Four Traditional Wedding Elements Re-invented for the Digital Age

Admittedly, RSVPify is a bit biased when it comes to bringing weddings and other traditional celebrations and events into the 21^st century – it’s kind of important to us. But with every new wedding we attend, we can’t help but notice the constant new additions that technology and the Internet have brought to these time-honored traditions.   We’ve tried to do our part with online wedding RSVPs and custom online RSVP services, but we know we’re a small fish in a big wedding pond. So we decided to put our thinking caps on and consider four areas of the wedding experience that we think could use some bold new ideas:

The Music – It’s perhaps the most expected part of any family gathering – the goofy and overly energetic DJ trying to “keep the party going” – but how many times can you do the Macarena before it’s just too much? With the advent of Spotify, Beats, and other digital music services, it seems like DJing your own wedding or adding some crowd-sourced tunes to your DJ’s playlist is something that could become the new normal. Sure, you could just create playlists of your favorites – but the emcee does serve a good purpose in keeping the reception organized and moving along, even if they seem a bit too happy (or, alternatively, too somber) about it. We’d like to see an app that allowed guests to interact with the wedding playlist, “guest emcee” for a few minutes, or record messages to be interspersed with the music. Or, we’d like to see a playlist drawn automatically from your online RSVPs. Now, those may also be dangerous ideas, but hey, we’re spitballing here.

The Photographer/Videographer – Sure, you pay them because you know they won’t get distracted by the merrymaking and occasional mayhem around them. But from WedPics to Eversnap and everywhere in between, crowd-sourcing the photo and video options of tracking and reliving your wedding should be another area that will quickly become the new norm. Ok, your potentially semi-intoxicated wedding party is no replacement for a professional, but your wedding guests can capture moments that your professional photographer or videographer (who can only be one place at once) are likely to miss.

The Absentee Experience – With the growing popularity of higher-quality and easy-to-use video streaming and photo-sharing apps like Ustream and Streambox, it’s easy to include those friends and families who couldn’t make it in person in your special day. Live streaming the wedding for relatives with health complications who might not be able to make a trip is a great idea that’s already frequently popping up at weddings of all shapes and sizes — and enlisting a friend’s help to broadcast your special day is a must-do if you have friends or relatives who wish they could be there with your but couldn’t make it for whatever reason.

One-Stop Shopping for Your Wedding Planning – While The Knot and others offer the best they can provide to answer this question, we’re still dreaming of the day when the florist, DJ, event space, travel and lodging, catering, and everything else in between can be handled under one app or platform. Imagine having a single dashboard that integrates all of your wedding-related communications, balances your budget, and helps you communicate with friends and families instead of navigating snail mail, multiple email accounts and social media platforms. We know it’s big to dream of something that would make wedding planning this easy – and hey, maybe that part of it was never meant to change?