I feel so old fashioned when I remember, not too long ago, planning my own wedding. Trudging from reception hall to hotel to look at facilities, sitting down in photographers’ studios to review their portfolios and running around to see different wedding bands in hopes of finding that perfect fit. It was so time consuming, tiring and embarrassing.
Yes, embarrassing, because once you make the personal connection with a vendor, it is so difficult to go back and say “no thank you, I am hiring someone else.” For today’s digital brides, everything is prescreened online and most of those important but awkward questions such as: “How much are you going to charge me?” and “What am I going to get for it?” can be answered online before a phone number is ever dialed.
Photography and entertainment
Need a photographer and entertainment? You can now hold auditions without ever leaving your computer. Websites like SnapKnot.com allow you to view a digital portfolio of photographers in your area and their price range in advance. Gigmasters.com has every option for musical entertainment from live bands to DJs that you can both see and hear without feeling the pressure to commit — so easy, so civilized and so fabulously anonymous.
Gift registries
Gift registries are also better online. The brides at MyRegistry.com love that they can create their registry in their pajamas at 10:00 p.m. at night choosing things from stores like Anthropologie and West Elm. You can even recreate the experience of using a department store scan gun, by downloading the MyRegistry.com smartphone and Android apps, which allows you to scan any item’s barcode and add it to your registry without limiting yourself to just one retail outlet.
Getting inspiration
Love Pinterest? So do a lot of brides who use it to find the ultimate inspiration for planning their wedding. You can find beautiful images to cover every aspect of your event and then some. Now you can browse Pinterest using the MyRegistry.com browser extension and add anything you see on a pinboard directly onto your own gift registry. This brand new feature will even retrieve prices, as so many Pinterest items that are re-pinned have no pricing.
Of course, there will always be a few things that you cannot do online, such as: taste the wines you will serve at your reception and the final fitting for your wedding gown. However, you will save so much time and angst on everything else by going digital, that once you are ready to meet with your florist, you really will be able to sit back and smell the roses.
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