actual event to go off without a hitch – we recommend Squarespace. It has beautiful templates and RSVP forms so you can keep track of all the long-distance cousins and plus-ones.
- Squarespace has the highest quality wedding templates designed to handle multimedia uploads
- You can create a free wedding site with Wix, Joy, and The Knot, although they have limited functionality
- Wix is a versatile option with extensive customization and features
- The Knot stands out for its wedding planning tools and user-friendly interface
- Joy and Appy Couple provide convenient apps to manage your wedding on-the-go
What To Look For in a Wedding Website
For a wedding website, you are going to need a few specific features to really get the most out of it.
Not every website builder comes with them all, so we have hand-picked the ones that do – the best wedding-specific website builders – so you can relax and let them help you plan for the big day.
Essential features you need for a wedding website are:
- Wedding templates – Building off a wedding template is a lot easier than doing it from scratch. Plus, we guarantee you will be impressed with the quality of these providers’ templates
- Gift registries – An online gift registry is the easiest way for your guests to know what you’d like, as well as set a sensible budget
- RSVP manager – See who’s coming with whom and keep track of changing plans, as well as send follow-up emails
- Images and video hosting – Show off your engagement photos, as well as let your guests and photographers post pictures and videos from the day as a keepsake that can be enjoyed years after
- Social media integration – Make sure everyone from friends to exes knows how happy you are by integrating social media feeds onto your site
- Venue directions – Give clear directions or a link to the venue’s website. Wix and Squarespace can even show a satellite map
- Password-protected areas – Make sure only invitees can access your wedding website to prevent any unwanted guests
Free Wedding Websites
You can use the following wedding website builders for free, so we’ll start with them. However, Wix’s free plan comes with some limitations, which you can get rid of by upgrading to the paid plan.
1. Wix – For Customization Options
If you want to build a wedding website for free, Wix is our number one choice. While The Knot and Joy also let you create for free, you won’t get nearly the same amount of design customization or features as you would on Wix.
Wix Pros
- Good template designs
- Super easy drag-and-drop editor
- Best overall features
Wix Cons
- Ads on the free plan
- No custom domain on free plan
- Can’t switch template once the site is live
Wix’s Key Features for Wedding Websites
Because it has the best range of features on the market, Wix gives you access to a number of useful tools for your website, including:
- Social media integration to your preferred platforms
- Customizable RSVP forms with Wix Events
- Google Maps widget to help guests find your venue
- Gift registry apps from the App Marketplace
- Password-protected members areas
- AI Tools to help you easily generate site content, such as its AI text creator and AI image creator
It’s the features that really put Wix ahead of the competition – although it’s not specialized for weddings, its RSVP form management and gift registry apps might trick you into thinking that it is! You will have to go and add them to your website yourself, which is a little annoying, but you can really pick and choose which features you need, making it a much more personalized building experience.
Wix has +25 wedding template examples, giving you a good variety to choose from – but you can’t change your template once your site is live. However, unlike The Knot and Joy, Wix actually lets you edit your templates and gives you creative freedom to design them to your liking. It also has great gallery and video options for photographers, plus posting integrations with Instagram, Meta, Vimeo, DeviantArt, and more.
The biggest downside to Wix is its limited free plan. You will have to contend with a top banner ad on your site, as well as a .wixsite.com domain name. This can certainly confuse your guests, plus it might ruin your wedding website’s design.
The solution to this problem is to upgrade your site to Wix’s paid plans. Wix pricing begins at $17 per month with the Light plan when billed annually, which has all the features and extras you could need for a wedding site. If you don’t want to keep the website for an entire year, the monthly plan is $24 per month.
Additionally, Wix is offering 10% off at checkout for all new customers if you use their code TAKE10.
Read our full Wix Review for more
2. The Knot – For Planning Features
The Knot is an all-in-one wedding planner and website builder. Not only can you choose your venue, vendors, attire, and rings from the site, but you can also design and send off custom invitations – printed on the paper of your choice. The Knot is designed for and around weddings, with 380 wedding templates to choose from.
