Installation

Installation

Portainer, plain Docker Compose, or running it locally.

The image is published to GitHub Container Registry on every merge to main, so there is nothing to build. Everything Docker-related lives in docker/.

Docker Compose, from the repository

The shortest route, and the one the README quotes:

git clone https://github.com/Soccerbeats/weddingwebsite.git
cd weddingwebsite
cp docker/.env.example docker/.env     # set POSTGRES_PASSWORD and ADMIN_PASSWORD
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Then http://localhost:3000, and /admin with the password you set.

Three compose files, and it matters which:

File	What it is
docker/docker-compose.prod.yml	Production. Pulls the published image
docker/docker-compose.dev.yml	Development. Builds from source
docker/docker-compose.demo.yml	The read-only demo — see The demo instance

Portainer

The easiest way to self-host. No cloning required — Portainer pulls the pre-built image from GitHub Container Registry.

1. Open Portainer → Stacks → Add Stack

Give it a name (e.g. wedding) and paste the following into the Web editor:

services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/soccerbeats/weddingwebsite:latest
    container_name: wedding-web-prod
    restart: always
    ports:
      - '3000:3000'
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=${DATABASE_URL}
      - ADMIN_PASSWORD=${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
      - NODE_ENV=production
      # Optional, and all `:-` so an unset one is an empty string rather than a
      # compose warning. A variable NOT listed here never reaches the container,
      # however carefully it is set on the stack — see the note under the table.
      - JWT_SECRET=${JWT_SECRET:-}
      - FLIGHT_API_KEY=${FLIGHT_API_KEY:-}
      - FLIGHT_API_HOST=${FLIGHT_API_HOST:-}
      - GEOCODER_USER_AGENT=${GEOCODER_USER_AGENT:-}
      - NOMINATIM_URL=${NOMINATIM_URL:-}
      - OSRM_URL=${OSRM_URL:-}
      - SMTP_HOST=${SMTP_HOST:-}
      - SMTP_PORT=${SMTP_PORT:-}
      - SMTP_USER=${SMTP_USER:-}
      - SMTP_PASS=${SMTP_PASS:-}
      - NOTIFICATION_EMAIL=${NOTIFICATION_EMAIL:-}
    volumes:
      - photos_data:/app/public/photos
      - config_data:/app/public/config
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:15-alpine
    container_name: wedding-db-prod
    restart: always
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=${POSTGRES_USER}
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      - POSTGRES_DB=${POSTGRES_DB}
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  postgres_data:
  photos_data:
  config_data:

2. Set environment variables in the Portainer UI under the compose editor (Environment variables section):

Variable	Example value	Notes
ADMIN_PASSWORD	yourStrongPassword!	Password for /admin login
POSTGRES_USER	wedding_user	Database username
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	yourDbPassword!	Database password
POSTGRES_DB	wedding_db	Database name
DATABASE_URL	postgresql://wedding_user:yourDbPassword!@db:5432/wedding_db	Must match the three values above

Those five are all it needs. The rest are optional, and every feature that uses one says so in the UI when it is missing:

Variable	Example value	Turns on
JWT_SECRET	a long random string	Signs the admin cookie independently of the password, so rotating one does not invalidate the other
FLIGHT_API_KEY	a RapidAPI key	Fill in from schedule on a travel leg. Subscribe to AeroDataBox; its free plan allows one request a second
GEOCODER_USER_AGENT	WeddingWebsite/1.0 (you@example.com)	Identifies you to OpenStreetMap's geocoder, which answers 403 Access denied to callers it cannot contact. Worth setting — without it map search on the server can fail while working on your laptop
NOMINATIM_URL / OSRM_URL	https://nominatim.example.com/search	Your own geocoder / routing server instead of the public ones
SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT, SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASS, NOTIFICATION_EMAIL	your mail provider's	An email when an RSVP arrives

The trap worth knowing (fixed in v0.9.51): a variable set on the stack only reaches the app if the compose file also lists it under environment:. Before v0.9.51 the published compose passed only DATABASE_URL, ADMIN_PASSWORD and NODE_ENV, so a FLIGHT_API_KEY set correctly on the stack never arrived and the feature reported itself unconfigured — and the documented SMTP settings could never have worked at all. If you are updating an older stack, re-paste the compose above. To check what a running container actually has: docker exec wedding-web-prod printenv FLIGHT_API_KEY.

3. Deploy the stack — Portainer pulls the image and starts both containers. The database schema initialises automatically on first boot.

4. Access the site:

• Public site: http://your-server-ip:3000
• Admin panel: http://your-server-ip:3000/admin

Tip: Put a reverse proxy (Nginx Proxy Manager, Traefik, Caddy) in front of port 3000 to serve over HTTPS on a custom domain.

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Local Development

git clone https://github.com/Soccerbeats/weddingwebsite.git
cd weddingwebsite
npm install

# A Postgres to point at — anything will do
docker run -d --name wed-db -e POSTGRES_USER=wed -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=wed \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=wed -p 5432:5432 postgres:15-alpine

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://wed:wed@localhost:5432/wed ADMIN_PASSWORD=dev npm run dev
# open http://localhost:3000

npm run dev doesn't apply the schema (the container does that on boot), so apply it once by hand: psql … < database/init.sql. More in Development.

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