This custom WordPress website was created for my upcoming wedding from a blank underscores theme and serves as a central point for visitors to get information about the big day, send their RSVP’s, and find gifts from a Gift Registry.

Invited visitors are able to RSVP to the event through a plugin I created from the ground up that lets them enter their information by searching their postal code. Once there, guests can edit the individual attendees in case someone cannot make it or we need the name of a guest, and add dietary restriction information, or decline the invitation altogether.

As well, the Gift Registry is hosted directly on the site, and was created by modifying the posts and comments features of WordPress itself. Each item in the registry is its own post, and once a registry item is to be marked as purchased, the guest clicks the item which then sends WordPress a comment on that post. If a single comment exists within that post, the gift is marked as purchased. With the help of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, it became easy to add links to the actual items, indicate if they are available in-store or online, and how many of the items were requested.

After creating a previous version of my personal website using the GatsbyJS framework, I decided the time had come to give myself another WordPress development experience. I wanted my new site to have static pages, an area for ongoing project updates, and to be able to use and update the site to showcase my skills with ease. It’s the sort of thing any business owner or client would expect their site to do, in addition to having it deliver on its stated purpose.

This site’s purpose is simple – showcase talents and skills, and allow users to get to know me on a more technical level, as well as on a personal level. This is a site that showcases knowledge of WordPress development, Visual Design ability, Prototyping of conceptual website designs, the ability to deliver a site that can work responsively on all screen sizes, and an awareness of website accessibility for those with visual impairments.

I’ll be honest – I’ve been back and forth between learning WordPress development and React development for quite some time – heck, I’ve done plenty of projects using both – but with WordPress, your customers can do more, and since I’ve spent good time learning and practicing WordPress, this was the best option for the next version of my personal site.

As I was hunting for ideas for a project, I checked to see if the domain grocerystoreinsider.com was available. To my surprise, not only was it available, it was affordable! I snapped it up and began mocking up the site in Adobe XD and choosing design elements while beginning to create blog content for the site itself.

As a web design and development project, grocerystoreinsider.com was created as both an example of my web development and WordPress custom theme-building skills, and also a platform to share my experiences and knowledge of the grocery industry that I’ve been part of for a long time. The site uses a handful of plugins – Yoast SEO, Google Site Kit, and a custom-made plugin to display thumbnail images of recent posts/articles that I have written for the site.