The Knot Pros
- User-friendly with great onboarding
- Built-in gift registry
- Doubles as an online wedding planner
The Knot Cons
- Restrictive editor
- No apps or extras
- Pay for custom domain
The Knot’s Key Features for Wedding Websites
As well as templates, The Knot brings all the most essential features for planning the wedding too. From an RSVP manager to the registry, creating your wedding website is a breeze with The Knot. Also, did we mention that it’s free to use? We really like how you can customize the registry based on your interests, plus distinguish between physical and digital-only gifts.
While The Knot’s features are good and its templates certainly look the part, it lacks personalization in nearly every area. The text on your site is locked to pre-designed areas, and you can’t even look at your site’s design in the editor as you build it – you have to click ‘Preview’.
This being said, if you’re planning a wedding, you may not have the time or inclination to intricately design a website, so with hundreds of ready-to-go templates available, The Knot is arguably a much more convenient option than Wix.
There’s also the issue of having no free custom domain which, again, may not be a concern for a temporary wedding website. But if you don’t want to be stuck with a theknot.com domain, you’ll have to pay an annual subscription of $20 for a custom domain.
3. Joy – For Building a Website Quickly
Joy is also a wedding website specialist – and a free one at that. Do not expect as much customization as you’d get with Wix or Squarespace, because although you can tweak your template’s colors and text size, the structure will remain largely the same.
Additionally, Joy’s 601 templates are all split-screen, meaning half-scrolling and half-fixed images. If you don’t like that, you may want another builder!
Joy Pros
- 601 wedding templates
- Simple and beginner-friendly
- App for the couples and guests to use
- Handy tools cover wedding essentials
Joy Cons
- Very limited layout options
- Lack of creative freedom
- Difficult to use your own personal website address
Joy’s Key Features for Wedding Websites
Though Wix certainly trumps Joy in how much you can edit your wedding website, many of our own testers have found themselves bewildered by the amount of options Wix offers. If you need a wedding website and invites out in a hurry, then Joy’s easy-to-use and beginner-friendly editor could be a lifesaver. Simply make your choices, change your names/add photos and you can have it in guest inboxes in under five minutes.
Additionally, Joy is not bereft of features either. Its RSVP manager is the best we’ve seen, clearly labeling out who has and hasn’t replied – and even offering a plus-one manager! There’s also a gift registry, event countdown, and logistical features, letting you give links to transportation, hotels, and AirBnB spots in and around the venue.
A feature that cements Joy as a top choice for building wedding websites is its complementary app. This links to your website and allows you to plan your wedding on the go, from managing your guest lists and registries to previewing your website. On the flip side, your guests can download the app to help them plan everything down to their travel and accommodation, and share personalized schedules for the big day.
What’s more, the app features an unlimited shared photo album for everyone to share their memories during and after the wedding. This integration is available on Appy Couple too, but for a price. If you want to look back on your website and app post-wedding without being stuck with a recurring fee, Joy is the way to go.
Paid Wedding Websites
These builders do not have a free plan; meaning you will have to pay a monthly subscription in order to use them for your wedding website.
1. Squarespace – For Designing a Stunning Wedding Website
Squarespace lets you create the most stunning wedding website, making it our recommended choice. Because let’s be honest: a wedding is a spectacle, and your wedding website should be no exception.
Despite having only 10 wedding templates, one look is clear to see that Squarespace favors quality over quantity. Each of these templates is impeccably designed, and unlike The Knot and Joy, you can fully customize your site’s color scheme and structure thanks to the Squarespace Fluid engine, its state-of-the-art editor.
Squarespace Pros
- Best-looking templates
- Easy-to-use editor
- Best for presenting photos and video
Squarespace Cons
- No free plan
- No autosave when editing
- No wedding-specific RSVP
Squarespace’s Key Features for Wedding Websites
The Squarespace Fluid engine is perfect for professionals and beginners alike. Simply drag and drop the features you want onto your site and Squarespace formats them perfectly into your site.
If you want to see just how easy it is, you can watch our YouTube video demonstrating how you can customize your Squarespace site:
After the wedding, you’ll also be able to add in new photo galleries and videos without messing up your site’s structure. And unlike Wix, our testers weren’t overwhelmed by Squarespace at all.
Did you know… in 2024, Squarespace revamped its Blueprint AI tool – another way for you to design a wedding website that suits your needs. During the process, you can decide what tone of voice, color scheme, and font you’d like your page to have, so it’s all ready in the lead up to your big day!
