Wedding Wednesdays: From Ring to Ning!

Oh how I love Wednesdays, let me count the ways! They are about as endless as the resources becoming available to brides for their big day. The lastest on the list is custom social platforms from Ning (think Facebook but based on topic of interest instead of social circle).

As the current trend in DIY Weddings continues to grow (we still think its wise to consult a planner for your biggest day!), crafty brides are looking for easy ways to personalize every detail of their weddings. Wedding Web sites are a popular way to distribute information to guests, but lets be honest, they can be super cookie-cutter and often expensive to personalize. Creative and fiscally savvy brides-to-be are turning to Ning, to create free, custom social networks (both public and private) for their weddings.

We chatted with the brains behind the Ning movement and here is what they told us: “Not just a portal to keep guests informed about wedding details, a Ning Network is a place for wedding guests to interact with each other and the happy couple before the big day. In addition to polls and quizzes, Brides can integrate their Ning Network to Twitter, publishing status updates automatically, pull in their Flickr accounts, provide details on accommodations, and share their registry with guests – they can even create a virtual gift store!”

Ok, really that makes it sound like the possibilities are endless. Your wedding website could be so much more social and interactive than just a one-way street of information to your guests. By providing a more social experience, your dearest family and friends are able to interact with each other on a deeper level, arranging joint gifts, carpools or even bidding on the table where they’d prefer to sit (in my family that would end about 50 years of fueding!)

Below are examples of how some brides are using Ning to create custom wedding networks.

http://mattandadiswedding.ning.com/
http://davidandreawedding.ning.com/
http://chrisandmezzwedding.ning.com/ (private network example)

Dream Big.

M.