Zola Review: My Take on Zola in 2025

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Lauren is a writer, artist, jewelry designer, and ceramicist who has been selling her artwork since 2007. She creates jewelry based on her original nature photographs, using beads, wire, plastic, and glass. She has sold her work at craft fairs and operates an Etsy shop where she sells nature-inspired candles made from hand-poured concrete and soy wax. Her favorite materials are porcelain and uncut or semi-precious gemstones. With a deep appreciation for the sentimental value of jewelry, she's dedicated to helping you discover pieces that hold a special place in your heart and may become cherished family heirlooms.

The Short and Sweet Version:

Zola can act as your wedding command center. They’ll host your website and registry, help you plan, provide vendor suggestions, and help you stay organized and keep track of RSVPs. If you’re going to create a wedding website or online registry, I recommend going with an all-in-one solution like Zola. It just makes things so much easier to have everything you need all in one place.

How Does Zola Work?

Zola is kind of a one-stop shop for all your wedding planning needs. There’s a good chance you already know that you can create a custom wedding website and registry on the site. However, you can also use it to browse and contact venues and vendors, design and order your invitations, track your guests’ RSVPs and meal choices, create seating charts, keep track of your budget, and more.

Zola is completely free to use (they primarily make their money through commissions on the invitations and registry gifts they sell). You can browse things like vendors and registry gifts without creating an account, but you’ll have to sign up to create a website and unlock some of the planning tools. They also have an app you can use to access everything on the go.

Zola Key Features

Wedding Website

First (and most importantly), Zola will host your wedding website for free. All you need to do is sign up for an account. They have over a thousand different design templates to choose from, and you can customize them all in different colorways, with different fonts, and by moving things around and adding photos.

I really like a lot of their base designs, and I love how customizable they are. Most come in at least half a dozen colorways, and you can add or remove sections or even whole pages depending on your needs. You can create a wedding website that includes all of the information you want to share (including any info on wedding weekend activities, morning-after brunch, or a list of your favorite spots around town), and none of the things you don’t want. Don’t need a page introducing your wedding party? Don’t add one!

Your wedding website will be hosted at www.zola.com/weddings/[YourUserID] for free, or you can purchase a custom domain through Zola, like [YourName].com, for prices starting at $14.95.

Planning Tools

One of the best parts about Zola is that it’s so much more than just a registry. It’s an incredibly easy-to-navigate and useful planning resource, no matter what stage of wedding planning you’re currently in.

Venue Listings

You can browse wedding venues and sort them by location, price, capacity, availability, amenities, and more. I like that you can search by venue type as well. They have everything from rustic barns to grand ballrooms to aquariums and museums listed.

Vendor Database

You can also browse, research, and contact all of your vendors through Zola. It’s a great way to find highly rated vendors near your wedding location, and you can browse to get a sense of the different vendors’ styles and narrow down what you’re looking for. You can also take a quiz to view personalized recommendations for vendors and venues that will align with your needs and budget.

One thing that I have noticed is that vendors are sometimes slower to respond when you message them directly through the platform. You might have better luck getting their info and then emailing them directly.

Budgeting Tools

Zola provides recommended budget suggestions using data from real couples. Their simple, straightforward budget sheet lets you break down your budget by category and adjust it as needed. If the thought of a giant spreadsheet makes your head spin, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised with how clean and simple their system is.

One of my favorite features is that they’ll send you payment reminders so you don’t have to worry about juggling all of the many deposit and balance-due days you’ll be dealing with.

RSVP

I think that online RSVP managers like the one on Zola’s site are some of the most invaluable tools you can use while planning your wedding. Even if you opt for a more traditional mail-in RSVP card, it’s a good way to keep track of everyone. Personally, I included a line on my wedding invitations instructing my guests to RSVP on my wedding website, and I have no regrets. Even the least tech-savvy of my relatives were able to figure it out, and I didn’t have to sort through 120 tiny cards to figure out who was coming and how many of them wanted the short rib.

Guests can type in their name to RSVP directly on your site. You can also set up the RSVP manager to ask for things like their meal choices or allergy information or ask custom questions (great for song requests!). Guests can also RSVP for their whole party/family together, and you can set up the manager so that only the guests you list are able to RSVP—which means no sneaky uninvited plus ones tagging along with your mom’s second cousin.

You can also choose to only invite specific guests to certain wedding weekend events. So you can choose to invite everyone to your ceremony and reception, but only out-of-towners and the wedding party to your rehearsal dinner.

