Volume 39, Number 04

Technology

Tech Help For Your Global Wedding
Create a website for your guests to share your special day, online
by Andrew Robinson

So you've found that special someone and have decided to tie the knot—but you both live in Japan, and not all of your friends or relatives do. While you want to be able to share your special day with everyone, logistics and plane fares aren't likely to make that possible. What can you do?

Today's world is increasingly global, and staying connected is important. Instead of long distance phone calls, I video chat with my mother online these days. When my boss wants to show his son's sports day, his parents in the US get video and photos streamed to their computers as soon as they are uploaded here in Tokyo. Weddings, that particularly important and multi-family event, can also benefit.

Modern Macs and Windows PCs can process video streams and view online pictures, and collaborative websites like Flickr, MySpace and Facebook all can be leveraged for sharing a wedding online, but The Wedding Window www.weddingwindow.com is tailor-made for planning, recording and sharing your wedding online.

With a long list of online tools that you can use to make your pre- and post-wedding planning easy, and with a design sense that is both customizable and very attractive, you can create a website that can be a place for guests and family to share this special event. Some of the features include an online ‘wizard' to help you along with building a ‘wedding website,' with places for announcements to be centralized, areas focused on the bride and groom, and the extended wedding party. I counted over 35 tools available to use: ‘Our Story' for guests to read, Flash-enabled photo and video streams, a gift registry, various calendars and event scheduling functions, areas for accommodation and travel tips [for those guests that can attend], email-driven RSVP and announcements, and much more.

Because there are so many ways you would want your wedding to be unique, I was at first afraid that the site would make things look too ‘cookie cutter' but the large list of examples showed that there is a wide range of ‘looks' that Wedding Window can accommodate. Check it out and see for yourself. There are options for you to have CDs made, making it easy to save the memories, secure online payments, and no need for any special 'tech skills' to get your wedding online and ready to go in a great, Web 2.0, 21st century fashion!