The wedding website

Guests need a handful of things: when, where, how to get there, where to stay, what to wear, how to RSVP, and the registry if you have one. A wedding website is just a tidy place to put them. You have two ways to make one.

Option 1: a hosted service

Wedding sites like Zola and Joy give you templates, RSVPs, a registry and privacy settings, and the setup takes an evening. Both let you put a password on the site: Zola from the Privacy tab in your account settings, and Joy by setting pages to private so only guests with the password can see them. Joy can also hide the date and location until a guest unlocks the site, and has a setting that keeps the site out of Google and Bing results.

Claude's job here is the words. Write each page with it, then paste them in.

Write the "Travel" page for our wedding website. Our guests are mostly driving from two directions; some will fly in. Cover: nearest airports (I'll check the names), parking at the venue, the hotel block (details below), and that there's no shuttle. Friendly, short, scannable. Leave a [CHECK] marker on anything I need to confirm.

Option 2: a simple page you build with Claude

If one of you likes tinkering, Claude can build a one-page site: a single HTML file with your details, a schedule, a map link and a link to your RSVP form.

Build a one-page wedding website as a single HTML file. Sections: our names and the month and town (no street address), schedule, travel and hotels, what to wear, RSVP (a button linking to [form link]), and FAQ. Mobile first, readable for older guests, no external fonts, no tracking scripts.
Use our palette: [hex codes]. Put [CHECK] wherever I need to fill in or confirm a detail.

Where to put it is the catch. An artifact (the page Claude builds in the chat) can be shared with a link, but everyone viewing a shared artifact needs a Claude account. The only exception, per Anthropic's help page, is an older kind of artifact published from a chat. That's wrong for a wedding site: your grandmother shouldn't need an account to see the schedule. So treat the artifact as the preview, then download the HTML and put it on a static host of your choice. (This site is plain static files on Cloudflare.) For RSVPs, link to a form you control, such as a Google Form.

If that sounds like more work than you want, it is. Use a hosted service.

What never goes on the site

Whichever way you build it, a wedding website tells strangers when you'll be busy and where you'll be. Zola's advice is that without a password, some private information is open to anyone. Treat the site as public even with a password, because passwords get forwarded.

• No home address. Not on the registry page, not as "send gifts to", not in a photo of your front door. If a registry needs a shipping address, check that it isn't shown to visitors.
• Nothing that says the house will be empty. The wedding date plus your hometown plus "honeymoon in Lisbon for two weeks straight after!" is a calendar for a burglar. Share honeymoon plans in person, or after you're home.
• Nothing about who's looking after the house, pets or kids.
• No guest list, no seating chart, no guests' names beyond the wedding party, and only with their OK.
• The venue, but not more than guests need. The venue's name and town are fine. Directions to a private family property can go in the invitation instead.
• Children's names and photos only if their parents say yes.

If you need the full address of a private venue, send it with the invitation or in a confirmation email to guests who've said yes.

Ask Claude to check your pages before they go live:

Here's the text of every page on our wedding website (pasted below). Check it as if you were a stranger who wanted to find our home or know when it's empty. List anything that gives away an address, a time we're away, a routine, or a guest's private details, and suggest what to change.