Squarespace also doesn’t skimp on the features, though it does have less accessible features than Wix. For instance, it doesn’t have wedding-specific RSVP tools. Instead, you have to modify contact forms into RSVP, but you can manage them all the same from the dashboard. The same is true for the gift registry, as you have to integrate a Zola plugin from the app store to add it to your site.
If you’re considering building a wedding website with Squarespace, you’ll have to think about your priorities. For a creative person who wants to produce a unique and stunning website for your wedding, this builder is perfect. But if you’ve got less time and money on your hands, a wedding-specific builder like Joy will provide you with a plethora of handy features that you won’t have to take the time to tailor for your wedding.
Squarespace’s pricing has four plans to choose from, but the cheapest option – Basic – costs $16 per month (billed annually) and is the best fit for wedding websites. That’s because it offers all of the necessary features and templates, without the extra trappings that a larger website demands. And like Wix, you can get 10% off at checkout if you use our code WBE10.
Plus, every Squarespace plan includes a 14-day free trial period, so you can make sure it’s the right builder for you before committing.
Read our Squarespace Review for more
2. Appy Couple – For Convenient, On-The-Go Wedding Planning
If you want to give your wedding guests a unique experience, then Appy Couple could be the wedding website builder for you.
Split between a website and a downloadable app, Appy Couple lets you build your website and plan your wedding on the go. This means managing RSVP lists, sorting out the gift registry, and even designing the invites – all can be done from your phone instead of a desktop, making it much more accessible for the average modern wedding planner.
Appy Couple Pros
- Organize entire wedding from one place
- Comes with a personalized wedding app for guests
- Can plan your wedding on the go
Appy Couple Cons
- Upfront payment with no free plan or trial
- Longer set-up time than other builders
- Features tied to app
Appy Couple’s Key Features for Wedding Websites
The app is elevated even more by its additional elements designed for your attendants. You can create and send out a personalized wedding app that guests can download, giving them unique features to use, such as tracking the venue, uploading photos and videos to a wedding forum, signing a digital guestbook, and even sending digital toasts.
However, while its guest function once set Appy Couple apart, competitors like Joy now have almost identical offerings without the fee – Appy Couple costs $12 per month, or $99 per year. If you’re looking to save money on an already costly event, you can access similar features elsewhere.
Appy Couple also does nicely with wedding template designs. Each of the 500 designs comes with invite layouts and mobile formatting, so you can tick off what your guests will be utilizing too. There are also partnerships with famous bridal designers and franchises, from Katie Fischer, Tendr, and Say Yes To The Dress.
What holds Appy Couple back is its non-negotiable price tag. Unlike Squarespace, there is no free trial to test out its features. If you want to use Appy Couple, you have to pay $12 per month or $99 per year. This is a shame, as it means you will have to keep paying in order to keep the website and app up as a digital keepsake.
Additionally, while the app is certainly a unique gimmick, many of Appy Couple’s most important features like email correspondence and RSVP management are tied to it, making it inescapable for those who prefer to work from a desktop.
How We Test
To create this article, we reviewed over a dozen potential candidates to make sure we only had the most relevant to weddings and wedding planners.
While we have our rigorous research methodology on all the major players in the website-building world, we decided to look further afield and look into wedding-specific platforms to see how they fared.
Once we had finished testing and researching, we set about qualifying what features would be of the utmost importance for building a wedding website. Easy-to-use editor, aesthetically pleasing wedding templates, RSVP manager, gift registry, password protection, and photo and video uploading were qualities we deemed the most vital.
Best Wedding Website Builders: Summary
Building a wedding website should be as stress-free as possible. The best choice for your wedding website ultimately comes down to what your top priority is, whether that’s high-quality features or easy template design.
As a reminder, here are our final recommendations based on your unique needs:
- Choose Wix if… you’ve designed a site before, or want to spend extra time making your wedding website design flawless
- Choose The Knot if… you’re meticulous and want to prioritize your day being planned to perfection
- Choose Appy Couple if… you’d like a smart choice for tech-savvy couples, and guests who will make the most of the app features
- Choose Joy if… you need a free (albeit less customizable) alternative to Appy Couple
- Choose Squarespace if… you’re looking for a jack of all trades that caters to all design skills, from website beginners to experienced designers
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