How to build a wedding website and RSVP platform

What do Australian couples use today?

Australian couples can choose from free builders and one-off paid ones. The free ones earn money from registries, upgrades or vendor listings. The paid Australian ones charge once, in AUD.

Prices below were checked in October 2026. Builders change them often, so treat this as a snapshot.

How much does it cost to build?

It depends on how self-serve it is. A platform where couples sign up, pay and publish with no help from you is much bigger than a site you set up for each client.

For how these numbers compare with other app types, see how much an app costs in Australia.

What is a wedding platform made of?

yourwedding.app is two web apps on one backend, plus a marketing site.

• The guest site. The public wedding website, with the day, travel, the RSVP form and photos.
• The couple studio. Where the couple edits pages, imports guests, sends invitations and tracks replies.
• The backend. Accounts, guests, replies, payments, email, SMS, own domains and deletion.

How should the RSVP work?

This is where the hard product decisions are. Couples think in households. Caterers think in people. Guests just want to tap a link and reply.

1. The couple imports a CSV or Excel list. yourwedding.app takes up to 500 rows per import and suggests households by surname.
2. Each invited person gets a personal link with an 8-character code. The code sits after the # in the link, so it isn’t sent when the page loads and stays out of CDN logs. Treat the link like a password all the same.
3. The guest opens the link. There’s no account, password or app.
4. The link opens that person’s household. One person can reply for everyone in it, yes or no for each name.
5. Guests who accept answer the couple’s questions. Couples can add up to 10, per person or per household.
6. The guest can change the reply later from the same link. The couple gets a reply alert by email.

Which features are worth building?

Will the invitation emails land in the inbox?

Meeting the big mailbox rules doesn’t guarantee the inbox. But failing them can mean rejections, delays or the spam folder. A platform sends every couple’s invitations from one domain, and Google counts mail from the same primary domain together. So a busy Saturday can cross its bulk-sender line.

Google treats anyone who sends close to 5,000 messages a day to personal Gmail accounts as a bulk sender. That status is permanent. Since November 2025, Gmail has been ramping up rejections of mail that fails the rules.

Sources: Gmail’s sender guidelines and Yahoo’s sender best practices.

Your own marketing email is a separate question. Messages that promote your platform fall under the Spam Act. The ACMA says you need consent, must identify yourself and must make unsubscribing easy. A guest list a couple uploads is not marketing consent.

What does SMS cost in Australia?

yourwedding.app uses Mobile Message, an Australian provider. Its standard prices, ex GST, are below. The rate depends on how many credits you buy at once. Replies are free and credits don’t expire.

From Mobile Message’s pricing page. A first purchase made within 30 days of sign-up is 1.6¢ a part. The first dedicated number is free after that first purchase.

yourwedding.app sells 200 credits for A$19, GST included. The margin pays for failed-send handling, the reply inbox and support.

How do you protect guest data under the Privacy Act?

A wedding platform holds names, emails, mobiles and dietary notes for thousands of people who never signed up. Treat it as personal information from day one.

Most businesses with annual turnover of $3 million or less are exempt from the Privacy Act. Exceptions include health service providers and businesses that trade in personal information. The OAIC lists them all, so check with a lawyer before relying on it. We wrote yourwedding.app’s policy as if the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) apply.

• Guests didn’t sign up. The couple uploads their details. Tell guests, in the invitation and on the RSVP page, who holds their information, why, and who it’s shared with. Link your privacy policy.
• Dietary notes. Allergies or medical diets can be health information, which the OAIC lists as sensitive information. Sensitive information generally needs consent. On yourwedding.app, the reply form asks for consent before sharing dietary needs with the couple, their helpers, the caterer and any connected AI.
• Overseas providers. APP 8 covers disclosing personal information overseas. yourwedding.app stores wedding data in Sydney. Its privacy policy names the providers that may process data overseas, including SMS, payments, error monitoring, analytics and AI.
• Security. APP 11 asks for reasonable steps to protect it, and to destroy or de-identify it once it’s no longer needed. Guests see only their own household. Guest sites ask search engines not to index them, but they’re still public pages.
• Deletion. On yourwedding.app, the default is 24 months after the wedding, and couples can pick 3, 6 or 12. The site is hidden first, with 7 days to undo, then deleted. Backups can hold data for up to 35 days after that.
• Breaches. If you’re covered by the Act, the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme says you must tell affected people and the OAIC when a breach is likely to cause serious harm. Assess a suspected breach within 30 days.

Payments add their own records. yourwedding.app keeps payment records for at least 7 years, even after a wedding is deleted. Ask your accountant how long you need to keep yours.

How should couples pay?

We chose one payment per wedding, because a wedding has an end date. yourwedding.app charges through Stripe Checkout. Prices for couples include GST.

Stripe’s standard rate for domestic cards in Australia is 1.65% + A$0.30, including GST. On a A$229 package that’s 1.65% × 229 = $3.78, plus 30c, so about $4.08.

You can’t pass that on as a card surcharge. Surcharges on eftpos, Mastercard and Visa cards ended on 1 October 2026.

Build the Stripe webhook so a repeated event can’t grant a package or credits twice. Plan refunds and disputes too, even as a manual runbook. Your refund terms can’t remove consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.

How do you start?

1. Pick the angle. Decide what your platform does better than the free builders, and for whom.
2. Write the guest model on one page: households, people, children, questions and limits.
3. Choose the channels: email only, or email and SMS. Budget for SMS credits and the sender setup.
4. Decide on payments: one-off packages, add-ons and refunds.
5. Prototype the RSVP with a real, messy guest list before building the rest.
6. Agree the launch tests: one household can’t see another, revoked links stop, duplicate imports and payment events do nothing twice.
7. Write a brief. Our app brief template covers what to include.
8. Get an estimate. Our free estimate form takes a few minutes.

We’re an Australian team in North Bondi, and we built yourwedding.app ourselves. See the yourwedding.app case study for screens and detail.

Common questions