My role: Designed and built the site, and look after it
Three things most small business websites get wrong
Speed: most sites send a pile of code before they show a single word. Hosting: few owners can say where their site lives or what happens when something breaks. Integration: a form goes to a form service, and then you hope it reaches an inbox.
The job was a site that is fast because of how it is built, that its owner can account for, and where every inquiry lands in the officiant's own inbox.
The build, in my own words
A wedding site, rebuilt in days. The old site was one page. The new one is nine, live on its own domain, and this week explains why it is fast, where it lives and where every inquiry goes. Watch the video
No framework. No build step.. Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and a love story drawn line by line as you scroll, in code written for this site. Watch the video
90 on a phone, measured. A speed test run on the live homepage, and the small decisions behind the result: the site's own fonts, every photo in three sizes, and nothing loaded before it is needed. Watch the video
What makes it work
No framework. No build step.: Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript. When there is less to load, there is less to wait for and less to break.
A love story, drawn as you scroll: The homepage draws a couple's story line by line as you move down it. That is code written for this site, not a plugin.
Fast by small decisions: The fonts are served by the site itself. Every photo comes in three sizes, so a phone gets the small one. Anything below the first screen waits until you scroll.
The form goes straight to the inbox: An inquiry goes to the site's own server, which sends it through a connected Gmail account to the officiant. It arrives like any other email, and a reply goes to the couple.
One form, on every page: Each of the nine pages ends with the same form and reaches the same inbox. A hidden trap catches bots, and there is a limit on how often one visitor can send.
Every change gets checked: When a change is merged, a script tests the server, walks every page for broken links, missing image descriptions and heading mistakes, and checks the form's delivery path without sending a real email.
Opened in a real browser: A second check opens every page in a real browser at phone size and at desktop size. If something fails, I know before a visitor does.
Under the hood
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Node.js
Gmail
Replit
If your site is one page on a builder and you are not sure where its form goes, I can rebuild it the same way.