Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Karla's Drawing of Kristin and Scott
Today is the day where people celebrate each other with love, chocolate, flowers, and special dinners and occasions! 🙂 I am very fortunate to know many wonderful people in my life with wonderful family members and amazing friends – I have always enjoyed Valentine’s Day! I will always remember it being the day a few years ago when I was studying for my comprehensive exams in the PhD program at the University of Tennessee (wow – that was two years ago!!), but it was all good – made sure to have plenty of coffee and chocolate to help with the studying. 🙂
How did I celebrate Valentine’s Day? Well, I actually had some friends over for the weekend and we got to together to cook and go shopping in Louisville. Actually, we were all shopping for bridesmaids dresses in preparation for Kristin’s wedding in June. There was one thing that came up – how do we include everyone in terms of being part of the dress shopping process? How do we get the bride involved and the other bridal party members? Can we do that? Of course, thanks to social media! Here is what we did:
- Making sure that we were giving the bride updates first: We sent Kristin pictures and texts with updates and what we were doing for the dresses. We did make sure to send these pictures to her for her approval, and NOT post them on Facebook. This is the bride’s decision on how much she would like to have available online for others to see before the wedding. We of course sent her some pictures of some dresses she would probably not want us to wear for her wedding – but it was all in good fun! 🙂
- Using FaceTime to call the bride with updates, check-ins, and scheduling arrival for events: We were all about to set up a conference call to talk with the bride and make sure were were all on board with when she would like us to all come down to the wedding in June. We could have easily have arranged this via Google+ Hangout as well.
- Arrange a Pinterest Board for Bridal Party: Two heads are better than one, and the more the merrier! Kristin set up several inspiration boards on Pinterest for everyone to contribute on what they like in regards to wedding dresses, decorations, hair, makeup, and other elements for the wedding. What a great way to crowd source information using social media for a great and wonderful event.
There of course is social media etiquette that we have to look towards and be aware of, especially in preparation for the wedding. There are some great posts and suggestions on what you can do in preparation for the wedding as well as what you can do during the wedding in terms of proper social media connectivity. Here are some suggestions on how you can become a social media wedding super star!
- Set up a centralized social media hub for the event: Setting up a centralized photo location (possibly Pinterest or even Flickr), guests can potentially upload their pictures of the event and the bride and groom can choose which they like best for their memories. Fabulous!
- Have an official social media correspondent: Sharing updates, information, using the official wedding hashtag, etc – all of these will help others who were not able to make it to the event to share the joy and happiness of the newlyweds. This could be the designated “tweet of honor” or “best tweeter.” 🙂
- Have the right tools for planning and organizing your wedding aka mobile apps: Having the right tools for the job is key, so you want to see what are the best apps to have for planning the wedding and at the event.
- Encourage guests to share pictures, posts, and have a contest for best tweet toast at the wedding: Engage with guests virtually to have them come up with the best tweet toast update for the bride and groom (this can be done and monitored by the social media correspondent at the wedding) and decided upon by the bride and groom.
- Come up with a scavenger hunt with the bridal party before the big day: A great activity for the party to do before the wedding is to go on a scavenger hunt by checking in at various locations around the location and look for clues. This is a great way to have a good time as well as explore the location where the wedding will take place.
- Share updates, deals, and coupons for guests coming to the wedding: Kristin and Scott have done this already for their wedding by sharing these exclusively on their website – very fab!
- Be one with social media for your wedding: If you are going to do social media for your wedding – you have to go big or go home! Kristin has certainly done this for her wedding to Scott. She has created a great and new fabulous blog (loves it – great posts on a variety of key topics!), set up a Pinterest account, a Facebook page for her blog, and – I am so proud of this – even a hashtag for her wedding to Scott! 🙂
- Let the bride and groom tell their story in person as well as on social media. Even though we can communicate, share, and comment on various aspects of items – it is still the special day for two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. Let them be the stars both on this day and on social media. We are all here to celebrate and be happy! 🙂
So – I wish you all a wonderful and happy Valentine’s Day! 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
0 Comments