How To Tweet Your Wedding

#TechTuesdayTwitter

Quotes from this posting were taken for today’s Mashable article:

HOW TO: Tastefully Use Social Media at Your Wedding

Thanks to AmyMae & Mashable for quoting us!

Social Media is poking it’s head up in every aspect of our lives. Weddings are no exception.
From planning online to having your guests interact with you, there are many ways to make social media a part of your wedding planning and day.
Now, the bride & groom (obviously) should be enjoying their day, loving this time with family and friends and certainly not diverting attention from them to their digital device. You don’t have to be Dana Hanna, you can share your day socially without tweeting from the altar. How you go about it is key.

Here are a few ways to have fun with social media on your wedding day and create your very own #owt = overheard wedding twitter…

For Your Bridal Party
Tell your bridal party “It’s okay to tweet!” You can get some really funny moments captured by your friends & family while getting ready on the day of. Often there is a lot of waiting for hair, makeup and photo’s. Share the fun moments that happen during these times.

Have an Official Tweeter and Well Wishing Station
Have one or more “Tweets of Honor”. Have some technologically obsessed friends? This is a great job for them! These folks can quietly tweet from a corner as not to be obtrusive or  can come out of the shadows and provide you with a full on social media guest book station.
When live tweeting keep this advice in mind;

• Be polite - Don’t tweet when you should be participating & listening (specifically during the liturgy of the ceremony).
• Use good judgment - Don’t tweet things that could be embarrassing to a guest or the couple.
• Tweet the senses - The look of the venue, the feeling in the air, the smell of the flowers, the amazing ice sculpture, in short, the details.
• For the especially geeky - Set up a station. Have a laptop, use tweet deck, a projector and screen. Encourage guests to come by, tweet their well wishes and watch other’s tweets scroll over the screen. This can be used in conjunction with same day edits provided by your videographer and photographer.
• Time for toasts - Have you Tweet of Honor compile some well wishes that have been tweeted out and share them during the toats. This can be a very fun twist on the traditional toasting time.

Live Stream the Ceremony.
The use of ustream to share (publicly or privately) you day live online for friends and family that cannot make it to your ceremony. Especially useful for those having destination weddings. If Great grandmother cannot make it, she can still virtually attend and share in your joy.

Encourage your Guests to Participate
Create a #hashtag for sharing your event. This will make all tweets from your day easy to find later on and helps to create a feeling of celebration for your guests.
Print up some tented cards, on your menu or program with the hashtag for your event and encourage your guests to send you their well wishes, touching moments and snap shots.These are moments that otherwise would have been missed. 

Vendor Twitter
It’s likely that your vendors are active on SM. We’ve seen some amazing tweets from florists, bakers, event designers, coordinators and DJ’s. Let them know that it’s okay for them to take a moment out and tweet sweet moments from your wedding.

Not your Mother’s Guest Book
Compile all these tweets and digital well wishes together with your wedding video and professional photographs to create a truly unique guest book/scrapbook.

I hope these pointers are helpful. Feel free to comment with specific questions or points you may want elaborated upon.