Last week I received a postcard in the mail from my friends Will and Leah. It was a save-the-date card announcing the details of their upcoming nuptials. While it is not unusual to receive such a card, it was slightly less than usual in this case because:

1. The postcard (which featured a lovely picture of the couple) was not a follow up to a traditional paper invitation but in lieu of one, and

2. The postcard served as a mechanism to point its recipients (The Beard and I) toward Will and Leah’s wedding web site.

Now I imagine that Will and Leah did send traditional invitations to their families and less tech-savvy friends. But for a soon-to-be wed couple that has a lot of friends scattered about the country and wants to give their prospective guests as much information as possible, attractive postcards that point to a web site can be a fabulous and fiscally sensible idea.

I like a good web site (especially when it’s about weddings) and Will and Leah’s site has a nice layout and is rich in detail. Of course, it helps that Leah is no stranger to creating web sites. If, however, you are like me and most comfortable typing into prefabricated textboxes, there are a number of services (both free and not so free) that will aid you in the creation of a wedding web site.

Wed Quarters: This service offers a variety of colorful templates and costs $25 for a year of hosting. Users can craft an unlimited number of custom pages but I’m not sure how much space they provide for images.

My Event: Users pay roughly $10 per month for a web site with images, music, video, and flash. Visitors can RSVP for the wedding right on the site.

The Knot: The Knot has 40 very simple templates, and allows users to send electronic save-the-date cards and guest updates. It is free for site members.

Wedding Window: This service is $79 for 12 months and seems to provide elegant results. See Star Jones’ wedding site.

Brides and grooms that are less interested in using their site as a vehicle for information and simply want to document the process can always use a free blogging service like Blogger to satisfy their craving for high-tech hitchin’.

The computer cake topper above is by Joshua’s Clay Creations.

I, for one, welcome our new alien overlord and his zombie bride!