The website is done!

First, I just wanted to let you guys know that the comments you are leaving on the blog are not saving for some reason, so I'm not getting them.  There are a few things that we could still use input on as we finish up this trek, so by all means send your comments to us via text or Facebook.  Ok, now onto the post:


I finally finished the website today.  It's a little late, with just 24 days to go, but I finally got everything on there that I was hoping to have up before the wedding.

First, I added a song request window.  Essentially this is a website inside a website (website inception).  Google has a built-in survey tool called Google Forms, and essentially this window is a one-question survey.  It's not the prettiest thing, but it is kind of cool in that it automatically populates a spreadsheet with people's answers.  So, leave us a song!

Second, I added a photos page, which serves multiple purposes.  First, it gets all of those photos off the home page.  Second, it allows me to put up a few engagement photos, which we have not shared on Facebook (my hair was doing some weird wave thing that day that really bummed me out), so hopefully that's a draw for people.  Finally, we are still considering an unplugged wedding (final decision will come when/if we make programs), and I think having a place where people know they can find wedding photos might make that concept more tolerable for people.

Finally, I finished and put up a printable map!  I've seen these before in wedding paper suites online, and I thought they were awesome and totally doable.

I found a couple tutorials online, and was a little embarrassed that I didn't initially see how simple they were to make.  Essentially, you take a photo of the area off Google maps, import it as a background in Powerpoint, and then use the drawing tools to trace the important roads.  If you want to put more detail into an area, you can use a callout bubble to focus in on that area.  So, this is what I came up with:

Admittedly it's not as fancy as the ones above, so I may end up tweaking it, but graphics design is not my forte.  It's hard to balance the size and readability of each part of the map with all the details that make sense to include (like our names and the names of the ceremony and reception halls, which I just realized aren't on there!).  Originally I was planning this to go on the back of a third sheet of paper (more on that later), but clearly, it's much too big.  What do you think?  Any ideas to improve it or details you think are necessary?

Getting closer!