7 tech-savvy ways to upgrade your wedding

Weddings are an on the ground affair so most of the focus is on the physical elements of the day from the attire, the decoration, the ceremony and the venue.

However, technology can very much form part of the planning and execution of the wedding as well.

As a tech writer and newlywed, I incorporated a lot of technology into my wedding day. Here are some ideas on how to effectively incorporate technology into yours.

Wedding website

A wedding website is a very efficient and inexpensive way of disseminating a lot of information to your guests. Even if you’re sending out physical invitations, a website can help provide key supplementary information to your guests.

This is especially helpful if you’re having a destination wedding.

There are a lot of drag and drop website platforms that come with existing designs and templates including Wix and Zankyou that make so you don’t need to write a single line of code.

I went with wedding site builder Appy Couple, which lets you send invitations, manage RSVPs, and build several pages of information quite easily. The bonus was that the process of buying a domain name was really simple and didn’t include any of the ‘techy stuff’.

However, there are a lot of of wedding website builders out there, both free and paid, from which you can greatly benefit from.

Digital invitations

If most of your guests consider themselves digital natives, then digital invitations may be appropriate. It gets to the recipient faster than snail mail and you can get instant responses.

Another alternative is to send a digital Save the Date but mail out your physical invitations.

Some wedding websites allow you the option of sending digital invitations. However, you can also sign up to some free email marketing tools to send out your Save the Date if you have a flair for design.

Instant messaging groups

Planning your wedding can involve many different suppliers and people to organize it. However, you can organize your wedding more efficiently if you have instant messaging groups set up so that everyone is kept in the loop.

For instance, for each key supplier, I set up a Viber group for my husband, my mom, and myself so that we are all kept in the loop with what is going on.

There are a plethora of messaging apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, Viber – and even Facebook messenger groups. Choosing which one is just a matter of what all you already have installed or prefer to use.

Drones for aerial shots

The wedding day is usually gone in a blink so it is quite important to take a lot of pictures for you to remember the day.

If you’re having a nice destination wedding or putting on a special display, it might be worth hiring a drone through your photographer or videographer to make your footage seem all the more magical.

Make sure to check with the venue for permission to fly the drone though.

Online gift registry

An online gift registry is a good thing for you because you can get your guests to buy you the stuff that you want or need.

It’s also a good thing for your guests because it saves them the hassle of selecting and bringing the gift to your wedding. It will also assure them that you will like whatever they get from the list.

A lot of stores do online gift registries so my tip is to go for a big retailer which has most of the stuff that you want and take it from there.

Same day edit highlights video

If your videographer can do it, it would be good to have a two to three minute highlights video of the day shown at the end of the evening. This would make you and your guests relive the day’s events and show the ‘behind the scenes’ preparation moments of getting dressed and ready.

My guests commented that the highlights video made the reception all the more special. It also gives you a bit of footage to hold onto until you receive your full wedding video around six months later.

This is also a great opportunity to show off those great aerial shots taken by the drone.

Online ordering of stationery

Having personalized stationery at your wedding need not be a taxing exercise.

Some stationery websites let you drag and drop and create your stationery on their platform. All you need is an image or graphic of what you want.

Some ideas of personalised stationery can be stickers with a monogram of your initials to ‘brand’ certain parts of the event, thank you cards for your guests and note cards for your guests to write you a message.

So there you have it, these are just some ways technology can make your wedding day all the more special.