Once upon a time, a wedding website simply answered a few practical questions: When is the ceremony? Where is the reception? Will there be parking? Today, it is often a curated brand experience, complete with engagement photos, wedding party lists, countdown clocks and a detailed aesthetic woven from top to bottom.

In an age where even marriage can be packaged and optimized to the point of performance, it is worth asking whether the tools couples use to plan their weddings are quietly shaping how they understand marriage itself. This is the space into which Cana enters — not simply as another wedding website, but as an intentional reorientation toward the meaning of a Catholic marriage.

Launched in September 2025, Cana is a faith-focused wedding-planning platform designed for Catholic and Christian couples to build their website for managing registries, guest lists and RSVPS, all free of charge to the nearly 2,000 couples currently using it. 

A typical Cana page looks familiar at first glance, with engagement photos, the couple’s love story and practical planning tools — yet its visual language is unmistakably Catholic, incorporating imagery such as the Sacred Heart and the wine jars at Cana and including a space where guests are invited to pray for the couple’s intentions.

“Right now, big companies like Zola and The Knot are very much focused on the day,” Gabe Gessler, co-founder of Cana, told the Register. “We had a desire to … see a version that serves faithful Catholic and Christian couples to help prepare them beyond just engagement, but actually into eternity.”

A wedding photographer and videographer by trade, Gessler often encountered clients with questions surrounding the sacrament of holy matrimony. When he realized that a distinctly Catholic version of mainstream platforms did not exist, he set out to build one. 

With the help of a six-person team, the concept of Cana began to take form. “It took well over a year to sunlight [Cana] and build it on nights and weekends,” said James Reichert, another co-founder. “And then we launched and could not believe the response. We’re incredibly grateful.”

“My fiancé and I have said from the beginning, we want people to come to this wedding and see that it’s more than just the secular view of the wedding,” said user Rachel Hoying. “We want them to see the true sacrament and see Jesus through us in our wedding.”

With Cana, she added, people “know right away” that “we’re serious about our commitment to each other” and “our commitment to the sacrament of marriage.”

Sage Francis, another user, echoed this sentiment, telling the Register that “there are many companies out there with great wedding sites but with values I’d rather not support.”

“Being able to choose a site that reflects our same values has been really wonderful,” she said. 

Those other platforms, Reichert noted, often promote modern ideas of marriage that conflict with Church teaching. “Not a single one of them uphold or promote the dignity of traditional Catholic marriage,” he told the Register. “Until Cana existed, every single couple that was getting married in the Church had no choice but to use one of those platforms.” 

‘Staying Authentic to Christian Values’

Creating that alternative, however, has come with its challenges. Wedding websites are extremely data-intensive; even simple guest actions — confirming an RSVP, noting a food allergy, purchasing a gift — can trigger several complications behind the scenes.

Even so, the developers have persisted, and Cana is taking off, with many Catholic and Christian couples opting to use it. 

Cana provides its services at no cost to couples and generates revenue solely from registries. When a guest purchases a gift, the company collects a 4% commission from the partner retailer. This is in contrast to sites like The Knot that advertise free services but charge additional fees for premium features and customization.

“The last thing we wanted to do was charge brides some high monthly fee just to plan their wedding during a season where they really shouldn’t be spending any extra,” said Reichert.

Within a month of launching, the site attracted nearly 1,000 couples without paid advertising — growth Reichert described as “organic,” fueled largely by the platform’s lively social-media presence. 

That online presence is led by the team’s social-media manager, Nina Schaefer, a recent college graduate with a background in marketing. As the only woman on the team, Schaefer said she brings what Pope St. John Paul II described as the “feminine genius” to the company and its outreach.

“My fun thing that I always love to point out is every girl, as soon as they can start to dream of their wedding one day, either has a Pinterest board or a notes app where you just write down all of your ideas,” she told the Register.

That perspective has shaped Cana’s strategy on platforms like Instagram, where much of its audience — primarily brides — already spends time scrolling through wedding-related content. Schaefer and three interns post daily, follow popular trends and engage with users, all while “staying authentic to Christian values.”

As for the platform’s rapid growth, she sees something deeper at work.  

“There’s this need for tradition and desire for what is true, good and holy,” she said. Beneath the pressures to curate the perfect image, she added, many young people are searching for something lasting. “It’s actually none of the surface-level stuff that matters,” Schaefer said. “It’s all about this one-on-one relationship that I have with the Lord and being able to reflect that back with somebody.”

Reflective of the Sacrament

For users like Sabrina Torres, that focus has made a tangible difference. After having created wedding websites on The Knot, Zola and WithJoy, she and her fiancé were frustrated by “tacky” designs and hidden fees. Then, while scrolling on Instagram, she came across a reel about Cana.

“I watched the video, I opened the website, and I was like, ‘You know what? What do we have to lose? It’s free. So we might as well just try,’” she recalled.

That decision, Torres noted, made her wedding preparations more meaningful. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, she and her fiancé needed a site that could accommodate guests with varying languages and ages. 

“With Cana, I was able to put responses to the RSVP in different languages to help everyone be able to navigate the site successfully,” she said. “And I really appreciated that.”

Torres also added a section for specific prayer requests — for “our dearly departed loved ones, our marriage, our wedding planning, our future family.” The response surprised her.

“I’ve actually gotten a lot of really positive comments from family members who are in the faith and family members who have strayed further from the faith,” she said. “It’s encouraging them to come back … and see how important [our faith] is to us.”

Elizabeth Fulbright, another bride who discovered Cana on Instagram, now recommends it to friends and family, noting the platform is highly customizable while keeping Christ at the center. “Having even just a website [be] more Catholic-based is a great way of evangelization — of planting the seed,” she said.

Mission Sustained in Prayer

As the platform grows, so do its ambitions.

By March, Cana plans to launch a vendor marketplace featuring photographers, bands, caterers and other wedding professionals who share the Church’s vision of marriage.

“We’re going to have a collection of Catholic vendors who will be able to work with you on your big day in a values-aligned way,” Reichert said.

But the team’s vision does not stop at the altar. Other ideas in development include connecting couples with Catholic financial planners and wealth advisors, offering baby shower registries and creating pathways to post-wedding support.

The company is also exploring ways to strengthen marriage preparation itself — from promoting spiritual direction to highlighting pre-wedding formation opportunities rooted in the sacrament. From engagement to early family life, the goal is to accompany couples through each stage, not just to simply help them host a onetime event.

In a culture that often reduces marriage to a single day, Cana is betting on something longer and deeper — that when couples are given tools aligned with truth and tradition, the focus of marriage can shift from performance to covenant. 

For the Cana team, that mission has been sustained in prayer.

“The night we launched in September, we offered our company up to Mother Mary, just asking for her protection and provisions,” Reichert said. “And so far, she has just taken such good care of us, and we sure are grateful.”