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High Tech Weddings
by Wenona
Napolitano
The most important day in your life, your wedding day, is
now going high tech just like everything else. Technology has wormed its way
into the wedding industry.
From save the date e-cards to the newest trend in the
wedding industry – a live broadcast of your wedding over the internet (a
wedding webcast), the internet and other computer technology is making wedding
planning simpler and making it more personal. With technology couples can
easily put a personal stamp on their wedding while reaching out to more friends
and family than ever before.
The internet has made it easy to plan a wedding online. Many
wedding vendors have websites. You can see what they have to offer and compare
prices. You can buy anything and everything online from the invitations to your
dress, favors, decorations, cake toppers…Even finding previously hard to find,
unique and one of items is easier than ever before. eBay is a wedding planning
wonderland and for a one stop information resource The Knot.com can’t be beat.
You can also reach out to far away family and friends via
the internet and keep them up to date on wedding planning happenings and goings
on. You can send save the date emails and e-card announcements through websites
like evite.com, you can even send email invitations (though many
traditionalists frown on sending the actual invitation via email).
Many websites offer wedding pages and websites where you can
input all your wedding information and photos (some charge). TheKnot.com offers
free space to store all of your personalized information with easy to use
templates (no html needed).
The internet also offers the ease of creating registries at
online retailers, no more going to the store to pick out everything on your
registry, now you can create your wedding registry at 3 AM in your pajamas at any of hundreds of retailers that offer online registries. Your guests can
even shop online to purchase your gifts and have them shipped right to your
front door.
The newest tech tool for weddings is the live wedding web
cast. Now all those far a way friends and family that couldn’t actually make it
to your wedding, can still be a part of your big day. By webcasting your
wedding you can have a destination wedding and still share it with all your
friends and family. If you can’t afford a big wedding but you still want
everyone to share in your special day, you can have a live wedding web cast
that everyone can attend. If you are planning on having a videographer or if
you have a techie friend willing to help out, this can be a great upgrade.
Prices for a live wedding web cast usually range from $300- $750. The service
usually includes reservation of your web space and time of broadcast and an
archive of your web cast for easy viewing for those who missed it or for you to
download and burn copies to DVD
Another tech tool you can use to make your wedding easier
and more personal is MP3’s. You can download your own wedding music and create
a personalized play list to be played during your ceremony or your wedding; you
can save a fortune by not having to hire musicians or a disc jockey. You could
download songs to your MP3 player, create a personal playlist and hook the
player up to a rented sound system. A rented sound system is cheaper than a
live band or DJ.
You can also use a computer to burn many CD’s, make custom
labels (you could even add photos to them), and give away the CD’s as wedding
favors. After the wedding you can put your wedding videos on discs, along with
still photos and send them to friends and family. If you are really good with
the computer or know someone that is; wedding video, still photos and music can
be combined to make a really beautiful keepsake of your special day.
One major tech tool for your wedding is the digital camera.
Digital cameras take great still and moving photos that can be edited on a
computer, printed at home, put on disk, and uploaded to the internet or
whatever you decide to do with them. Now having great photos and videos from
your wedding no longer needs to cost thousands of dollars. You can have friends
and family that have good digital cameras, take great photos and videos for
you.
Other tech tools that can ease wedding planning include
software that can help you plan, make checklists, seating charts, guest lists,
budgeting, menus, and more. Some of the wedding planning software is My
Style Wedding, Summit Soft Wedding Planner, My Wedding Companion,
EZ Wedding Planner.com, SmartWedding.com, and Weddingsoft.com.
There are also other programs available that help you design and print
customized invitations and other wedding stationary.
Not only have the technological tools for wedding planning
made things easier they have also made things cheaper. Once it took a lot of
fancy, expensive equipment and someone well trained in using that equipment to
create custom things for you and it didn’t come cheap. Now designing and
printing invitations, making custom CD’s, creating photo CD’s or movie DVD’s
are easy and relatively cheap if you have a computer and the software and
accessories to do it. If you have a good computer and the right software and
tech tools, planning and customizing your wedding have never been easier.
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