You do not want a wedding website. You want one page: where, when, how to get there, and a way for guests to say yes or no that ends up somewhere you can read. The big wedding platforms give you that page for free, but it comes with a registry, a guest list manager, a planning checklist and a vendor marketplace, and your guests get a brand that is not yours. For a hundred people and one afternoon, it is a lot of furniture.
This guide is the small version. One page, written by Claude from what you tell it, hosted on Hostus on a link. The RSVP is a form on the page: name, attending, plus one, meal, dietary notes. Each reply lands in an inbox on the document and in your email. Guests need no account and install nothing; they open the link, read, answer, and if the page did not cover their question, they ask the page and it answers from what you wrote. Free to start, and the page is yours as a file.
What it looks like
Here is one, live: a fictional couple's wedding page with the story, the schedule, the venue, travel notes, a FAQ and the RSVP form at the end, with Ask switched on. The couple is made up and the dates, places and numbers on it are illustrative, but the page is real. Open it on your phone, ask it "is there parking?", then send a test RSVP and see what a guest sees.
Guests scroll from the story to the form without a menu, nothing asks them to sign in, nothing tries to sell them a gift, and the address bar shows the page's own name.
What a wedding RSVP page needs, and what it does not
- The facts. Date, time, venue with a map link, how to get there, where to stay, dress code.
- An RSVP that lands somewhere. Your email, and a list you can read on a train.
- The right fields. Name, attending, plus one, meal choice, dietary notes, a line for a message.
- A close date, so the caterer gets a number.
- A way to answer "can we bring the kids" without a group chat.
- No account for guests, and nothing for them to install.
A registry, a guest list manager with postal addresses, a seating chart and matching stationery are not on this list. They are real needs for some weddings, and the platforms that lead with them are the right pick then. This page is for the couple who wants the page and the replies, and keeps the rest in a spreadsheet.
How the RSVP reaches you without a backend
On Hostus, any <form method="post"> with named fields records its submissions on the document. No action URL, no form service, no key in the page: the guest presses send and the reply is stored. You read the replies in an inbox on the document, or ask Claude for them through the connector. The HTML is a plain form:
<form method="post" name="rsvp">
<input name="name" required>
<select name="attending"><option value="yes">Yes</option><option value="no">No</option></select>
<input name="plus_one">
<select name="meal">...</select>
<textarea name="dietary"></textarea>
<button>Send</button>
</form>The settings live on the document, not in the HTML, so you change them without touching the file: an email to you per reply, or one daily summary; a success message shown in place of the form, up to 200 characters, or a redirect; stop at a number of replies; close the form. On the RSVP date you close it, in the dashboard or by asking Claude, and the page stays up while the form shows your closing line.
One more setting matters for a wedding: the data mode. In the default mode, called shared, the page can read its own replies through the document's storage, and so can anyone who opens the link and knows where to look: every field except the email, which is redacted. That suits a public guest list, not an RSVP with allergies and children's ages. Set the data mode to per reader, one switch in the dashboard or one line to Claude, and nobody but you reads the replies.
The prompt
With the Hostus connector on in Claude, this writes the page and publishes it in one turn. Change the names, the date and the details and it is your wedding.
Make me a one-page wedding site for Ana and Tomás, Saturday 14 March 2027.
Sections, each with an id: a short story of how we met, the schedule for the day, the venue with a link to the map, travel and where to stay, a FAQ (dress code, parking, children, gifts), and the RSVP at the end. The RSVP is a <form method="post" name="rsvp"> with named fields: name, attending (yes or no), plus one name, meal choice (meat, fish, vegetarian), dietary notes, a message. No backend, no action URL, no key in the page. One HTML file, mobile first, calm typography, one photo at the top.
Publish it to Hostus and give me the link. Then set the form to email me per response, with the success message "Thank you, we have your answer. See you in March." Set the data mode to per reader so the replies stay private to me.The page is born private: in the Hostus dashboard, switch it to public before you send the link, or to email-gated if you want only guests who type their email to get in, still with no account, and you see who opened it. Ask is already on. When the RSVP date comes, ask Claude to close the form, or flip it in the dashboard; the page stays up. Ask for a second language or a small photo gallery (mind the 2 MB on the free plan), and the next version goes up on the same link with the replies untouched.
Hostus first, then the wedding site builders: which one to pick
Hostus. Best if you want the wedding page as a page of your own, with an RSVP that reaches your email and guests who can ask the page. Claude writes it, Hostus hosts it, every reply lands in the inbox and in your email, you close the form on the date without touching the file, and guests need no account. The free plan has no clock, no card and 100 form replies a month.
