With spring and summer on the horizon, we turned our attention to wedding businesses. That led to the idea of a wedding venue, and we began to hunt through websites to find one worthy of the Designerly Award. As you can imagine, there are thousands upon thousands of venues, so we narrowed it further to focus on unique wedding venues. After reducing the number of options to a top 10, we finally landed on Treehouse Point as the winner of this month’s Designerly web design award.
How We Choose a Winner
If you’re new to the site or it’s been a while, we use a specific process and criteria each time we seek out an award winner. It starts with a category, like weddings, and we narrow it down from there. When looking at small business websites, we begin by selecting an industry, such as personal services, and then narrow to specific niches, such as tattoo artists or cake bakeries.
Weddings, in general, cover a vast industry. The online magazine “The Knot” recently completed an online study of more than 10,000 U.S. couples married in 2025. They found the $100 billion wedding industry in the country came from about two million weddings, with an average spend of $34,000.
Narrowing the Options
You can imagine how many different search results we got when we typed “wedding websites.” Each time, we start by looking at specific services or specializations in the industry, so we then hunt for topics like “wedding dress shops,” “wedding planners,” and “wedding destinations.”
After deciding on destinations, we quickly realized we had to get even more specific for this wide-ranging industry and began hunting for wedding venues. Looking at the top results on the search engine results pages led us to narrow the topic even further to “unique wedding venues around the globe.”
It was from these results that we narrowed the choices to five top contenders and then ran each site through our checklist of good design elements like mobile responsiveness, typography, layout, user friendliness and speed. The clear winner was Treehouse Point.
Winner: Treehouse Point
Treehouse Point secures the Designerly Award for their aesthetically pleasing design, mobile-friendly site and sleek navigation. Treehouse Point is located in the Snoqualmie Valley of Washington and was a natural fit for the spirit of treehouse building, the joy of craftsmanship and the love of hospitality․
The original treehouse in 2006 was Temple of the Blue Moon, but all current treehouses are custom-designed dream escapes in which to reconnect with nature in a more natural and unhurried way․ Treehouse Point’s owners, the Nelson family, continue to build treehouses on the property․ Each treehouse is custom to the tree in which it is placed, and Treehouse Point’s owners consider this slower and more labor-intensive approach a key part of their process․ The property is now home to a collection of unique treehouses, in addition to forest-style lodging for those desiring an experience without treehouse accommodation․
Boutique Feel
The treehouses at the venue act as a boutique bed and breakfast and as a place for guests to engage with nature․ Visitors can stay at one of the seven treehouses or other rustic structures on the property․ Each accommodation offers its own unique experience while providing guests with comfort, tranquility and a view of the forest․ As well as breakfast and other amenities, overnight guests are provided many comforts we take for granted at home․ Day guests wishing not to stay overnight are welcome, and may enjoy a guided tour of the grounds․ The retreat is a quiet, with adult space for guests aged 16 and older․
Treehouse Point also hosts weddings, elopements and special events and embraces the forest and river as part of its clientele experience. Treehouse Point is much more about taking your time, unplugging and paying attention to the woods’ rhythm. Guests may read on the balcony of a treehouse, wander the grounds, or sit by the river and listen to the water trickle past․
Why We Chose Treehouse Point as a Top Design in Wedding Venue Sites
It’s hard not to give the Treehouse Point website a web design award for the simple reason that it maps an authentic experience and sense of place into the browser without resorting to aggressive sales tactics․ From the moment the visitor arrives, they see the mission and values of the Treehouse Point brand as calm, engaging and organic․ This gives the forest setting and custom-built treehouses space to breathe and speak for themselves․ The site is atmospheric, but at the same time offers users clear paths to book a stay, find out about events or book a tour․
The site is easy to navigate, with information grouped around standard requirements, such as stay limits, age restrictions, tours and events․ The information is presented up front and in a friendly way to reduce friction when planning visits․ Consistent branding across all segments of the site from weddings and retreats to overnight accommodation pages reinforce the brand experience and create a cohesive visual and emotional journey for the user․ The site doesn’t rely on distracting interactive effects but focuses instead on well-placed storytelling content and easy-to-follow hierarchical structures․
What makes this site special, and award-winning, is its ability to tell a story and serve a purpose․ It sets a sense of place and functions as a booking tool, showing that beautiful and functional web design can go hand-in-hand․ Given that it’s a hospitality brand that celebrates slowing down and reconnecting with nature, the quiet confidence and clarity of the site feels like an extension of the experience․ Some of the specific benefits of the site included the following.
Navigation
Keeping navigation simple and intuitive instantly improves a website’s user experience (UX). Treehouse Point achieves this by limiting the navigational hierarchy to seven categories and a call to action (CTA) button.
The navigation appears at the top of the page, where users expect it to be and is text on top of a large hero image. A simple white, sans-serif font works well to keep the focus on the pictures and details of staying there.
Other navigational elements on this site work well. For example, a subtle white arrow points the way down under the word “explore,” encouraging site visitors to scroll and explore the rest of the page.
Site Speed
The website loads quickly on both desktop and mobile devices. Google recently reported that 53% of website visitors won’t wait more than three seconds for your site to load. A site that lags is likely to lose traction with your audience.
Speed matters, and thankfully, there are many things you can do to improve yours. Some tactics include faster hosting, reducing scripts and optimizing images.
Big, Beautiful Images
The visual aspects of a website can make or break its impact on visitors. Treehouse Point does a nice job of balancing non-photographic elements with on-point images that showcase its property to the best advantage. Even if they’ve never been there, brides can picture what the setting looks like to determine whether it matches their vision for the wedding.
CTA Buttons
Letting your site visitors know where to head next on the buyer’s journey is a crucial component of any website. The CTA buttons on the Treehouse Point website are effective because they are limited and to the point. “Book Now” appears multiple times.
Mobile Responsiveness
The site loads quickly on mobile devices, and the images instantly scale to a smaller screen without losing clarity. The menu turns into a simple hamburger menu. The “Book Now” CTAs, while slightly smaller, are still functional and easy to tap with a finger.
What We Would Do Different
While, the Treehouse Point website has an online chatbot, a live chat option would be more accommodating to potential visitors․ A guest would be able to ask a chatbot general questions that would typically be easy to answer․ A potential guest may need to know more regarding the details and logistics of staying at or renting an event space at such a unique property as a treehouse․ Including a real-person chat with limited business hours helps create the same feeling of inspiration, but more confidence that you can book without losing that personal touch․
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