Using social media aggregators at weddings might seem like a controversial idea. After all, you want your guests enjoying the wedding, not playing on social media.
However, when used correctly, social media aggregators help your guests add more memories to an already incredible occasion. All you have to do is some simple set up, which your event planner can handle for you if you want.
Then, you get to sit back and enjoy your big day. Your guests get to be more involved than they ever thought possible. The benefits are too numerous not to implement one at your own wedding.
Boost Guest Engagement
For the most part, guests are there to talk, dance and eat. They get to share in your big day, but unless they're part of the wedding party, they might not feel like they're contributing much. If you want your guests to be more engaged, let them play photographer.
Yes, you might already have a professional photographer, but that doesn't mean your guests can't put those high-quality smartphone cameras to work. Ask your guests to take all the photos they want, but upload their favorites to social media and tag them with your chosen wedding hashtag.
You'll want to reference our wedding hashtag guide on how to create a great wedding hashtag, inform your guests about it and encourage them to use it throughout the event.
To further boost engagement, try to make a game out of it. Turn your wedding into a scavenger hunt where you hand out lists of different types of photos to each guest. Try to come up with several different lists to vary the pictures you get. Not only is it fun for guests, but you'll love the results. Consider a small reward for any guests that go above and beyond with their pictures.
The best part is using social media aggregators at weddings allows your guests to see their photos in near real-time as they're uploaded. It's fun for your entire guest list and wedding party. Plus, you get to see your wedding from all angles at once.
Share The Event With Non-Guests
It's inevitable that some of your guests won't be able to make it. Illness, work and other obligations may make it impossible for some friends and family to come. Of course, your venue may not be big enough for all your loved ones to attend.
This means people are being left out. However, they don't have to be. Using social media aggregators at weddings opens up your wedding to friends and family who can't attend. They get to see a consistent stream of pictures and even short videos that make them feel like a part of the event. In fact, as long as they use your wedding hashtag, they can even send in well-wishes and selfies of them toasting to your big day.
Now, you're able to share your wedding with as many people as you want. All you have to do is upload your social wedding wall to a website. Those who can't attend will see the same social wall that the guests at your wedding are seeing, just on a smaller screen.
Share the link to your website with everyone you want to share in your big day. Guests who are attending can check out the photos later in case they missed something at the wedding itself. This is the perfect way to make everyone feel involved, whether they're there or not.
Makes A Great Decoration
One commonly overlooked benefit of using social media aggregators at weddings is a social wall makes a great decoration. All you need is several flat-screen TVs or a large projector screen and you can turn a wall into a live feed of beautiful photos of your wedding.
Unlike regular wall hangings, this decoration is constantly updating to show you different views of your guests, band and of course, the beautiful couple. See how your guests are interacting. Get everyone laughing with funny faces as you challenge guests to take their silliest wedding selfies.
At any time, just look at your wall and see an entirely new set of photos. It makes a conversation starter, especially with guests who don't know each other.
Get Free Amazing Photos
Did you know that the average cost of a wedding photographer in the United States is over $2,700? Depending on who you hire and the length of time, your costs could increase to over $8,000. In fact, this is one of the top expenses when planning a wedding.
Now, what if you could get a ton of amazing photos for free? On average, a professional photographer takes 2,000 to 3,000 pictures. Not that you actually receive that many, but this is how many are normally taken in order to get those perfect shots. However, your guests take on average 28 pictures each.
Multiply 28 by the number of guests. With many weddings having 100 or more guests, you could get around 2,800 pictures for free. Obviously, this number will vary based on your total number of guests and whether they even have smartphones (some younger kids and seniors might not). However, without a social media aggregator, you could be missing out on all these freebies.
In fact, if you're using social media aggregators at weddings, your guests may take even more photos. Naturally, not all of these photos are going to be of the same quality as a professional photographer.
If your wedding budget is tight, you may opt to just go with all of these free photos. Gather your wedding party together and have a few choice guests take pictures. Assign one or two guests to take pictures of the ceremony.
Of course, having a mix of professional and amateur photos gives you the best combination. Let's face it, professionals can't be everywhere, but your guests can.
Get Unique Shots From Numerous People
Every photographer has their own style and own interests. While one guest might be more interested in photographing other guests, another might be more interested in taking pictures of people on the dance floor.
Thanks to all those unique perspectives and interests, you get numerous pictures from numerous people. This means even if two people take a picture of you cutting the cake, they'll look completely different. Wouldn't you like to see both of those shots?
