The world wide wedding web

*Warning*

This post is 100% wedding-planning-induced rant.

Dear wedding vendors,

I’m a little frustrated with planning right now, so please bear with me.  I just have a little request that I’d like to put out there.

Please, for my sake and yours, get a decent website!!!

Actually, for some of you we may need to start with get a website, period.  You don’t even exist on the internet!  But I’m prettymuch ignoring all of you anyway, because you make life too difficult.  Good luck having someone else find and hire you for their wedding.

So back to those of you with crappy sites.  Maybe this is just me, trying to plan a wedding from the other side of the globe through a 15 hour difference and a job that does not allow me to even go to the bathroom, none-the-less make a call during working hours, but I like/have to do a lot of my research, planning, decision making, and purchasing online.  I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.  Sure, looking through actual invitation examples in person might be nice.  But that’s not going to happen.  And there are a lot of other people who are home bodies, out of towners, or just lazy.  Or just busy.  Who do not want to come in to talk to a sales representative.

About that website.  Just because you have flash doesn’t mean your website is helpful.  Modern websites with sleek designs are nice, but I have been to many that still fail to meet my basic needs.  Show me what you have.  Not just one very pretty angle.  Tell me what it costs, or at least an idea.  If you bait me in and don’t tell me until later that it costs a million dollars, guess what?  I’m not going to give in and take out a loan.  I’m going to not buy it and I’m going to be pissed and harbor negative feelings toward your brand forever.  Yes, I’m that stubborn.  Provide clear descriptions.  If there are options, make those clear.  If there are not, make that clear.  If you can choose from colors and fonts and paper and frostings and fillings and ribbons and such—tell me and let me see my choices!

This website is so wonderful that I want to hug it!  It’s an invitation site that lets you customize designs and purchase the PDF or have it printed.  Handy.  Cute designs.  You can actually change the text and colors and see what your invitation would look like with different designs/colors/fonts.  And the pricing is clearly outlined.  I am this close from throwing my other invitation plans to the wind and going this route, I just love them that much for their great website!

Okay, that’s all.  A website with organized, useful information.  Is this really an outlandish request in 2010?

I’m going to go make some tea.

Images from ::here & here::

Back to the future

I am officially back on our little island.  The trip home was so nice.  Sadly, though, it had to come to an end.  So here we are, back on the other side of the world for another year of adventure and wedding planning from afar but--one year from today--we will be back in Minnesota, getting married!

I know, I know...I've neglected the blog.  But now I have a lot to share.  Decisions were made.  Centerpieces, the dress, the officiant.  More inspiration was garnered.  And my best friend's wedding.  (Not-so-much like the movie with the groom stealing and such.)

I'm leaving again in four days for a soccer tournament in Taiwan, but I will do my best to squeeze in updates before then.

For now, here's what I'm currently downloading:

It's a free download...so I can make cute pictures like the one above, from here.  :)

Fun with colors

This is such a fun little tool to try.  You can choose up to 10 colors and the application will pull photos from Flickr to populate your real-life color palette.  Enjoy!