A wedding website is only useful if guests see it at the right moments. Share it too early and it sits half-empty with “details to follow” on every page. Share it too late and guests have already booked the wrong hotel, or texted you the questions the site was supposed to answer. This guide covers when to put the site live, when to open RSVPs, when to set the deadline, and what to do in the weeks either side of each.
Why timing matters
Your website does different jobs at different points. Early on it carries the date and the rough location so people can plan travel and book time off. Later it collects RSVPs and meal choices. In the final weeks it answers the small questions: parking, taxis, what time to arrive. If you treat it as one big launch you end up either rushing the content or sitting on it for months. It works better as a site that grows in stages, with each stage tied to something you were sending anyway.
The short answer
If you just want the headline dates, here they are:
- Website live: with your save-the-dates, typically 10 to 12 months before the wedding
- RSVPs open: when your invitations go out, typically 3 to 4 months before
- RSVP deadline: 4 to 6 weeks before the day
- Seating plan: after the deadline, once numbers are confirmed
Everything below is a longer version of those four lines, with the in-between steps filled in.
The month-by-month timeline
Twelve months or more before
Nothing needs to be public yet. This is the stage for deciding what the site is for and claiming a sensible web address while your preferred names are still free. If you want a sense of what building one involves, how Ode works covers it; a first version is an evening’s work. On Ode the web address is chosen when you create the site and never changes, so claim it early. You don’t need to share it with anyone at this point (it stays in draft until you publish), so it can be as unfinished as you like.
Ten to twelve months before: save-the-dates and the site goes live
This is the moment to put the website live, because the save-the-date is the natural place to print the link. The site doesn’t need to be complete. At this stage guests only want three things: the date, the general location, and somewhere to check back later. A homepage with your names, the date and the town is enough. If guests are travelling a long way, add accommodation suggestions now rather than later, since hotels near popular venues book up well in advance for summer Saturdays.
If you’re marrying abroad or over a bank holiday weekend, send save-the-dates earlier, around twelve months or more, and put the site live with them.
Six to nine months before: fill in the details
Quiet months for the website, busy months behind the scenes. As you confirm suppliers, add the details to the site: the venue with directions and parking, the schedule for the day, the dress code, the gift list once you’ve decided what to do about gifts. There’s no deadline pressure here, just a habit of updating the site whenever something gets confirmed. If you’re not sure which sections are worth having, we’ve written a full checklist of what to put on your wedding website.
Three to four months before: invitations out, RSVPs open
UK invitations typically go out three to four months ahead, and this is when your RSVP should open. Before the invitations go to print, check three things: the RSVP form works (test it yourself, start to finish), the meal choices match what your caterer is offering, and the deadline printed on the invitation matches the one on the site. A mismatch between the card and the website is the most common avoidable RSVP problem.
If you’re collecting replies through your website, put the link and a QR code on the invitation itself, not just a separate insert that gets recycled. Online RSVPs on Ode handle meal choices and dietary flags per guest, which saves you retyping paper cards into a spreadsheet later.
Four to six weeks before: the RSVP deadline
Set the deadline four to six weeks before the wedding. That gap exists for a reason: caterers typically want final numbers about two weeks out, and you need the time in between to chase stragglers and build the seating plan without doing it the night before. Picking the right date is its own small decision, so we’ve covered it properly in our guide to RSVP deadlines.
A short, friendly reminder a couple of weeks before the deadline is optional; the chase that matters starts about a week after it, for anyone who has missed the date. People forget; it’s rarely a statement.
Two to four weeks before: final numbers and the seating plan
Once the deadline passes, chase the last few non-repliers by message or phone, then close the list. Send final numbers and meal choices to the caterer, confirm timings with the venue, and start the seating plan. Doing the plan after the deadline rather than before matters more than people expect: every late decline means redoing a table, so a plan built on confirmed numbers takes one evening instead of four.
The week of the wedding
The site’s last job is logistics. Add or check anything guests will look up on the day: timings, the postcode that works in a satnav (not all of them do, in rural venues), taxi numbers for the end of the night, and a phone number that isn’t yours for day-of questions. This is also the week to check the photo album: on Ode it opens on the wedding day by default, and the QR for the table cards should already be printed.
If you’re short on time
Plenty of couples plan a wedding in six months or less, and the timeline compresses fine. The order matters more than the gaps:
- Skip save-the-dates entirely and go straight to invitations
- Put the site live the same week the invitations go out, with RSVPs open from day one
- Give guests three to four weeks to reply rather than the usual run-up
- Keep the deadline at least four weeks before the day so the caterer and seating plan still fit
The only stage you can’t compress is the final fortnight. Caterers’ cut-offs don’t move just because the engagement was short, so protect that two-week buffer and squeeze everything else instead.
Common timing questions
Does the website need to be finished before we share it?
No. Guests expect a wedding website to fill in over time. The only rule worth keeping is to never publish a page that says “coming soon” with no date attached; either hide the section until it’s ready or give a rough idea of when details will appear.
Should the save-the-date include the website?
Yes, if the site exists. It saves a whole category of questions about travel and accommodation, and it gives guests one place to check rather than scrolling back through messages. If the site isn’t ready, send the save-the-date without it and share the link later, but you lose some of the point.
When should the gift list go up?
By the time invitations go out. Guests start thinking about gifts when they reply, and if the page is empty they’ll ask you directly, which is the conversation a gift list exists to avoid. It doesn’t need to be on the save-the-date; that’s generally considered too early in the UK.
How long should the site stay up afterwards?
The page can stay up, but the photo album has its own clock. On Ode the album closes after your plan’s window (7 days on the free plan, 30 on Starter, 90 on Plus, 180 on Complete) and the photos are deleted when it does, so download them from the dashboard first and remind guests to upload before the closing date. RSVP replies are removed 90 days after the wedding and the page itself a year after, which is plenty of time for thank-you notes and the name of that band everyone liked.
Wrap-up
Tie each stage of the website to something you were already sending: live with the save-the-dates, RSVPs open with the invitations, deadline four to six weeks out, seating plan after that. None of it is complicated on its own. If you’d like the RSVP side handled for you, Ode’s online RSVP collects the replies, and the guest-list RSVP on Plus and above also shows who still needs a nudge, so the chasing stage takes minutes rather than a weekend.