We just saw an update from the WeddingWire Blog that they have just released on RSVP with their wedding websites. If you’re looking a great way to save money, having your guests RSVP online can save on postage, especially with a site like WeddingWire that is free for engaged couples to use. Why not try it, it’s free.
It’s an often overlooked company for weddings, but Amazon.com wedding registry is a great way to find all sorts of gifts for your wedding registry. Not only can you build a list, but you can post links to it from your wedding website with various widgets. And since it’s Amazon, your guests might like the idea of buying gifts that cost a little less as well.
If you need some help with the planning details and aren’t tech savy at all, then you might try going over to Wedding Details.com. They have some planning sheets you can print out to keep track of things. It’s one more thing to carry around so unless you really have something against the internet and online planning tools, this wouldn’t be for you.
A cool seating tool
I found this site which has a very cool seating chart tool.
http://www.simpleseating.com/
You need to create an account, but I think that this type of seating tool is truly useful. Drag and drop features and the pre-canned table shapes make for easy placement and arranging.
Unfortunately, the canvas size is limited and so are the default shapes available. Also, as I played around with it a lot, it was a little bit buggy (I started to see some ghosting and things were not snapping to the proper spots). However, a refresh generally fixed the issues (for awhile).
While this tool is not truly geared for wedding layouts now (at least, not the free version), it would be extremely useful to have this implemented for the wedding industry.
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OK, this has to be one of the lamest Budget Planning Tools out there. I don’t even get why they offer stuff like this. It is a list of boxes on a web page that you are supposed to type in and then print out…super, duper helpful, let me tell you. You can’t save entries, and they don’t even suggest values for you.I could be more efficient with a pen and paper…or with nothing at all… |
EASE OF USE: 0
FUNCTIONALITY: 0
INTUITIVE: 0
So WeddingWire just released a site dedicated to helping users pick out their wedding songs. It’s broken out by category (i.e. First Song, Father/Daughter) which is good, but their real advantage is they took the time to provide links to the songs on both iTunes and Amazon so you can listen to a clip of the song right away instead of having to search for song individually. We suggest checking it out.
In April 2007, WedShare.com founders Crystal and Jason Melendez released the first edition of “e-Plan Your Wedding: How to Save Time and Money with Today’s Best Online Resources.” This 480-page comprehensive reference guide covers planning from engagement to honeymoon, including all the latest ways to save time and money by taking advantage of the growing number of online resources
Just saw this come across BusinessWire:
Introduces market’s only offering that eases pain points for both engaged couples and bridal vendors at no cost to either
WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 1, 2007 – WeddingWire, an online platform designed to simplify wedding planning for engaged couples and wedding vendors, today announced its public launch. In the $50 billion annual US wedding industry, WeddingWire is the only company that enables engaged couples and wedding vendors to work in concert to produce distinctive, heart-felt nuptials while alleviating the pain points felt by both parties. WeddingWire’s online offering, which is free of charge to engaged couples and for wedding vendors getting started on the site, is available immediately across the United States at www.weddingwire.com.
While I’ve been looking through these sites, they all seem to provide more or less the same set of features. Budget Management, Guest Lists, Checklists, Scrapbook, etc.
I actually think that there is much room for improvement among any/all of these tools. Some things I think should be implemented:
1) Tools that can interact together: If I book something, can’t the checklist item be checked off, and the proper entries inserted into my budget automatically? The tools should work together to make our lives easier.
2) Interactive “Day Of” planner: Seen lots of basic ones, but this is where a nice Web 2.0 whiz-bang feature would come in very handy!
3) Sync with my calendar/contacts: I would like to be able to synchronize calendar/contact data with other external systems.
If anyone else has other suggestions, please do share!
This is also a new site that offers wedding planning tools. I haven’t had a chance yet to create a test account, but it definitely looks like one of the newer online companies providing online wedding tools. I have a good feeling about this and just wanted to point it out.
Before you check it now, please do note that this is a FEE-Based site. There is a free trial, but unfortunately, its $25/month. That works out to around $400 (for the average engagement length of 16 months), which is not cheap. This puts it at the high end of costs for any suite we’ve seen to date. I hope it’s worth it…
On the web at: http://www.myweddinghero.com
