This was the original design of MatthewAndStephanie.com. The original purpose was to be a source of information
on our upcoming wedding. It was done in basic HTML with very little JavaScript and one, possibly two, images. Very
basic, but very functional.
After the wedding was over, there wasn't much point in leaving the website as it was. Since I work as a web
developer, I decided I'd put my skills to use and give the website a little more functionality as well as spice
it up with some images. The landing page was given a new picture every now and then, something that was a
highlight of the time. A custom-built photo album was also added which used ASP.net 1.1 as the technology. A
member's area was added with the intention of being a place where family members could log in and keep up with
family related things. A gift registry was added so that we could coordinate our Christmas gift giving. No
one really used it so the whole member area got ditched.
I got a little tired of how plain the site looked and so I went out and did a little research on CSS and
site design. I took the design of a site and changed it up to make something that I both liked and thought
looked a little more modern. Two new sections were added as well. The first was a section for our first
child, Eden. We used this to show highlights of Eden and as a link to pages of photos of Eden in the photo
album. I also added a calendar. This was to keep up with the various birthdays, anniversarys, etc for members
of the family. It was probably also meant to coordinate family events, but I don't know that it ever came to
that. It was written in ASP.net 2.0. The photo album also got an update to .net 2.0. The news items that
appeared on the home page had to be entered by hand. This got old and would be the next thing to be updated
to utilize ASP.net.
So I got a little tired of the old design. Although I liked it, it tended to be difficult to work with
and somewhat hard to read at times. So I did a little more research on CSS and site design and found some
great sites with open source designs. I found one that I liked and used it as a basis for the current
design. I went for a clean and simple look and then wrapped it in ASP.net 2.0 so that I could make the
pages dynamic and change things like the banner image for each page. The photo album was tweaked once again
to make it easier to use and navigate as well as trying to get it so that the important stuff fit onto the
page without having to scroll. The calendar was also replaced with a new version that I had been working on.
This one is probably still used as much as the old (read: never) but it had a lot more functionality. A
functional Contact Us page was added just in case someone found our website and wanted to get in touch with
us. To date, I think only one person has used it (that's you Pat McCarthy) but at least I know it works. The
news items that appear on most of the pages are now created and edited in an admin area behind a member login
(which has returned but is currently only used for administrative purposes). The photo album and calendar are
also managed via this admin area. Finally, two new sections have been added. The first being one for our
second child, Noah, and the other being for our third child, a 1957 Buick Super that we're attempting to restore.