Engaged couples are finding a new way to organize the craziness that is wedding planning: the Web.

Customized wedding Web sites offer brides, grooms and guests travel information, pictures of the happy couple and their honeymoon plans at the click of a mouse.

“It's a great venue for communication to a broad audience and a time-saver to broadcast your photos and memories of the event and be all-inclusive to friends and family,” said Laura Coburn, owner of Coburn Design in Auburn.

Although Coburn is familiar with the wedding Web site phenomenon, Coburn Designs has yet to create such a site for a client. Coburn says she would advise anyone who wants some space on the Internet for their wedding to use a templated site or a blog instead of building a site from scratch, which can cost more money.

Templated sites like www.ewedding.com offer couples a user-friendly format for publishing all the information about their union that they can possibly fit. Such sites are anchored by a navigation bar that commonly includes links like “wedding party,” “registry” and “directions.”

Jamar Redmond, a graphic designer with Coburn Design, was recently directed to the wedding Web site of a friend from the Binghamton area. He found that having all the information at his fingertips was a helpful way to prepare for his friend's big day.

“It doesn't replace the invitation, but you know you can get the information any time you want in case you lose the piece of paper,” he said.

The presentation of the sites is similar to any high-end commercial site. A slick Flash introduction welcomes visitors, optional polls ask them for input and music of the couple's choice plays in the background.

“It's something for my generation. I'm not sure my parents' generation would like to use it,” Redmond said.

The service is free, but many features - such as maps, photo albums and a personalized domain name like www.johnandjane.net - require a payment. A couple's union having its own domain name also lends some significance to the event.

Blogging sites such as www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com are a little more limited when it comes to customizing the site's look and organizing it into several pages. However, they still provide minimally Web-savvy couples with a simple method of posting information about their wedding.

While couples' Web sites are geared toward guests, sites like www.theknot.com are assisting the couples themselves with getting their wedding off the ground. The site offers newlyweds every service they could ask for as they plan their wedding, from ring shopping advice to bridal hair pointers.

Buying wedding gifts has never been easier either, as couples can create wish lists on the sites of most major retailers and direct guests there to see what would make them happiest on their first day of marriage.

Who knows whether these Web sites ease the planning process for engaged couples or just free up more time for them to spend preparing other aspects of their big day. But they are an undeniable asset to the couples of today that want to create the most perfect wedding possible.