You have a hashtag for your wedding right?
Over 50% of weddings now have their own hashtag. Most are specifically Instagram, but Twitter as well. But why?
Simple. Group photography! You probably used a decent chunk of your wedding budget on a videographer and photographer, right? Why did you do that? Because you want to remember the day, the moments, your family and friends having a good time, all of it!
Having your own Instagram hashtag and having your guests tag their images will increase the number of photos (memories) you’ll get by a lot. It could be double, or even triple what your photographer hands over a couple months after your wedding day. No, they’re not professional shots that will hang on your wall and be passed down, but they may be the pics that you get the biggest laugh out of, and there will definitely be shots that your photographer never would have gotten.
Do you remember in the ‘olden days’, when couples would have disposable cameras on every table at the reception? Exact same. The couples let guests collect the funny, weird and crazy pics that their photographer would never get. These moments are cherished just as much as the professional shots. They’re not better, they’re different, and why not collect them all!
1 How hard is this?
Don’t be scared, you don’t have to be a Mark Zuckerberg to collect memories by hashtag, see how easy it is…
- How should I pick a hashtag?
- Keep it specific and obvious, people have to be able to tag their images remember!
- Do a search on Instagram.com for your choice, make sure it’s not a heavily used hashtag.
- Don’t make it too short or too long. Too short will be heavily used, too long will just be confusing.
- Keep special characters and numbers to a minimum.
- Make it clever if your last names can be combined or rhymed. Uniqueness always wins.
2Â How do I get everyone to use my hashtag?
You need to put it in their face! In a good way of course. 🙂
I’m sure you have seen chalkboards, table cards and posters framed with wedding hashtags on, those are all good ideas. We love the idea of a beautifully designed 8″x10″ framed by the guest book. You know everyone is going to be standing there, waiting to sign, so they will see it perfectly. You don’t want to crowd tables with it, and you don’t want it left outside where guests may not see it. Print a poster to be framed where every single guest will be.
Okay, I just said make a beautiful poster, but how do you do it if you’re not a designer? Wow, you sure asked the right person… we offer you free Hashtag posters in 8″x10″ size that you can print out with your hashtag already on it!
Just use our wedding hashtag generator to find a hashtag to add to your poster, or use a hashtag you already plan to use. Yes, it’s 100% free.
3Â How do I see and share the pics?
Having guests tag pics is step one, but how do you see them all and share them with all your guests? Easy. No really, this is one of the easiest parts, definitely easier than choosing your hashtag. All you do is add them to your wedding website. Your wedding website at eWedding has advanced Instagram integration and allows you to create ‘Instagram Albums’. We then load your tagged images right into your album on your website automatically, you don’t have to do anything. We even let you reorder and delete any you don’t like. Of course people can comment and love them as well.
One simple way to load them into an album and one central location for everyone to come back and see them. Perfection? Yup.
Ready to make your hashtag and poster?
Use our hashtag generator to find and print your perfect hashtag right on a beautiful 8″x10″ poster.
4Â What if someone tags something inappropriate?
This can make people nervous, and for good reason. Heck, it would make me nervous if I was running a livestream of hashtagged images. Why? Because every image, whether it was tagged by someone you know or even from your event, will show up. No better way to disturb great aunt Alice more than having, errr, ‘unplanned images’ appear in a live stream slideshow.
This is again why sharing your images on your eWedding website is the best idea. The advanced integration allows you to moderate images by deleting any you don’t like or want. This will also come in handy if someone else decided to use #SmithWedding and you have the battle of #SmithWedding photos streaming through Instagram.
Creating a hashtag is easy, sharing your hashtag with guests is easy and collecting and sharing the images for all your family and finds couldn’t be easier with eWedding. We did the hard part already, just click here to use our wedding hashtag maker now and you can stroke this off your todo list.
5 How to share your wedding hashtag online
… Already have your hashtag made and poster downloaded? You will be ready to add it your wedding website then:
Posted by Amy Kelly
Amy is a Co-Founder of eWedding.com and the mother of 5 crazy little ones. Along with her husband Matt, they have developed the Net’s most advanced wedding website builder.
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