Zola. Pick it if you want registry, guest list manager and stationery in one place, and the website is the front door to all of it. Its site says the wedding websites are free to create and publish, with online RSVPs and meal preferences, optional password protection, a registry that guests browse without leaving the site, and a synced guest list; the only paid part is a custom domain, from $17.99.
Joy. Pick it if you want the same bundle: its site says the wedding website is "completely free, including RSVP tools, templates, and hosting", with planning tools and registry free as well, password protection for pages or the whole site, and online RSVPs with a guest list in one place. A custom domain is extra; its FAQ says one typically costs $20 to $40 a year.
The Knot. Pick it if you are already planning on The Knot and want the website next to the vendors and the checklist. Its help center says the websites are completely free to use, with RSVP collection tools, registry integration and guest messaging included; a custom domain is the optional upgrade, at $19.99 for one year or $39.98 for two.
Minted. Pick it if the website should match the invitations. Its site sells free wedding websites with online RSVP, registry pages and privacy settings, on a free address ending in .minted.us; a custom URL is an upgrade its help center lists at $15 a year.
WedSites. Pick it if you want a dedicated RSVP system with events, custom questions and confirmation emails to guests, and you are happy to pay once. Its pricing page lists one-time plans at $39, $99 and $199 and puts online RSVPs on the $99 plan and up; you can start designing for free, but no free plan is listed.
A Google Form. Pick it if you only need the replies and have already told everyone the details. Free, the answers land in a spreadsheet, and the guest fills in Google's page, not yours.
Side by side
| Option | Guests need an account | RSVP reaches your email | Guests can ask the page | Registry and guest list manager | Custom domain | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostus, one HTML page | No, nothing to install | Yes, per reply or daily, plus the inbox on the document | Yes, answer from the page, section cited | No | No: names.hostus.page | Yes, no clock: 100 replies a month, no card |
| Zola | Check their site | Check their site | Not on the pages we read | Yes, per its site | Yes, from $17.99 | Yes, free to create and publish |
| Joy | Check their site | Check their site | Not on the pages we read | Yes, per its site | Yes, extra; typically $20 to $40 a year, per its FAQ | Yes, "completely free" per its site |
| The Knot | Check their site | Check their site | Not on the pages we read | Yes, per its help center | Yes, $19.99 a year or $39.98 for two | Yes, per its help center |
| Minted | Check their site | Check their site | Not on the pages we read | Registry pages, per its site; guest list, check their site | Yes, $15 a year, per its help center | Yes, on a .minted.us address |
| WedSites | Check their site | Check their site | Not on the pages we read | Check their site | Check their site | No free plan listed; RSVP from the $99 one-time plan |
| Google Form | Not by default | To a spreadsheet; email is a setting | No | No | No | Yes |
Prices and features were read on each vendor's own site on 18 October 2026 and change without notice. "Check their site" means the vendor did not publish the fact on the pages we read.
Guests ask the page, and you close it on the date
Every page published on Hostus carries Ask, and it is on by default. A guest types "is there parking?" or "are children welcome?" and gets a short answer written from the page only, with the section cited. No account, no app. It answers what you wrote: if the page does not say whether there is a shuttle from the hotel, it says so rather than guessing, and the question lands in a list for you, in the guests' own words: what to add to the FAQ in the next upload. The free plan allows 20 reader questions a day, the paid plan 200.
A guest can also reply on a section: "we will be late to the ceremony, do not wait for us", anchored to the schedule. The reply is private between that guest and you, you get an email, and you answer from the dashboard or through the connector. Reading by section shows which parts guests open and for how long.
On the RSVP date, close the form: one switch in the dashboard, or one sentence to Claude. The form shows your closing line, the schedule and the map stay up, and late guests can still reply on the page or ask it. Or set it to stop at N replies and it closes itself.
Good to know before you switch
There is no registry, no guest list manager, no seating chart and no stationery: the page is the page and the replies, and the rest stays in your spreadsheet. The address is your-names.hostus.page; there is no custom domain on any plan. Keep the data mode on per reader: in the default shared mode the replies, minus the email, are readable through the page's storage by anyone who opens the link. The gate, if you want one, is by email, not by password: each guest types their email, with no account, and you see who opened the page. Hostus does not email the guest who replied; the success message on screen is the confirmation they get.
The free plan allows 100 form replies a month. A wedding of 150 guests whose replies arrive over two months fits; one that collects them all in the week after the invitations go out needs the paid plan, which has no limit, or the limit raised. Replies past the limit are stored, not lost, but held until you upgrade. Public pages on Hostus carry a noindex and do not appear in Google, which for a wedding is a feature, not a limit. If you want guests to see who else is coming, that is the other kind of RSVP page, with page storage instead of a form: the RSVP page without a backend does that.