WedShare * Daily is brought to you by the creative force behind personal wedding website service WedShare.com and contributing bloggers passionate about each of their own areas of focus and expertise in wedding planning and the wedding industry.
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{ Wedding Tech } is our blog's niche, but our contributors also cover all things wedding: eco-friendly ideas, inspirational boards, real weddings, and more.
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The golden glow of this mustard yellow color palette is perfect for a summer wedding day. Such rich colorful accents will make any wedding a memorable one. Warm, bright, and cheerful colors will complement the joyful mood of you and your guests.
Wishpot is thrilled to be a new monthly blogger for WedShare * Daily! For our first post we thought we’d introduce ourselves and our wedding registry service.
What is Wishpot?
Wishpot is the perfect tool for your shop anywhere wedding registry. You can add items from ANY site (Etsy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Sur La Table, Nordstrom etc…) to your Wishpot wedding registry.
How does it work?
1. Sign up & add a little button to your internet toolbar (Add to Wishpot Button) and then start browsing the web.
The Add to Wishpot Button
Browse the web and when you see something you like, click the ‘Add to Wishpot‘ button in your toolbar. Wishpot, in a pop-out window, grabs a picture of the item and price as well as the page URL where the item can be bought.
Adding an item to your Wishpot registry
Click ADD and the item now appears in your Wishpot list. Repeat the process each time you find something else you want. We warn you: it’s addictive.
2. Get what you want
We’ve all been there…the outdated sweater, an ugly tie, another vase! Well, no more with Wishpot; it’s easy to let others know and get you what you want. On the top left of your list copy & paste the ‘Share by URL’ into emails, invitations, on your wedding website, and so forth.
Your Wishpot Registry
Friends and Family arrive from your link (they can also search for you on the site) and reserve items they’d like to buy you.
3. No duplicate purchases
Reserved items ensure no duplicate purchases
Once a guest reserves an item, it appears grayed out and is no longer available for purchase by anyone else.
To reserve an item we ask your guests to leave their name and email address so you always know who reserved what and who to thank. We also redirect your guest to the site where the item is from for the transaction.
And, we send out emails to guests who’ve reserved items to confirm the purchase.
With Wishpot, not only can you add items from any site, but you can add cash requests, charity donations, even your honeymoon to your registry. And with larger purchases you can set it up so that multiple people share the cost of a single item. So go on… add that 52-inch television to your registry.
And if you are looking to save money, we have price comparison features and price alerts. A Wishpot registry makes registering for your wedding fun. And we think that is the best part.
Thank you WedShare * Daily, and be sure to check out the Wishpot Wedding Blog for wedding inspiration.
@gift_girl
After stumbling across the photo shoot from Jennifer Skog for the wonderfully creative event Una Bella Sera 2009, a World of Glamour Bridal Show in San Francisco, I was immediately inspired by the beautiful Marie Antoinette wedding theme room. Check out some of Jennifer’s photos below; they are simply amazing!
Here is my inspirational board for a very decadent and yummy Marie Antoinette wedding theme. Include lots of feathers in your decorations, extravagant pastries in a dessert station, and luxurious fabrics in shades of pinks, gold and turquoise in your table settings. Add a fun photo booth with face masks, feathered hats, hand fans, pearl necklaces, and a couple of white period wigs for him and her; and you’ll have some amazing photos to showcase.
No matter how much time you give yourself for your wedding planning–or any large event planning, for that matter–it often seems like it’s never quite enough. Small details build up to a last minute crescendo, unexpected events occur, and–let’s face it–procrastination is always there to undermine your schedule. At least, it is for me. So it’s essential to find resources to make the best, most efficient use of your time…and if it’s effortless and procrastination-friendly, so much the better.
Today’s timesaving tip: leverage on passive research! Sound like cheating? Nope, just good old fashioned multi-tasking, the kind that doesn’t refer to dozens of windows opened up on a computer screen. Research your wedding planning while at the gym or on your morning jog, while sitting in commute traffic, or whenever you can pop on the headphones. The best part? All you have to do is listen.
Wedding planning podcasts are like on-demand talk radio segments, covering all things wedding. Divided into short episodes and organized by topic, they’re one-click research tools that you can listen to–and learn from–any time you like. It’s pretty effortless to synch your iPod or MP3 player to the podcasts in iTunes for on-the-go research, or just listen right on your computer.
The Wedding Planning Audiocast is organized into planning categories: Photographers, Cakes, Favors, Beauty, and so forth. You can select from their home page highlights or use the topical menu on the left to drive into individual categories, where you’ll find the actual podcasts:
Podcast selections in the Beauty section of The Wedding Planning Audiocast
Podcasts can be played directly on your browser, but as I mentioned the real timesaving advantage comes when you load these goodies on your portable media player such as an iPod, and take your passive research to go.
