Next Station: Marriage

Overview

Next Station: Marriage is a wedding website built on Grav CMS with a custom theme and two custom plugins. The 90s retro aesthetic was part of the overall wedding concept — the website carried this theme into the digital experience with a Windows 95-inspired interface.

The Challenge

Most wedding websites are static information pages. This one needed to do more:

• Let each guest group RSVP through a personalized form — without accounts, passwords, or sign-ups
• Allow guests to contribute photos to a shared album during and after the event
• Bridge physical and digital: printed invitations with QR codes leading directly to personalized pages
• Make the retro aesthetic feel charming and intentional, not confusing or hard to use

Key Design Decisions

From invitation to RSVP in one scan. Each printed invitation includes a unique QR code. Scanning it takes the guest directly to a personalized page showing only their names with pre-selected attendance options. No login, no typing a code, no friction. The entire journey — from holding the paper invitation to completing the RSVP — is a single, seamless flow.

Only show what's relevant. When a guest group opens their RSVP page, they see only their own names — not a list of all invited guests. Each person in the group can individually accept or decline each event (ceremony, reception, party). For larger groups, a carousel shows two guests at a time to keep the interface focused and manageable.

A shared photo album that grows with every guest. Guests upload photos using their invitation code. Every photo immediately appears in a gallery visible to all guests, turning individual contributions into a collective memory. No app install required — just the same invitation code they already have.

The U-Bahn countdown. The Train Destination Display project was originally built for this website. A dot-matrix style countdown to the wedding day, styled after the Hamburg U-Bahn destination displays, ties into the "Next Station" theme and sets the tone right from the start.

Retro with guardrails. The Windows 95 aesthetic — window frames, beveled buttons, pixel art — is the wedding's visual identity carried into the browser. The design is deliberately playful, but works on all devices and is just as intuitive to use as any modern website.

The Solution

Two custom Grav CMS plugins form the technical backbone:

• Guest Token Authentication Plugin: Manages the entire RSVP flow — token validation, personalized form rendering, per-guest attendance tracking, double-submission prevention, email confirmations, and an admin dashboard with live response overview, pending RSVP alerts, and CSV export with attendance totals
• Photobook Plugin: Handles guest photo uploads, organizes them by guest group, and displays them in a shared gallery via PhotoSwipe. The admin dashboard provides grouped overview with thumbnails, timestamps, and bulk ZIP download
• QR Code Generation: Automated print-ready QR codes with embedded logo, bulk download as ZIP, and the option to regenerate all codes at once

Results & Impact

• Successfully used at a real wedding
• Two reusable Grav CMS plugins developed from scratch
• Guests could RSVP and contribute photos without creating an account or installing an app