Wedding Invites: Saving time, money AND the planet

I am getting married in April 2013 and when I first began wedding planning I was astounded by the amount of time, money and wastage it takes to pull off this special day (astounded face). If it were entirely up to me we would have eloped or gotten hitched on the very very cheap. Unfortunately it’s not entirely up to me and my fiancé does have a say in the matter (I did say unfortunately) and hence we are having the big family wedding (130 guests). So even though I didn't get my way there, I was determined to save as much of anything as I could in this very involved process. Unlike many others, I don’t take naturally to wedding planning; I find the amount of small details and decisions overwhelming. However, I have taken it one step at a time and so far so good.

One fantastic idea I happened upon, and I know this is not new to everyone (except me living under my wedding-free rock), is the whole wedding website invite. When I realised that this is not only an easy way to do invites, totally free AND they don’t end up in the bin, I was hooked! This is one of those rare things that ticks all the right saving boxes –time, money, planet :)

I used the offbeatbride.com website, clicked on WedSites, signed up and I was A-for-away. The whole process was so easy and pain free (well, except for getting everything checked and approved by my fiancé {rolls eyes}). It didn't cost us a cent, there was no time spent approving invitation layouts or waiting for them to be printed. There were no postage costs involved only to have them get lost (in SA this happens A LOT) and no trees had to die in the process (big smile).

The sites are really user friendly as well, guests can RSVP directly on the website, send you messages and even post song suggestions. You can view your website stats and change details whenever you want. Security is not a problem either as you can set up a password entry as well as delete your website when it is no longer needed. 

And the best part is…our guests totally loved the invite!

Below is a sneak peak into my actual wedding website.

This is the first page our guests see once they have entered their WedPass. On the  left you can see all the other  pages we added (there are tons more to choose from).

This is the cute timeline I added just for some romance (it is a wedding after all!)

The WedPass screen - no stalkers here!