As your guests mingle, they're in unique positions to take once-in-a-lifetime photos. Professional photographers aren't always in the middle of things as much as your guests. This means they're missing out on quite a few memorable moments. They might miss the ring bearer shoving cake in the flower girl's face or her comedic revenge later on.
You only get your wedding day once. Don't miss out on incredible moments. Your guests are happy to take pictures, both for their own memories and for yours. All you need is a social media aggregator to bring them all together.
Easily Find Photos Later
The worst part about guests taking photos at your wedding is you can't find them later. Do you really have the time to go through every guest's social media profiles? You might find yourself having to dig through two or three different networks per person if they don't tag you in the photo.
If you a 100 guests, you could have to scroll through 200 to 300 different social media profiles. Plus, guests may not upload all the photos or they may wait several weeks before they get around to uploading. No one has the time to keep checking back.
By using social media aggregators at weddings, guests not only upload photos rather quickly, but they also tag them with your wedding hashtag. All you have to do is enter your hashtag in the aggregator, choose your social media networks and enjoy the results. It's quick and simple. No searching for hours and days.
Plus, long after the wedding is over, your aggregated photos are still right there for you to view. You can even use a few different hashtags if you want to better organize your pictures.
Guests are eager to see their photos on your wedding's social wall. This means they will likely upload their best shots during your wedding reception or shortly after.
Create A Custom Social Photo Album
After the wedding is over and you've gotten back from your honeymoon, it's always fun to go through your wedding pictures. While you might not have everything back from your photographer, you do have all the photos that your social media aggregator gathered.
Sit down together and go through all the pictures. Create a custom social media photo album by printing out your favorites. You could also just create custom photo collages to post online. If you have a wedding website, leave it up and upload your collages of themed photos.
As you scroll through everything, you'll get a nice overview of your entire wedding reception. If you allow photos during the ceremony (make sure shutter sounds and flashes are off), you'll even get to relive that.
You'll probably have hundreds or even thousands of great photos to choose from. Take your time and organize them into albums however you want.
They're Easy To Implement
When it comes to wedding planning, you don't want anything that makes the planning more complicated. After all, choosing a dress, flowers, food, music and so on is difficult enough. That's probably why you haven't considered using social media aggregators at weddings.
The good news is aggregators are surprisingly easy to implement. For instance, Curator is just a few lines of code. Set up the hashtag(s) you want to track and the social networks you want to use.
Of course, you'll want a website for the photos to post on and a wall to display the photos for all to see. Your wedding planner, videographer or DJ can help with the physical setup at your venue. Or, ask one of your more tech-savvy friends to help out.
Overall, it takes less than an hour to set up everything. That's easier than almost every other aspect of wedding planning.
It's A Low-Cost Addition
Weddings aren't exactly known for being cheap. The average cost of a wedding as of 2018 is nearly $34,000. That's the cost of a brand new SUV. The last thing you want to do is add more expenses to the mix. However, consider what you're paying your photographer.
Now, take a look at the cost of a social media aggregator. For just a few hundred dollars, you get to easily collect all the photos that your friends and family are taking. That's a minor expense. With Curator, pricing for events starts at $200 and that includes feed updates every five minutes. You can request custom plans for updates every minute.
For smaller occasions, there are even $50 plans that update every 15 minutes. These might fit better on smaller budgets.
Gather Photos From Multiple Social Networks
Odds are, your guests don't just use a single network. Everyone probably has their own preference. Using social media aggregators at weddings means you don't have to choose just one network for your pictures.
Gather photos from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, Vine and more. Of course, you're free to limit your guests to certain networks if you like. However, instead of having to find your guests' profiles on all these networks, your social media aggregator does the work for you. Plus, everyone gets to see the results in a single feed.
Share Your Wedding On Anniversaries
Most of the time, you only think about the immediate benefits of using social media aggregators at weddings. While there's nothing wrong with that and it does help you decide whether they're a good choice for your wedding, think about the long term benefits.
Imagine sitting down with your spouse on your first anniversary. Bring up your social wedding feed and relive your wedding with all the pictures. Talk, laugh and reminisce. Make it an annual tradition to spend part of your anniversary looking through the photos. You can even share a few favorites each year with family and friends and thank them for helping make your wedding so special.
When it comes time to plan your wedding, don't forget the social media aggregator. Check out Curator's features and see just how easy it is to implement our aggregator at your wedding.
Image: toanmda