Occasion
Make a birthday website for your girlfriend
A birthday website for your girlfriend is the gift that arrives first. Set it to unlock at midnight and it is waiting on her phone before anyone else has said happy birthday. It does not replace the present; it is the wrapping that makes the day feel planned.
This is not a template with her name dropped into the title. It is a page you build block by block: the photos she looks good in (not only the ones you like), a letter, the reasons list, a prize wheel of things you will actually do, and a video of you saying it out loud. About twenty minutes if the photos are already on your phone.
Midnight unlock: be the first message of the day
Scheduled unlock is the most useful feature on a birthday page. Send her the link the day before; it shows a countdown to midnight in her timezone, then opens on its own. She checks her phone at one minute past, and the page is there with the confetti button waiting. Because the link exists before the day, you can also put it somewhere physical: written inside a card, printed as a QR code on the gift tag, taped to the fridge. The countdown block, separate from the unlock, can count toward the actual celebration if the party is on Saturday and the birthday is Tuesday. You receive an email the moment she opens it, so you know whether to wait for the call or make it.
Photos: one per chapter, with captions
Pick eight to twelve photos, one for each chapter of the year or of the relationship, rather than sixty in a row. Use the polaroid layout and write a caption on each; the captions are what she will reread, and 'Lisbon, the day the tram broke down' is worth more than the photo. Include one she took of you, one you took when she did not know, and one of her alone that she has never seen. If you want to go one step further, the AI portrait block turns your favourite photo of the two of you into a watercolour, a claymation still, or a 3D animated poster. Two generations come with a published page, and the styles are chosen to keep faces recognisable.
The prize wheel of plans you have already made
The wheel block spins to land on a prize, and it is only fun if every prize is real. Fill it with things you have already decided to do: the restaurant you keep postponing, a weekend away, a no-phone Sunday, her choice of film every night for a month, a morning where you handle everything. Six slices is right; more than eight and the text gets small. She will spin it more than once and end up picking the one she wants, which is fine, because you were offering all of them. It is also a good way to reveal an actual booked trip: put it on the wheel and let the spin land on it 'by chance'. Label the slices with the plan and the date where you have one: 'Dinner at Lido, Friday' spins better than 'dinner'.
Say it on video, even if you hate video
The video block takes a thirty-second clip straight from your phone or a YouTube link. Do not script it. Sit somewhere she recognises, say happy birthday, say one true thing, and stop. Bad lighting is fine; it is the sound of your voice on her birthday, not a production. If video is a step too far, the voice note block records straight from the browser, no app needed, and a twenty-second voice note has most of the effect. Put whichever you choose near the end of the page, after the letter, so it plays as the last word rather than the opening. Keep it under a minute; the block plays inline, and thirty seconds of you looking at the camera is more than most people get on their birthday. If she is the type to replay things, this is what she will replay.
End with a reply box, and something for later
The page ends with a place for her to write back, or record a voice note of her own. This turns the page from a broadcast into a conversation, and you get an email with her reply and a link to listen. If you want the page to keep giving after the day, add the Open when block with two or three envelopes: 'open when you miss me', 'open when work was awful', 'open when you need reminding'. Each one is a short note she can open on a bad day months later. It is the block that makes people keep the link on their home screen. Write the envelopes at the length of a text, and aim one of them at the day after her birthday, when the attention has moved on and a note lands hardest.
Questions
Related pages
Start with the Birthday template
A pre-filled page in the Classic format. Change anything, add your photos, preview for free.
Start with this template