Build a Wedding or Event Website With Working RSVPs

Event-site platforms charge subscriptions, stamp their branding on your wedding, and hold your guest list in their export button. Meanwhile an event site is the friendliest possible build: a one-page design plus one form, for an audience guaranteed to visit. This is also the most-requested 'can you make us one?' project once relatives learn you build websites — consider this tutorial your template.

Step 1 — Gather before you generate

Sites like this live on specifics, so collect them first: event name and date; schedule items with times; venue name + address (and the second venue if ceremony/reception split); 6–10 real FAQ answers (dress code, parking, kids, gifts, hotel block); any links (registry, livestream, hotel booking); and the feel in three words (romantic/classic/garden vs. modern/minimal vs. festive/loud). Photos if you have them; a good site works without.

Step 2 — Generate the site

Step 3 — Wire the RSVP (the part platforms charge for)

Two routes, both from tutorials you may have done: the form-service route (fastest — submissions email to you; fine under ~50 guests, gets messy past that) or the Supabase route, which is the right answer for real guest lists: an rsvps table, insert-only RLS policies (guests can submit, nobody can read or tamper — the database tutorial's exact pattern), and your data in a sortable table. Ask Claude to wire your form to whichever you pick, with a warm confirmation message on submit and a readable error with your phone number as fallback — a guest whose RSVP silently fails is a headcount problem you'll discover at the caterer.

Step 4 — Build yourself the guest dashboard

If you chose Supabase, one more prompt pays for the whole evening: 'Build a private dashboard page (I'll keep the file on my computer, not upload it) that reads my rsvps table and shows: total attending, total declined, guest count sum, meal-choice tallies, dietary notes list, and a full sortable table with CSV export.' Caterer numbers, seating-chart raw material, and the aunt-who-hasn't-responded list, live at any hour. This page never gets uploaded — it's yours.

Step 5 — Launch logistics

A custom domain (sarahanddavid.com, ~$12) reads beautifully on paper invitations; free hosting carries the site itself (hosting guide). Add og tags so the link unfurls with your hero photo in group chats. Then the non-technical essentials: an RSVP-by date stated ON the form, a test submission from three relatives' phones before the invitations print, and a plan to close the form after the deadline ('disable the form and show a contact-us message after [date]' — one ask).

After the event

Swap the RSVP section for a photo-sharing link and a thank-you note — the site becomes the memory page, still costing nothing. And keep the file: every future event is this template with new nouns, which is exactly how a one-evening skill quietly becomes the family's permanent event infrastructure (and, if you want it to be, a tidy freelance sideline — see the validation tutorial for turning skills into offers).