Creating your own website may seem like a daunting or scary task, but it also can be a great planning tool for your wedding.

Several brides are now using the Web to update their guests, families and friends on the progress of their weddings. Emily McClimon, University of Iowa alumna, and Levi McClimon, ISU alumnus, created their own wedding website do to just that.

Their website featured how the couple met and their engagement story. It also had wedding party profiles, photo albums, their registry, blog, lodging information, a guestbook feature and more.

“We were both at different colleges and have family that doesn’t live by us,” Emily said. “It was nice because it kept everyone on the same page and they could check it regularly.”

Emily also used it as a communication tool with her and Levi’s mothers.

“It helped with our moms because we were all in different places for planning, which helped organize things, because we could keep up-to-date on the blog page,” she said.

The website she used was www.ewedding.com and it only cost $5 per month.

Emily also used other Internet sites to help plan her wedding.

“I looked at a ton of wedding blogs,” Emily said. “A lot of them my girlfriends and even my photographer suggested to me.”

One of her favorite websites to use was www.myresgistry.com.

“It was cool because you can pick out stuff from a lot of different stores, so you’re not limited to one,” she said.

Some other popular websites among brides are www.theknot.com and pinterest.com.

Once future brides have found ideas they are going to use, they can update their websites so their family and friends can see the progress. Emily did this by linking to her website on her Facebook profile.

“Be creative and put as much information on there for guests, family and friends because it keeps people coming back to your site,” she said. “And have fun with it because you only going to do it once.”

When it’s all said and done, a couple’s website can be a great resource for starting a wedding scrapbook. The McClimons kept all the stories and the pictures from their site.

“I encourage people to use websites because I think people enjoy reading about that stuff,” Emily said. “It takes time, but it’s worth it.”