Challenge

As a professional Web Developer by day, I felt entirely responsible for championing the design and development of my and my soon-to-be bride's upcoming wedding website. We wanted something that would not only be aesthetically pleasing, informative, and functional but also truly speak to the unique nature of our relationship and us as individuals. Our overall goal was to simplify the wedding planning process by creating a single, centralized point of information and communication for our wedding guests while also offering us the ability to manage our ever evolving guest list every step of the way.

Process

Prior to designing and developing our wedding website, my fianceé and I first need to sit down and discuss exactly how we wanted to tackle the long road of wedding planning that we ahead of us. We identified core goals that we needed to accomplish and drafted rough deadlines by which we wanted or needed to meet these goals. Keeping that information in mind, we then used it to identify ways in which we could use our wedding website to help us accomplish our objectives. Right off the bat, we knew immediately that we wanted to leverage online channels and email campaigns to effectively disseminate relevant information and deliver timely communications to all of our wedding guests, which we felt would help to alleviate much of the paper trail often accompanied with wedding planning and was perfectly on par with our sustainable wedding goals.

After coming to a decision in terms of the approach we wanted to take, I then dived right in to designing and building a wedding website and dashboard that would allow us to achieve our goals and plan our wedding with as little stress as possible. This process included the design and development of a database architecture that effectively housed our guest list, including but not limited to their plus ones and RSVP data, along with other things such as login credentials and registry information. In addition to the website and dashboard, I also took it upon myself to design and build a bulk email communication system that allowed us to deliver personalized email campaigns without the use of a paid, thrid-party service. Before launching, when everything was all said and done, we wrapped up by testing website, dashboard, and email system extensively to ensure that all of our needs were met, and it allowed us to remain as handsoff as possible throughout the wedding planning process when it came to manging our guest list and guest interactions.

Solution

The final product ended up being a three-tiered solution including our wedding website, guest management dashboard, and email communication system: Our website offered us an effective online channel for information dissemniation, where we were able to share pertinant information like our story, wedding party introductions, details about upcoming festivities, and much more and allowed our guests to easily contribute to our honeymoon fund at any time. Additionally, our website employed a notification system that enabled us to deliver just-in-time messages on an as needed basis to any users visiting our website and offered a step-by-step RSVP system where our wedding guests were able to RSVP for themselves, or any of their relatives, and could optionally register a date as an additional wedding guest that they wished to bring along with them, by using their very own custom key code.

While the wedding website was mostly the center of attention for our users, the guest management dashboard was of greatest concern and the most effective tool for us as we continued to plan our wedding: It offered us a different perspective on guest interactions and allowed us to efficiently gauge our guests' interest and involvement by providing us with a timely snapshot of headcounts, RSVPs, and plus ones. In addition to offering the bigger picture view, we were also able to leverage the dashboard to monitor, modify, and otherwise manage our guest list as needed, including the ability for administrators to control user accounts and extend access to our dashboard as we see fit, like in the instance of offering guest access to our day-of wedding planner that benefitted from the information that our dashboard had to offer.

Finally, the last piece of the puzzle that helped us to truly bring everything together was the email communication system and the tailored email campaigns that we designed and put in place: The email system that was built enabled us to send out batch, personalized emails to all of our wedding guests on an as needed basis without quickly racking up costs from the use of an external, transactional email service. By taking this approach, we were able to send out save the dates and formal wedding invitations in addition to sending timely reminders to our wedding guests about upcoming events, soliciting donations to our honeymoon fund, delivering RSVP key codes, and requesting that all guests RSVP online via our wedding website before our deadline. In the end, the wedding website, dashboard, and email communications all went over very well, and we received many rave reviews from our wedding guests.