Wedding Website Builders: RSVP, Privacy, Registry, and Takedown

A wedding website's real jobs are collecting RSVPs (sometimes per-event, not just per-guest), keeping uninvited people out with a password, linking a registry without losing track of gifts, showing a schedule, and coming down cleanly after the wedding - and The Knot, Zola, Squarespace, and Wix each document these differently. The Knot and Zola are wedding-specific and build RSVP, registry, and guest tools directly into the product. Squarespace and Wix are general-purpose builders that use their existing forms, passwords, and page tools for the same jobs. Here's what each vendor's own pages say, checked September 2026 (no Wix prices are cited, per this guide's scope).

What does a wedding website actually need to do?

• RSVP, ideally scoped so only invited guests can respond, and only to the events they're invited to.
• Guest privacy - a password or similar gate so the site isn't fully public.
• Registry links, whether hosted on the same platform or pulled in from elsewhere.
• A schedule covering more than just the ceremony - rehearsal dinner, welcome party, brunch.
• A clean way to take it down (or repurpose it) once the wedding is over.

How does RSVP work, and can I limit who responds to what?

The Knot documents a real privacy choice at setup: "think about how you'd like to handle the privacy of the RSVP process. Would you prefer to allow anyone to RSVP, or just those who are on the guest list?" (The Knot Help Center, "How do I use the RSVP feature on my wedding website?", checked September 2026). All RSVPs collect through the published website itself, and the guest list updates as responses come in.

Zola scopes RSVPs per event rather than per site: to enable it, you "go to your Events tab and select an event you want to edit. Scroll down to Website Settings and switch the second toggle to Yes to let invited guests RSVP to that event on your site" (Zola Help Center, "How do I control who's invited to an Event?", checked September 2026). Guest invitations are set the same granular way: couples "check off all events that each guest is invited to" through the guest list, so a rehearsal dinner can stay invite-only while the ceremony RSVP is open to the full list.

Squarespace has no dedicated RSVP tool - its wedding-site guide recommends a "customizable form block" connected to "an email address, Google Drive, or Mailchimp" to collect and store responses (Squarespace, "Building a wedding site", checked September 2026), the same general Form block covered in our Squarespace forms guide. It's flexible but manual - there's no per-event RSVP scoping built in the way Zola documents.

How do I keep uninvited people out?

The Knot's password protection is thorough and documented in detail: "enable password protection in your privacy settings and create a password that guests must enter to view your website... This integrated feature is available on desktop, mobile web, and The Knot App" (The Knot Help Center, "Can I add a password to my Wedding Website?", checked September 2026). One real limit: "you cannot make your wedding website fully private without a password," though hiding the site from search engines like Google is a separate, additional option. The Knot also states the couple, not just guests, always has access to the current password: "your dashboard will always display your current password."

Zola's approach works the other way for the couple: "guests will be prompted to input the password before they can view any of the information on your wedding website," set from Account Settings' Privacy tab, but "Zola cannot give out your website password to your guests" if they forget it (Zola Help Center, "How do I password protect my wedding website?", checked September 2026) - Zola recommends sharing it on save-the-dates or invitations instead.

Squarespace's site-wide password works at the whole-site level: "you can hide your site behind a password to prevent it from being publicly accessible," and doing so "prevents search engines from indexing it further" (Squarespace, "Site-wide passwords", checked September 2026) - previously indexed pages can still linger in search results for a time.

Wix's whole-site password protection carries the same search tradeoff, stated more directly: "if you choose to password protect a site, this also prevents search engines from crawling and indexing that site. This means that password protected sites do not appear in search results" (Wix Help Center, "Wix Editor: Password Protecting Your Site", checked September 2026). The same article also notes that "this feature is not currently available to all users," so check your own editor before you count on it.

How do I link a registry?

Zola can pull in a registry from another store entirely: "we can import your other registries to your Zola registry! Then guests can shop all your gifts on one page" (Zola Help Center, "We already have a registry with another store. Can we link it to Zola?", checked September 2026), syncing roughly every 24 hours. The real limitation: "your guests will be rerouted from Zola to the external website to complete their purchase. They will not check out on Zola," and you'll "no longer be able to return, exchange, or redeem the cash value of this gift on Zola" for anything bought that way.

The Knot's registry works as a single shareable link rather than an import: "The Knot Registry works as a universal registry that can be shared across any wedding website," and "if you use The Knot Wedding Website, your registry and wedding website are automatically connected in one place with no additional linking required" (The Knot Help Center, "How do I add my The Knot Registry to another wedding website?", checked September 2026) - the same link works on Squarespace, Zola, or elsewhere.

Squarespace's wedding-site guide documents three registry routes rather than one built-in tool: a dedicated Zola integration block, an image block linking out to any registry's URL, or a Donation block if you have a cash registry or honeyfund (Squarespace, "Building a wedding site"). Squarespace's own documentation doesn't describe a native registry product of its own - it points to Zola or a plain link every time.

What happens to the site after the wedding?

This is where the four vendors genuinely diverge, and it's worth checking before you assume "delete" is even the right verb.

Squarespace doesn't frame this as deletion at all: "you can keep your wedding site after the wedding is over to serve a new purpose. Share memories from the day with gallery sections, add a video of the ceremony..." (Squarespace, "Building a wedding site") - repurposing, not takedown, is the documented path.

The Knot documents a reversible deactivation: "Deactivating removes the site content from any view. (Your URL will now point to an error page.) You can reactivate this site if you choose" (The Knot Help Center, "How do I delete my wedding website?", checked September 2026).

Zola separates "private" from "gone": toggling visibility to Private means "no one else can view it," and it can "take up to 30 days for your website to be hidden from search engines like Google" - full account deactivation, by contrast, requires emailing Zola support directly (Zola FAQ, "How do I delete my website/registry?").

Wix puts a real clock on it: moving a site to trash "unpublishes it, making it inaccessible to visitors online," and "you have 90 days to restore the site from trash before it is permanently deleted" (Wix Help Center, "Moving a Site to Trash", checked September 2026) - after that window, Wix states plainly it "cannot be restored."

Which platform fits which couple?

• Pick The Knot or Zola if per-event RSVP scoping, an integrated registry, and a documented guest-privacy workflow matter more than design control - both build these as first-class features rather than assembled from generic blocks.
• Pick Squarespace if design flexibility matters most and you're comfortable wiring up a form block and a registry link yourself, or you want to keep and repurpose the site as a memory page afterward rather than take it down.
• Pick Wix if you already know Wix and only need a whole-site password and a straightforward takedown window - just confirm the whole-site password option is available on your account first.

If a wedding site is genuinely a single scrolling page - the date, the RSVP link, the registry, done - our guide to one-page websites covers when that's actually enough and how to build one.

Where does Figment fit in?

Nowhere on RSVP, registry, or guest privacy - Figment publishes a website from a Figma design through its Figma plugin, with no RSVP form, password gate, or registry integration built in. A couple choosing this route would design the page in Figma and embed a separate RSVP form and registry link, the way Squarespace's own wedding guide already recommends doing with its generic blocks. It fits a couple who wants full visual control over a simple announcement page and is comfortable handling RSVPs and registry links as separate services.

Bottom line: RSVP privacy, registry linking, and what taking the site down actually means are the places these platforms genuinely differ - not just the templates. Check the current help article for whichever platform you pick before you assume a password, a deactivation, or a registry import behaves the way another platform's does.