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Tools and Resources

Collect your guests’ photos with Canditto

Canditto is a new and convenient way of getting copies of your guests’ photos of your wedding. A lot of guests carry digital cameras to weddings nowadays. And Canditto lets them easily share their photos with you right before they leave on your wedding day. No more waiting for them to send or upload them!

Aylee Bits readers get $50 off with promo code 752834429.

My first concern is that guests might be a little hesitant copying their photos into the machine even though it only copies photos taken for the past 8 hours. My second concern is the price. At $450 ($400 with the coupon) for a week rental, brides might just opt for the free online photo-sharing sites where guests can upload their photos.

Hilton online group booking

Hilton Wedding Planning Tool

Introducing DailyCandy Weddings

 

DailyCandy Weddings

Create your wedding website at Shutterfly

There’s more to Shutterfly than photo sharing, photo books and cards.  Shutterfly has its own website creation tool.  And I suggest brides take advantage of this free helpful tool!  It’s very easy to use.

Shutterfly Custom Website

Here are just a few of the features:

  • Photo sharing – your guests can easily upload digital photos they took at your wedding
  • Privacy and security – you can control permissions (view, comment, contribute, edit, etc) of the whole site and of each page
  • Tools (widgets) – there are so many tools available including calendar, map, to-do list, journal (blog), guestbook, bookmarks, videos, files, message board, polls, and a lot more.

Test your wedding IQ

Bored?  Need something fun to do?  Martha Stewart Weddings has  fun quizzes for brides (and grooms).  Some of them are very informative as well.

Photo from Real Life Wedding Planning

Photo from Real Life Wedding Planning

What Is Your Wedding Etiquette IQ?
Test your knowledge of wedding traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Test Your Invitation Know-How
There are many rules when it comes to writing and mailing your invitations.

Wedding Day Roles and Rules
When it comes to who does what, choosing roles for your wedding day can be a slippery slope. Whether you’re dealing with the bride’s parents or the groom’s parents, make sure you know who should do what.

Do You Know Your Diamonds?
From the setting to the size, there’s a lot you need to know when picking the perfect ring.

Know Your Seating Charts
Figuring out where to seat your guests — and the wedding party, too — can be tricky.

So how did you fare?

Free wedding website

We’re in a technology boom and more and more engaged couples now have their own wedding websites.  Wedding websites can be very useful to guests.  These websites usually include detailed info about the wedding and other events, travel info for out-of-town guests, gift registry, and even an RSVP form.

While there are a lot of sites that offer wedding website services and hosting for a fee, there are equally as many sites that offer it for free.  Below are some that I know of:
www.weddingwire.com - my top choice
www.mywedding.com
www.weddingannouncer.com
www.projectwedding.com
www.brides.com
www.theknot.com
www.momentville.com
www.ewedding.com

Unfortunately, I couldn’t customize the free websites as much as I want to.  So I decided to use one that I’m familiar with - the blog platform Wordpress.

Read on…

Updates on the Wedding Resources list

I know I have been slacking about posting the new updates on the Wedding Resources page.  For the next five days, I will post the most recent updates including descriptions.  Here’s my first installment…

Social Couture is a fabulous home and entertaining store.  It is set up differently than your usual online stores.  The site shows you different entertaining/party ideas complete with photos of the table set-up, decor, etc.  You can then purchase the items to create the same look on the photos.

090114scouture

WeddingWire.com is one of my favorite wedding planning sites.  It includes a list of vendors complete with reviews from brides and grooms.  It is comprehensive and intuitive.  Their tools are one of the most intuitive.  It is a great organizer for brides from budget and timeline to guest lists and seating charts.

090114wedwire

Click here for the complete list of Wedding Resources.

Changing your last name when you get married

I’m going the traditional route. I plan to take my fiance’s last name after we get married, even though it’s harder to spell than my maiden name. While it is what I want to do, I’m not looking forward to it at all. Looking at all the things that one needs to do to change his/her last name looks like a mission in and of itself.

I did ask John if he is willing to change his last name to mine. Since his parents are divorced and he doesn’t like his father, he is willing to do it. But he is not that organized and I’m a bit old-fashioned, so we decided I’m changing mine.

Below are tips and a checklist for changing your last name:

Read on…

RANT: Wedded Bits blog from Brides.com

Since I like the Brides.com site, I figured I will like their blog Wedded Bits as well.  Unfortunately, not.  I’ve had the blog on my RSS reader for months and I decided to take it out. 

Wedded Bits

I noticed that most of the entries on Wedded Bits are about wedding products and services.  I’m starting to believe these posts are sponsored – they were paid to post about these products and services.  If there are any tips or advice at wedding planning at all, they revolve around a product or service.  One exception are the “Brides are Talking” posts which pertains to posts in their forums, which I think didn’t really require much effort or thinking from the part of the blog authors.

There was one post where the author began his/her post about a nice venue in Manhattan where they held a bridal shower without mentioning the venue’s name.  Then the author proceeded to talk about a similar venue in California which was the main topic of the post.  I then left a comment asking about the venue in Manhattan, but I never got a response.  Some assumptions I had as to why: they weren’t paid to mention the Manhattan venue; whatever Manhattan venue they were really talking didn’t exist so they don’t really have a specific name they can tell me.

Adding wedding services to your registry

Traditionally, couples register for home items to help them start their new life. In present times, more couples have already established a home of their own before they marry, and home items are things they no longer need.  In response to this growing trend, other types of registries emerge.  Couples now have more options when it comes to wedding registries.

Wedding services in your wedding registry

Wedding Registry Direct allows couples to register for wedding products and services from photography to cakes.  It’s one way to tell your guests, “I want you to help me pay for my wedding.”  Admit it brides, weddings are expensive and it would be awesome if guests choose to contribute or help with your wedding.  But of course, etiquette says you are not allowed to ask your guests exactly that.

What are your opinions about this type of registry?

Are you willing to include wedding products & services to your gift registry?

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