Everything will stay organized on one list—that way, you can see who’s coming, how many chicken entrees your caterer needs to prepare, and any other pertinent information, all on one list. You can even send out mass messages to your list (perhaps to gently remind them to RSVP, for example).

Seating Chart

If you’re a visual person, you’ll probably find Zola’s seating chart creator very helpful. You can organize your guests and create a floor plan chart with different table sizes and layouts, including elements like your dance floor and cake table. After you create your chart, you can export it to print for your venue and caterers or share it as a PDF. No more messing with paper plates and clothespins!

Boutique

Zola’s boutique sells everything from bridal accessories to wedding party gifts to bachelorette party props. You can even purchase all the little reception extras like guestbooks, champagne flutes, and cake-cutting sets. If you’re stuck on what to get all the groomsmen or are having trouble finding the right pair of elegant but comfortable bridal shoes, check it out.

Invitations and Other Paper Goods

You can order your invitations, save the dates, place cards, menus, and all the other paper goods you’ll need through Zola. They have a ton of different customizable design templates to choose from, including ones that coordinate with their wedding website templates. You can also upload your own design.

One of my favorite things about Zola’s paper goods is that they let you order up to five different customized save the date or invitation samples for free. That way, you’ll know exactly what they’ll look and feel like in person before placing your order.

Each design template comes in several colorways, with options to customize everything on them. They have several different sizes available and more than half a dozen different types of paper to print your invitations on. You can even choose to add a QR code to your invite that will send guests directly to your wedding website.

Registry

Zola’s registry has had its issues in the past, but it’s come a long way. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s one of the best—if not the best—online registry options, even compared to smaller registry-only sites that don’t offer all the other planning tools that Zola has.

I’ve seen a few reviews in the past that complained about Zola’s registry items being out of stock or about fees on their cash funds (that’s not something they do anymore, by the way), but I have to say, I was very impressed by the variety of items available in Zola’s internal registry store. They’ve got all the major brand names, plus plenty of great items that you never knew you always needed.

A few more things they do:

Cash funds: Zola now offers direct deposit and zero-fee (via Venmo) options for their cash funds.
Experience gifts and gift cards: Event tickets, cooking classes, airfare, donations to charity, and more.
Group gifting: Multiple guests can contribute a certain amount of cash toward a larger gift rather than one individual purchasing it outright. Note that if a group gift isn’t fully funded, you’ll receive the balance in the form of a Zola registry credit, not cash.
Completion discount: After your wedding date has passed, Zola will give you a 20% discount off anything left in your registry.

You can also link outside registries through other stores (like Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, etc.) or link individual items from outside sites to your registry. That way, you can add Etsy items or items from smaller, independent sites that don’t necessarily offer their own registries.

I like that Zola keeps everything in one place. Even though guests will be redirected to the host site to make a purchase (so, if they want to buy something you linked from Pottery Barn, they’ll be prompted to click through to the item’s listing on that site), it looks more streamlined and makes your registry less confusing for your guests when it’s all on the same page.

Pros

They have a ton of wedding planning resources.
They offer a wide selection of gorgeous, fully customizable design templates for your website and paper goods.
You can easily link outside items from anywhere to your registry.
They have a huge variety of items available through their internal registry and offer a 20% completion discount.
Website and registry hosting is free, and you can purchase a custom domain name if you’d like.

Cons

Vendors are sometimes slower to respond via the site’s messaging platform.
Linking an outside registry item can sometimes be clunky.
If a group gift on your registry isn’t fully funded after your wedding, you’ll receive the balance as a Zola credit—essentially a gift card for their registry shop—not in cash.

Zola Alternatives

The Knot: The Knot is one of the biggest registry and wedding website hosting sites. Like Zola, they offer a ton of planning resources and customization options. One thing I don’t love about The Knot is that sometimes linking outside registries to your Knot registry can be a bit clunky.
Joy: Joy (also known as Withjoy) is a great alternative if you don’t want all the bells and whistles of Zola. They offer free website and registry hosting but don’t have as many design templates and don’t have the same planning resources as Zola.

Final Thoughts

If you’re going to build a wedding website anyway, why not do it somewhere that gets you the most bang for your buck—or in this case, for your time, since Zola’s free to use. I love that you can direct your guests to one place where they can find info on your wedding, answers to their FAQs, a place to RSVP and select a meal, your wedding registry, and any other fun things you choose to include, like photographs, your love story, and your recommendations for things to do around town. Zola offers one of the most comprehensive wedding website and registry services I’ve seen, all in one easy-to-navigate place.