Wedding Podcast Network
Wedding Podcast Network is organized by channels or shows, such as: “Travel Talk”, which highlights destination weddings and honeymoons, “Nearlywedcast”, featuring soon-to-be-weds and their own advice, or “Grooms with a View”, topics from his perspective. “Meet the Masters” is a show with episodes of various wedding professionals sharing their expertise, similar to the episodes featured on The Wedding Planning Audiocast. Podcasts are arranged here more by date (in the archive menu) than topic and listed in individual entries similar to blog posts. There’s even the feature to read and post comments.
Part of a podcast entry on Wedding Podcast Network's "Meet the Masters"
Some of Wedding Podcast Network’s podcasts include video as well. As with episodes from The Wedding Planning Audiocast, all Wedding Podcast Network’s episodes can be found in iTunes and loaded onto your MP3 player.
All podcast episodes can be found and downloaded from iTunes...free, of course
More and more designers are adding the short cocktail-length wedding gown to their collections. These mini wedding dresses were mainly recommended for beach or destination weddings because of their more casual, summery look. But today’s designs have become ever fancier and classier, and brides today are choosing them as an alternative to the classic long gown. I’m really becoming a fan of this cutie since it comes with benefits: affordability–it’s usually cheaper than a long wedding gown due to the use of less fabric–and the flexibility to move around and dance to any style of music. Your look can be sweet but sexy at the same time, and you can really show your personality with such a non-traditional wedding dress!
You may have seen this one already on Facebook, as it’s certainly making its rounds. It’s also being picked up by various wedding blogs and even highlighted in the news. What is it? It’s a couple thinking completely outside the box and personalizing their wedding in a fun and totally unexpected way.
How will you match your big day to the one-and-only personalities of you and your sweetheart? It just takes a little creativity, and–shall I say–boldness, to step outside of expected norms and make your special wedding day your very own!
Just like Rachel Ashwell, I too have a thing for everything shabby chic. When it comes to my personal living style, I find inspiration in old pieces of furniture, jewelry, or clothes that are begging for a second chance at life. So my inspiration for today was a shabby but very chic wedding with pretty pinks and lots of pretty roses and peonies. There’s something about this look that I find absolutely lovely and romantic. Enjoy the inspiration!
On Monday, we saw how to showcase your photos in professional cinematic presentations for free using animoto.com, and to embed the resulting videos on your wedding website pages. Today I continue the theme of totally free photo management and reveal another online resource to give you real control over your photos without lifting so much as a dime from your wedding budget.
Cropping a photo in WedShare's Photo Lab
If you’re posting photos on your own personal wedding website, you might be using a wedding website service like WedShare.com. With WedShare, you can get a free wedding website (again, saving your wedding pocketbook) with some great photo editing tools built right in. Let’s take it a step further, shall we?
Earlier this year, I heard some great things about using Adobe’s Photoshop.com while traveling. It sounded like an awesome way to get power-packed photo editing for free and really soup up your online, on-the-go photo-journaling. Photoshop.com is a web-based photo-editing studio available to all, and available for nothing. The fact that it doesn’t cost a cent is the obvious plus: Adobe Photoshop desktop is pricey, and while Photoshop.com is not the powerhouse that Photoshop desktop is, it still provides a lot of the basic tools that a photographer would use to touch up photos and ready them for online sharing. So rather than spend the big bucks, it’s a good bet that the editing and effects you need for your average day-to-day photos are available for free with Photoshop.com.
With Photoshop.com, you can edit, decorate, and share your photos
The "pop a color" effect enables you select a single color in a photo to "pop out"
Render and stylize your photos with a variety of effects, like this sketch filter
Another great advantage–and why it’s so good for traveling–is that it’s a completely online interface, so you can access it from wherever you have an Internet connection instead of requiring a thick, heavy software client to be installed on your computer.
The photo edit menu, simple and straightforward
You can easily add and position text, too
Ease of use makes Photoshop.com attractive for the casual user and busy engaged couple. While Adobe’s desktop applications can have a steep learning curve if you’ve never used them, the online Photoshop.com editor is quite straightforward.
Photoshop.com is also sharing- and social-networking-friendly. Drag and drop photos you’ve uploaded and touched up to Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, and Picasa, as well as provide online links to your photos or albums to friends. You can store up to 2GB of photos on your free Photoshop.com account, and your photos are never resized, so it’s always the originals that you’re working with.
Each photo stored in your account can be linked to and embedded in website pages
When posting edited images to your wedding website, you can embed the photos on your website pages to display them there immediately, using provided links. Or, to allow your wedding website service to store the photos and control the sizing and placement, just save your edited pics from Photoshop.com onto your computer and upload them to your wedding website. For example, with WedShare you can upload entire folders of photos at a time, and a full WedShare membership gets you unlimited photo storage if you need it.
After considering the benefits of Photoshop.com to a budget traveler and amateur photographer like myself–no cost, easily accessible, simple to use and sharing-friendly–I realized that those same benefits make it a great resource for the engaged couple as well. Free is always good, as the budget is forever a factor, and the ease of use really greases the skids for getting your pics touched up, edited, and online at your shared album or website. If you’re creating printed maps, programs, stationery items, or slideshows for your guests, it’s always nice to have a powerful photo editor handy, and this one is available to you right now.
