With a whole world of social media at our fingertips, sharing wedding details with everyone you know has never been easier. But it’s not always a good thing. While there are some good things that come with being on Facebook while planning your wedding, there are some drawbacks, so tread carefully. Here are the pros and cons of sharing parts of your wedding with your Facebook community
Sharing the proposal
Pro
Yes, sharing the proposal moment is a lovely thing to be able to do on Facebook, particularly for those friends and family that you wouldn’t necessarily get around to calling but it doesn’t mean you don’t want to know. One good photo of your ring and another couple of the proposal ‘set up’ or even just one of you and your fiancé will suffice
Con
Don’t share the proposal until close friends and family are contacted by traditional means. We still see proper etiquette to be a necessity here and announcing it on Facebook does not count as telling someone. Also, don’t put up ten photos of your ring up on Facebook. By all means, share that one ring photo, but after that, it’s just bragging.
Sharing engagement photos
Pro
A couple of engagement photos are nice, especially since they’re one of the few or only times you’ll have professional photos of you and your fiancé. Just not too many, because the more photos you put up, the less people want to look at them.
Con
If you’ve already put up a proposal status you might want to cool it with the status updates. How many “engaged” statuses can you put up without people getting a little bored of seeing them? How many would you put up with if you were in their shoes? Couples also like to keep some photos back for just them. And if you’re putting up engagement photos that also incorporate a “Save the Date”, beware. You don’t want all your Facebook friends assuming they’re getting an invite.
Sharing planning details
Pro
Facebook is great for putting up the little milestones of the planning process, like the moment you finally bought your dream dress. It’s also good if you’re both very indecisive and want some outside opinions about colour schemes or flowers
Con
As with most wedding Facebook statuses, most of these are fine in moderation. You don’t want your whole page to be nothing but wedding stuff, after all, while it’s a big part of your life at the moment, it’s still not your whole life, and it’s certainly not all your friends want to hear about. They may be happy for you but let’s face it: they don’t really care if you’re off to your third venue viewing, especially having already heard about the last two, plus a cake tasting.
Sharing the countdown
Pro
Of course it’s ok to say ‘one week to go’, or even ‘six months to go’. If your countdown status is once in a blue moon – and we do mean once in a blue moon – then it’s ok to mark significant milestones before the big day once or twice.
Con
Counting down daily or even weekly from the moment you get engaged is tiring for both you and your Facebook friends. They don’t need to hear how long is left until your big day at every juncture. Things get boring a lot quicker on social media than they do in real life, so hold off on the countdowns.
Sharing your wedding photos
Pro
This comes down to personal preference and what your photographer will allow. While photographers technically hold the copyright to your wedding photos and you don’t, you usually get a licence to use, display and reprint the photos from a CD for non-commercial use. Just make sure putting them on Facebook is okay. It’s nice to be able to share your wedding photos online.
Con
Some couples don’t want to put their professional photos online, because they want to keep their wedding album quite personal. And from a guest point of view, you run into the same thing as the engagement photos: less is more. Odds are your Facebook friends don’t want to see seven combinations of you and the bridal party over and over again. Share wisely.
Five absolute Facebook don’ts
Complaining
Try not to complain about wedding planning at all. This falls into the category off unnecessary sharing, and if you think about your wedding statuses as a limited number, do you really want to use up half or even a quarter of those moaning about one of the happiest times of your life? Also, if you complain about anyone in your bridal party, a relative or a guest, even if they’re not on Facebook, it could still get back to them. In fact, it probably will.
Asking your bridal party
Asking your bridesmaids is a very significant and special moment. Under no circumstances should this be done over Facebook in our opinion. Even if the bridesmaid-to-be in question is away, a phone call or Skype should be made instead of a quick instant message in Facebook chat.
Inviting your guests
If you’ve managed to pull this off successfully, fair play. However, it’s usually a bad idea to create a “wedding event” on Facebook and send out the invites that way. For a start, it’s very informal, and if you think about how often you RSVP to things on Facebook without properly thinking things through, you’ll see what we mean. Things could get messy when you’re accepting Facebook RSVPs. And what about the guests not on Facebook?
Needless, soppy statuses
No one wants too much PDA on their Facebook wall, and as a newly engaged couple, you’re given a certain amount of extra leeway for that sort of thing. But you don’t want to overload your Facebook statuses with unnecessarily soppy statuses about your partner that you wouldn’t ordinarily put up if you weren’t engaged. Too many of these might have you hidden from a lot of timelines.
Oversharing in general
As a general rule of thumb, and what we’ve said repeatedly, is less is more. Everything wedding-related is ten times more important to you than 95% of your Facebook friends. Don’t put up too many pictures, or talk about too many planning details or just share too many wedding statuses in general. Your whole wedding plan does not need to go on Facebook.
Image credits: Ring shot: Kristeen Marie Photography | Engagement photo: Etsy | Stationery: E. M. Papers | Countdown sign: Not On The High Street | Just married: Etsy | Bride and groom: Pinterest