Looking back on my wedding, here are the things that worked for me

Now that my wedding and honeymoon is over, a new year has started, I can take an inventory on all the things that went into my wedding that worked. I had an awesome wedding, and since a lot of things did work out, it is good to appreciate.

I am a web producer by trade so I am particularly pleased about the new developments on the internet. With so much to juggle in one's daily life, I can hardly imagine the wedding planning the old fashioned way. How all this is done before the invention of telephones boggles my mind, and I can hardly imagine holding down a full-time job and getting everything done without modern technology. Certainly, I engaged in the mix of the old tech and new tech in some ways, but there are major areas where the web has helped me in my wedding planning.

Shopping.
The wedding industry is a confusing experience even for the more worldly of us. The wedding industry does things its own way, and often with a steep marginal mark-up for everything from dresses, cakes, and flowers. Here's a few web resources that helped me:

• Yelp
  While I did do things the regular way by looking at those large directories and thick wedding magazines, I found Yelp, a site which combines ratings and social networking, incredibly helpful for tips on local vendors. I found my makeup artist through a recommendation on Yelp.


• TheKnot.com
I very much liked the practical functionalities on this site, though I admit there are some trade-offs that makes it a little easier to use than WeddingChannel.com. For the engaged couple, you can create a website with details, create guest list, organize guest list (export to Excel if needed), and create newsletters. TheKnot.com has a lot of content that you can mark and keep in your "notebook" for future reference.


• Zappos.com
  While I love shoe-shopping, I really just plain do not have the time to spend shopping that much. The wedding dress shopping process is pretty arduous -- I have never had to buy a dress like this before, with so much wait time and multiple terations! Luckily, I can shop for shoes right from the comfort of my own home. Zappos.com has the nicest shoe shopping engine I have see thus far, and the site allows you to create a "favorites" list to keep all the styles you like for future reference. You can be alerted of availability via email if a certain shoe doesn't come in your size. I got free shipping and Zappos.com allows you to return shoes within 365 days. I was able to easily pick out shoes for my Chinese cheongsam as well as wedding dress from Zappos.com. Even with the back-and-forth I had with trying out shoes for fun, I got my shoes in plenty of time for dress fittings.


• SimpleSeating.com
  I was able to create seating charts very easily with SimpleSeating.com while it was in beta. It's a nice free solution that really made communicating with out-of-town in-laws very simple and easy.This allowed me to create seating charts and email them to family members for feedback.