Have you signed up for the Bridal Guide’s free gift? If you haven’t you’re truly missing out. Here’s everything you need to know about getting your very own free wedding website and registry.

My Experience

Even though I’m not yet a bride, I had a blast discovering how the Bridal Guide’s free wedding website and registry worked. I almost want to start using the program for real – too bad I’m not even engaged yet!

First off, making an account was really easy, and that’s coming from someone who is not good with computers. Right away you enter all your info, along with fun descriptions and photos of you and your partner.

If you want to skip all the tedious info and go back to it later you can.

Once you have the basics out of the way you can get started on the fun stuff. You could easily be on this site for hours, but here are the main features you’ll want to set up:

–       the registry
–       the events
–       the invitations

The registry is the main function of this program and it’s so convenient. There are three options: you can have a cash only registry, you can have a registry of all the items you want from various online retailers, or you can do both.

If you want to register for gifts and not just cash you have to install the wedding registry button on your toolbar by simply dragging and dropping. You can register gifts from their featured stores or find things online and simply click the registry button to add it to your account. It should redirect you to the site where you verify that all the information transferred over and that the image displayed for the gift is the right one. Once everything is up and running it’s really simple!

The events and invitations are just as simple. The great thing about this program is that you have just enough freedom to make everything personalized, yet you follow easy to use templates that allow you to create fun events and invites without worrying about the format or font.

You can create as many or as few events as you want and as many registries as you want too. You can send out virtual invites for the Bridal Shower and make a registry for that separately. It’s really a one stop shop for all pre and post wedding organization.

The Best Part

If you have trouble with anything, and I mean anything, there are videos walking you through each step. I played the video on how to set up the registry while I installed the button just so I wouldn’t make any mistakes.

The registry is used by thousands of brides, grooms, guests, and vendors in over 100 different countries across the world. There’s no doubt it works and it works well.

One of the things people have been most enthusiastic about is the cash registry. Getting cash at a wedding is more than acceptable, but sometimes it can be difficult to find a tasteful way of asking your guests for cash only. This site does that perfectly. You can rename your cash registry something like ‘honeymoon’ and then include a description of where you want to go and how you’ll put their money to good use.

Users have also loved the thank you video capability as well. Rather than sending out cards you can take a video directly on the site and share it with selected guest. If you had a cash registry raising money for a honeymoon you can go on the site and take videos from your exotic destination showing your friends and family how much you appreciate their contribution. They’re short, simple, one shot videos with no editing, but they’re way more exciting and personal than a traditional thank you message.

My favorite part about this whole site is the photo sharing. When you go to a wedding as a guest you take dozens of your own photos. Sometimes you have a great camera, other times you use your cell phone, but either way your photos are special and the bride and groom would love to see them.

With photo sharing everyone who has access to your wedding website can upload their photos to the site. When you log on you can see all the photos in one place and you can choose to download any or all of them to your computer. It’s one of the most effective ways of getting all the guest photos in one place, since even Facebook has you jumping from page to page.

There are so many exciting capabilities that come along with this free gift that it seems almost too good to be free!

If you’re a future bride or groom this is definitely something you’ll want to utilize to make your wedding much easier and more fun and interactive.

 

Jill Zacchia is a contributing writer to The Bridal Guide.