Now that you,re finally engaged, you want to spread the good news to the whole world. You could call your friends one by one and let them know or mail everyone or even celebrate at a party. But once this is done, you and your fianc are going to have a lot of work to do.

Assuming you've set a date for the big day, you've got to plan the whole wedding. How do you do this cost-effectively, efficiently and perfectly? Well, by setting up a wedding website that would serve primarily as a pre-wedding announcement and then will go on to detail every nuance of the wedding and its related functions.

So, essentially, your wedding website would be a warm-up exercise for you before the avalanche of arrangements for the wedding rears its head. To avoid the stress of this, you can build your own site by adding a personal touch to it so that your family and friends can share in your joy and acquaint themselves of the upcoming events, wedding date, venue and time, among other things.

It's important to put up these details early in your arrangements schedule so that your guests can decide if they can make it to the wedding or not. If at this stage your site is up and running, not only can you and your fianc keep uploadindg info as it crystallizes, but your family and guests can be kept in the loop right through the preparation days so that they too can chip in with suggestions or queries you never thought of.

By uplinking photos to your site, you personalize the whole event and bring people closer to you at this emotional moment. So, do it. Allow for space for those close to you to also put up snaps of you as they knew you--it could be yet another emotional moment or a time for some laughs. After the marriage day, you can also add your wedding photos for those who couldn't make it.

Put up a photo of your wedding venue and let your friends know just why you chose it. Add links to the site, maps, directions and pictures of the venue to help your guests from outstation reach the venue with the least difficulty.

You and your fianc could have a lot of fun trying out the various online registries before settling for any one. Link it to your site and add a wish list page too, if you like. This will be convenient for your guests to choose a gift for you.

Once this is done, draw up the guest list. Next, use the links of the site to guide you to some good caterers, florists, wedding planners, live bands, etc. Meeting these professionals and negotiating the best prices with them is sure to take the mickey out of you, but you can inject some fun into it if you take it slowly and scour the market before you decide. Also, put up an online RSVP as this too saves people a lot of time.