What to put on your wedding website, page by page

• A welcome, and your story if you want to tell it.
• The day: the date, and the times that matter to guests.
• Where: the venue, a map, and parking.
• Travel and where to stay, for anyone coming from away.
• What to wear.
• Gifts.
• The reply.
• Questions and answers, for everything else.

That is the whole list for most weddings. Engagement photos, the wedding party's biographies and a page about how you met are lovely to make and rarely read. Put your effort into the pages people come back to.

Two or three sentences: you are glad they are here, where and when, and that everything they need is on the pages below.

• "Welcome! We are so happy you're here. We can't wait to celebrate with you in Paphos this September. Everything you need is on these pages, and if anything is missing, just ask us."
• "We are delighted to invite you to share our wedding day. Here you will find the details of the day, travel and accommodation, and a place to reply."

Guests need fewer times than you do. When to arrive, when the ceremony starts, roughly when there is food, and when it ends. The photographer's schedule and the first dance's exact minute can stay in your own plan.

"3.30pm: please arrive. 4pm: ceremony. 5pm: drinks in the garden. 7pm: dinner. Late: dancing. 1am: the last taxi."

Put the arrival time first, half an hour before the ceremony. It is the one guests most often get wrong.

The nearest airport and station, how long it takes from there, and whether you have arranged transport. The hotels, with any group rate you have, its code and the date it ends. For a wedding abroad, passports and the weather too.

If you have arranged nothing, a short list of places to stay at different prices still saves every guest an evening of searching.

Answer the questions you have already been asked twice, and the ones you are dreading. A few that come up at almost every wedding:

• "Can we bring the children? We love them, but our day is adults only, so everyone can relax and enjoy the evening."
• "Can I bring a date? We have invited the people we know well, by name. The names on your invitation are the people we have saved seats for."
• "Is there parking? Yes, at the venue, free, from 3pm."
• "What shoes? The ceremony is on grass: block heels or flats."
• "Can we take photographs during the ceremony? We are having an unplugged ceremony; our photographer will share everything after."

One short paragraph, near the end. "Your being there is the gift. If you would like to give something, we have a small list here", or a honeymoon fund, or the account details for those who give money, which in many countries is what most guests do. Never on the invitation itself; always findable on the website.

Anything you would not want a stranger to read: your home address, the days the house will be empty, the guest list. A wedding website is easy to forward and sometimes easy to search, so keep the private things private, or keep the whole website behind a link only your guests have.

A digital invitation can carry the same pages, and then guests need only one link. On MyEventOS the invitation's pages are the website: depending on the design, your story, the day hour by hour, the venue with its map, the dress code with a drawing and the colours, the gifts and the reply, behind each guest's own link. Invitations are kept out of search engines, and every drawn design reads in English, Greek, German, Hebrew and Russian, in the language each guest chooses.