Photo credits: Screenshots and images by Adobe Photoshop.com
This trend has to be one of my favorites! If I could only go back in time five years to my own wedding day, I would have loved to walk down the aisle in a pair of fancy, colorful, peep toe pumps instead of my plain white satin heels (seen below)…
{Photo Credit: Live Out Loud Photography}
Don’t get me wrong, I love my wedding shoes; I danced the night away in them and still managed to keep them on right to the end. And white is–and always will be–timeless and classy. It’s just that it’s never been more fun to walk down the aisle than it is today. These babies make a big statement and very pretty wedding photos. I just love them!
These are some of my favorite finds for adding some color as you start down the path of happily-ever-after!
{Photo Credits: TOP ROW: Max Studio Scent Lilac Satin by PiperLime, Jacer Blue Suede Shoes by Nine West, Faith Yellow Chigwell Court Shoes by Debenhams.com, Green Rose Satin Shoes by Debenhams.com. SECOND ROW: Nine West Two Tone T-Bar Shoes by Oli, Nine West Pink Gatier Peep Toe Pump by Kaboodle.com, Nina Electra Red Evening Sandal by Macy’s, Precious Premium Teal High Shoes by TopShop.com. THIRD ROW: Christian Louboutin Blue Satin Very Noeud Slingbacks by BlueFly.com, Johnsons Yellow Fayruz Strappy Sandals by Endless.com, Nine West Green Jojus by Kaboodle.com, Faith Fuchsia Frill Front T-Bar Sandals by Oli. FOURTH ROW: ASOS Pink Premium Side Corsage Satin Shoes by Asos.com, Lavender Shallow-Lace Up Shoes by TopShop.com, Nine West Turquoise Jojus Open Toe by Kaboodle.com, Red Satin Corsage Peep Toe Shoes by KarenMillen.com. FIFTH ROW: Carvela Greet Green Classic Shoes by KurtGeiger.com, Seychelles Reservations For Two Teal Shoes by Zappos.com, Prada Slate Suede Petal Peep Toe Pumps by BlueFly.com, Electra Fuchsia Luster Satin by NinaShoes.com}
Everyone’s familiar with the slideshow: those cool online photo presentations that swap your pics methodically one after another. Some are better than others, with various transitions and navigational controls. They’re a great way to present your photos and can be embedded in the pages of personal websites, including wedding websites, as a way to present a lot of imagery in a small space. For years, they’ve been a mainstay of online image sharing. Most social networking sites provide them. But things evolve, and the slideshow as we know it may be going the way of the dinosaur.
The guys at animoto.com are film and TV producers–and self proclaimed nerds (my kind of peeps)–that have come to a simple but profound conclusion: the fact is, people don’t use their cameras the same way they did back in the day. You know, back when the concept of the slideshow first developed: when photos were captured on actual chemical film and slideshows were created by those noisy contraptions that used a carousel of transparent cards. The ones that projected images one after another onto a pull-down screen in your grandfather’s living room. Yeah, I’m talking back in the day. I know…it’s a stretch. Stay with me.
Remember this dinosaur? Are we still using the online equivalent?
Back then, the idea of taking a picture was to capture a moment in time. Naturally. The slideshow presents such moments well. But with the advent of digital cameras, the guys at Animoto realized that most people today approach picture-taking entirely differently: we take a lot more pictures, for one thing. And what we’re doing, they assert, is capturing entire experiences with these streams of imagery, thinking more like a video producer than Ansel Adams.
It makes sense. Many of us grew up in the age of MTV. Professional video presentations, harmoniously pairing the energy of a visual symphony with a perfectly supporting soundtrack, are given to us in custom audio-visual synergy. We expect such artistry now, but it’s something that has evolved, and recently in my opinion. I’m not only talking about music videos, either. Just look at movie trailers done in the 70’s or 80’s. Sheesh, in the early 90’s, even. Compare them with today’s and you’ll see what I mean.
So how does Animoto bring cutting-edge video presentation effects to the humble slideshow? By changing your photo showcase from a flip-flip-flip steady (yawn) series of images into a professional cinematic presentation that uses their own patent-pending artificial intelligence to match the imagery mixup with accompanying music. Their technology does real post-production work just like a video producer would, adding a variety of video effects and taking into account the rhythms, vocals, structure, and even genre of the music to time and style each photo transition. Simply put, it ain’t your grandfather’s slideshow.
An embedded animoto.com presentation
I’m impressed by the results and how easy it is to use. Upload your photos, pick your music, and Animoto does the rest. It’s free, and you can embed the resulting presentations into your website pages to show off your photos like never before. Sure to please the geek and video artist in all of us! There are even iPhone and Facebook apps available. Definitely worth checking out.
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