HOW IT WORKS

This page explains how it all works; The first thing to do is to view our example web pages and see how the pages are laid out. Try all the pages and see how the links between the pages work.

Look at the home page where you welcome your guests to your site and imagine YOUR name written there. Think about what you might put on your web pages. You might want to be very serious, or make it very funny. It's up to you.

Next click on Try Before You Buy. This is where you can enter some details of your own and see what your personal pages will look like. You'll be able to choose from a couple of different backgrounds and layouts to give your pages the look and feel you want. You'll only be able to set up one page at a time with your details, but it should give you a good idea of what your pages could look like. If you're happy with what you see then you can pay using PayPal and then get straight into it!

When you have paid you can then begin the login process. This will allow you to choose a login name and password that will give you administration privileges for your pages. You don't have to enter all of your information at once, you just re-visit your pages, login and update your details whenever you want to. For example, you might want to start your web pages 18 months before the wedding day, but you won't necessarily have details of the Hen and Stag parties at that time. No problem, just login and enter the details when you have them.

You will have decided upon an Administrators Login and Password which will allow you to edit the web pages, and you will also have to decide upon different Login and Password details for your visitors to be able to view your web pages. You will see that your Admin Login details will open up a page that looks very similar to the Try Before You Buy page. This is where you choose the colour schemes, visitor login details and web page layouts and also where you enter your text. Your visitors will see a different page when they login. They will see a page that looks just like the Example website, but with your choice of colour, layout, photographs and text.

You will be able to choose a layout for each of your pages. There are six different layouts to choose from and some will work better than others in different situations. On our Example web pages we've used a two column layout for the About Us page, but a single column for the Hen Party page. There is a space for you to upload an image into each layout option. You can browse your computer and upload these images. Looking at the Example web pages again you can see that we've chosen a photo of Dumbleton Hall as the image on our Reception page. This is because Dumbleton Hall is the venue of the Reception in our Example. We went to the Dumbleton Hall website and saved one of their photo's to our computer, then used this photo on our web page. You don't have to include a photo with each page if you don't want to. Even thought the layout options all show a photo in the top left of the page, if you don't upload a photo then the text will move across to take the photo's place.

Note: You will be using a commercially available text editor for populating your web pages. This works slightly differently to the word processor that you are probably used to using in that in order to separate paragraphs like you see here you will have to press SHIFT + RETURN instead of just the RETURN button, but otherwise it's just the same. If you just press the RETURN button on its own the text seen in the text editor will be different to that shown on the web page.

You can choose when your web pages ‘go live’ because your guests won’t be able to view them until you give them the Login and Password details. This gives you plenty of time to create and edit you web pages before anyone sees them.

You can obviously choose how you want to inform people of your personal wedding website. There is the facility within your admin pages to email people directly from this site, or you might want to email them from your personal email address. You may even wish to write the website address and Login and Password details on your wedding invitations. Your guests will then be able to view your pages. You can still go in and edit them whenever you wish, but your guests will only be able to view. To email people from within your web pages you need to login and go to Send Emails. On this page you can enter your friends and family's email addresses and then send them all an email that will appear to them to have come from WeddingDayDiary.co.uk. If you wish to delete anyone from the group email then click on the cross by their name.

You may wish to add links to other websites from your web pages. For example, your wedding and reception might be taking place at a location that has their own website. A link to this website will allow your visitors to get more detailed information about the location and facilities available. If your reception is at a hotel then the hotel's website will have information about room availability and directions to help people get there. For example, this link takes you to www.dumbletonhall.co.uk on the edge of the Cotswolds. All you do is type in the name of a website and the link to that website is automatically created for you.

Similarly with the Stag and Hen parties; If you're off paintballing then put a link to the paintball company's website.

You can upload photographs to the Gallery at any time, but you'll probably only use this facility after the Stag, Hen and Wedding Day's. Why not invite your guests to email the photo's they took and you can enter these into the gallery.

After the Stag and Hen parties you will probably wish to change the details on the Stag and Hen pages from being info about the dates and timings of the parties, to being a write-up of what went on, and who got chained to the railings, etc. After the Wedding Day itself you will probably wish to change the Welcome page and say thanks to certain people. You may want to ask them to send you their photos and direct them to the gallery so they can view yours.

As you can see your Wedding Day Diary web pages can become a real 'living' entity, changing as the days and events pass by.

We at WeddingDayDiary.co.uk wish you the very best of luck.