An Open Letter to Website Designers

Dear Website Designers, Photographers, Event Sites, and anyone who owns a website,

I cannot possibly express to you in words, how much it pains me to visit a bad website.

As a future bride, I spend quite a few hours each day looking at websites. Everything from photographers, videographers, vendors, reception halls; if you've got a website, I'm looking at it.

First, lets discuss my number 1 (and by far number one) pet peeve... music. Ugh. Come on people, some of us are at work here! I HATE visiting websites that automatically play music. This isn't myspace... turn it off. Not only is the music annoying, but it's usually set to play at max volume. If I can't find your "off" switch within 5 seconds, I'm gone. Done. Not coming back.

Secondly, how easy are your photos to view? And this is really a #2 and #3 complaint here. If I'm looking at your event center for my ceremony or reception the first thing I want to see are your photos. I should be able to flip through them quickly on ONE page. Not a separate pop-up each time I click a new image. Not a new tab or new window. All in the same window. And what's with the annoying scroll bars that scroll either way too fast or way too slow. Here are some classic bad photo websites:

Example A:. go ahead, click on "home."
Example B: "for more photos click on snapfish, to which you must be a member to view photos."
Example C: scroll bar at 1000x per second.

And while we are on the subject of photos. Events centers, pay attention here. I could care less about a closeup of the brides face. I could care less about a closeup of the wedding cake or the flowers, or anything else not related to your venue. As a perspective customer, I want to see the VENUE! I want to see a nice shot of the ceremony site as well as the reception hall. I want to see how big it is, how big your dance floor is, if you have 1970's carpeting. And if you're making me use your catering, show me pictures of the food you make, and your presentation style.

I really don't understand why these concepts are so hard for people to understand. If you're a web page designer you've gotta talk your client out of these traps people fall into. "Oh would it be cool if we did this awesome flash thing on our home page that takes 10 minutes to load, but looks really neat?" NO. No it would not be, is not, and will never be "cool." It's annoying.

Thank you for your time. Now, please go fix your website.

Sincerely,
Me.