It's already October 2020. You were supposed to get married sometime in August. It's time to turn this year around. Virtual weddings can be cool. Virtual weddings can be experiential. Virtual weddings can create memories. Here's how to create a wedding experience worth remembering in 2020.
<aside> 👰 Pandemics suck. Weddings rock. Creating a wedding fit for 2020 is forever.
</aside>
Yes, e-vites emails are easier but they lack anything resembling a cool factor. The name "e-vite" alone feels like Myspace. Make a GIF. Text it to all of your friends + family. Takes a little more work but it's way cooler.
Upload a photo or video 📼of you and your BAE to giphy.com. Add some digital swag to it. Download it.
Boom 💥 you made your first GIF.
<aside> 🔒 Pro tip: Make your GIF private if it's...uhhh, a little more scandalous than you want on the Internet.
</aside>
GIPHY of the proposal, Day 35 of shelter-in-place.
GIPHY of my BAE practicing her original Tiktok dance.
<aside> 🤩 Spare no emoji. Use 😃🍑🌈's everywhere. Wedding emails, texts, reminders, websites. Emojis are like petroglyphs of natives dancing with sheep on the side of mountains in New Mexico (Cool, right? I've been there. Check out the Airbnb here). But seriously, emojis are the universal language. Even the older generations understand their meaning.
</aside>
Want to create something a little more complex for your Save the Date GIF?
Open up Keynote on your Mac or Powerpoint on any other device. Create a few slides with the event details. Add animations between slides. Export to Animated GIF. Done.
<aside> 🌵 Add a silhouette to your imagery. Silhouettes are an awesome way to show yourselves without being so Insta about it. Find a picture where you are both making interesting angles with your bodies. Use Keynote's "instant alpha" feature or "lasso" in Photoshop to delete everything that's not your sweet bods. Turn the remaining image black. Export as a .png. Done ✅
</aside>
My wife and I had fun making these slides. The animated colors on the date are actually multiple slides with faster transitions.
Create a Google Form or use Typeform for your RSVPs. Text or email the RSVP link with your GIF. Done.
<aside> 📩 Please, for the love of god, Bcc everyone on the email. Creating a group text? 🛑That is also internet illegal. No one wants your aunt's constant texting for the rest of their lives. If texting your GIF save the dates, individually send them to each person. Already have an established friend group text? It's okay to send the invite to that channel.
</aside>
Here 👉is our RSVP form as an example. We chose Google Forms because we did not feel like paying for a Typeform account to enable more than 10 questions or multiple jumps. Tyepform has a few more features and is a little prettier but it just didn't feel like it was enough to bother. Your call.
<aside> 🗻 Feeling like an over-achiever? Integrate your RSVP Google Sheet with Zapier to automate other tasks like sending RSVP confirmation emails.
</aside>
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/83da184a-eeb2-4dbd-8c35-b23b429364af/bae-logo.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/83da184a-eeb2-4dbd-8c35-b23b429364af/bae-logo.png" width="40px" /> You need a logo for your relationship. People used to make family crests ffs. Here is our BAE logo that my wife made.
</aside>
See the "B", "A", and "E"?
](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/560242ff-b911-48e0-bca9-da8bf535259d/Untitled.png)
This family crest dating from around 1648 belonged to Louis XII, King of France. [Source](https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/genealogy/family-crests.htm#:~:text=This term originates from a,This design was his crest.&text=Think of a crest like a trademark or custom stamp.)
While we are on family logos, we choose to mirror ☯️each other's last name. I'm Lawson Baker-McDaniel and she's Kennedy McDaniel-Baker. Why? Everything else felt tired. We even debated making a new name like McBae because you only live once. Maybe when we procreate. 🤔
Gear, gear, GEAR! Finally, we are spending some change on some cool gear. Use the money you saved by going virtual to buy yourself your family a nice mirror-less digital camera. Not only will your wedding stream look like a movie, but the compliments will flow in every work Zoom video call. It'll come in handy on your honeymoon, too. More on the later. Here's what to buy.
