Social Media and Weddings

#essexwedding

Increasingly some couples are requesting the absence of Social Media on their wedding day.

Obviously the use of Social Media on your big day is a personal decision – we all have our own idea on whether this is intrusive or welcome on the Wedding day!

However there are some very useful aspects of Social Media for planning your wedding whether using Pinterest or Facebook (etc). It’s a great way of having all your inspirations collated in one place where you can share them with friends and family to brainstorm what might work for your wedding.

Hashtagify your Day

If you wish you can create a wedding hashtag by using your names, nicknames, your wedding theme or anything else that is easy to remember . For a unique hashtag remember to search before finally choosing it in case it’s already been used!

Obviously you can then advertise this to guests before the day in your wedding invitations and on the day, either where you have your seating plan, or on your guests tables etc.

If you don’t mind the presence of smartphones and button pushing on your big day then their still might be a few protocols to inform family, guests and friends about in advance.

Following are a few simple rules you may wish to inform guests about:

1. Don’t post pictures of the bride in her wedding dress until after the groom and family has seen her on the day.

2. Unless you have checked with the couple that it’s okay, wait until after the couple have started posting on Social Media before posting yourself.

3. If you are getting snap happy with your iPhone bear in mind the official photographers/videographers cost money so try and stay out of their way.

4. Sarcasm and humour can translate badly through Social Media and their may be a wide range of people viewing the post. Keep posts polite and if in doubt check with the bride and groom before posting. In the same way don’t post anything negative about other people at the Wedding even if your aunty’s hat doesn’t suit her or there is someone there you don’t want to talk to etc. Whether they are on Social Media or not this day is about the bride and groom having a wonderful day and wonderful memories.

Of course many of us have the ideal wedding planning device (yup the smartphone) in our pockets or bag and whilst having every last detail available whenever you want is very useful, make sure you remember to switch off from planning once in a while!

Following are a few (Older) Social Media stats relating to marriage:

Stats from Mashable (2014)

70% of women start a Pinterest board before getting engaged
28% of brides to be update their status within hours, 24% do this the next day.
89% use some kind of wedding planning app
74% of couples used online sites for their wedding music
68% of couples want to see photos posted in real time on Social Media
18% create a hard copy album while 30% just save images to a computer

Of course there are those fully embrace Social Media on their big day….

Couple pay thousands for ‘social media wedding’

Zoe Anastasi and Will Diggins payed thousands (they declined to say what they actually spent but a similar package costs £6500) to a professional Social Media Agency to cover their big day………

This included the setting up and running of wedding day specific Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Periscope accounts. Employed within this on were a Social Media weddings co-ordinator working with the couple before the wedding, a social media wall technician following activity on the day, a copywriter for wording in the social media package, photographers with smartphones and a social media director for the days activity co-ordinating everything.

All of the guests were invited to get involved with the social media sharing, with tweets and Instagram posts with the hashtag #ZoeAndWill2016 viewed over 21,000 times. Many who did not even know the couple watched the wedding online. Zoe and Will commented that this day only happens once and it was not everyday you got to act like a movie star!