When Should You Launch Your Wedding Website?

Tie The Knot Team · 1 September 2026

The useful time to set up a wedding website is when you have something guests can actually use: a date, and preferably a postcode. Not the week the invites go out. Not the day after you got engaged, either, unless you already know where you are getting married.

Save-the-dates are the natural share moment. Put the URL on the card so guests have one place for hotels, travel, and the RSVP before anyone is chasing a WhatsApp thread. For paper versus a page, see wedding website vs paper invites.

When it is too early

If you do not have a venue, a site that is only names and a year is a thin page. Guests will ask where to stay and you will not have an answer. Use Bridebook or Hitched to find the barn first. We do not replace them for that.

If the date is 18 months out and you only have a church pencilled in, you can still start a planning board and a budget for yourselves. The guest site can wait until the facts are stable enough to publish.

When it is about right

You have a date and a venue. You can put the address, a rough order of the day, and a hotel list on the page. That is enough to share with save-the-dates.

UK save-the-dates often go out eight to twelve months before the day. The website should already exist by then, even if the RSVP deadline is much later. You can add meal choices, evening-only notes, and the gift list as you decide them. See what to put on your wedding website.

If some guests are day and some are evening, say so on the page before the invites go out. One list, two events is a UK problem. Do not wait until people are guessing from a Facebook event.

When it is late

Invites usually go out eight to twelve weeks before. If the site is not live by then, you are asking people to RSVP into a void. The RSVP needs a deadline, names, meals, dietary tags, and plus-ones. See wedding website RSVP.

You can still launch after the cards are posted. Put the URL on a follow-up message. It is worse than having it on the invite. It is better than no page at all.

You do not have to pay to launch

Bridebook, Hitched, and Joy do not charge couples a monthly fee. We are not going to pretend they do. They stay free because venues pay, or because the product is a pretty RSVP page. If £0 is the budget, launch there. See free wedding websites UK and Is Bridebook free?.

The useful contrast is not a fake subscription. It is marketplace versus a planning suite with no supplier ads on it.

Where Tie The Knot fits

Tie The Knot is £249, paid once. Lifetime access. 30-day money-back. Five templates: Modern Fresh, Romantic Classic, Boho Chic, Classic, and Luxury.

You get the guest website plus a shared planning board, a linked budget tracker, and a drag-and-drop table planner. RSVPs collect three-course meal choices, dietary tags, and plus-ones in the couple dashboard, without sending guests into a supplier app. Gift registry and cash funds. Guest photo gallery (QR, no app, no login). Multi-day timelines. Hotel and taxi info.

Lifetime is the point if you got engaged last year and the day is still a long way off: the site is still there. You are not racing a window. Support: hello@tietheknot.uk.

If you only need a pretty RSVP page, look at Joy. If a free Hitched or Bridebook site already does what your guests need, keep it.

If you want those sections in one planning suite, start on tietheknot.uk — £249 once, lifetime access, 30-day money-back.