This week's blog post is a collaboration with SocialGrower Noelle Schiller. Noelle is the sales coordinator and event planner for one of Boston's leading wedding venues on the South Shore.

While hard-pressed to name an industry that hasn't been impacted by social networking, on a daily basis Noelle sees first-hand how the effective (or not) use of social networks makes or breaks local wedding vendors. "A significant percentage of our new business has always come from word of mouth. Our bottom line is now extremely dependent upon people talking about us -- favorably -- on social networks."

No matter what product or service they provide, wedding vendors now have more opportunities than ever to directly engage and interact with their target customers at the very earliest stages of wedding planning -- often long before the actual engagement. "It is critical for all of the vendors in my industry to effectively leverage social networks. We could invest tens of thousands of dollars a month in advertising, but just a single toxic post on either either a mainstream, or a wedding-specific social network will scare away clients who were previously considering using our property to host their wedding. Even if negative posts are old, written by disgruntled former employees, or unethical competitors, readers can still be put off."

Just as social networking has changed marketing for wedding vendors, it has completely transformed the planning process for brides and grooms. Just a few years ago, couples were limited to the for-fee real-world experts available to them in their local community. There are now dozens of different wedding websites, from dedicated wedding social networks to online communities, discussion forums, and highly interactive blogs.

Here's how social networks help brides and grooms to plan their rehearsal, ceremony, reception, and honeymoon, along with some of our favorite wedding websites. As we're just barely scratching the surface, please let us know your favorite wedding social networks in our comments section below.

Manage the Project

Unless you've been a professional event manager, creative director, logistics expert, or operations chief, you have likely never had the responsibility of managing a $22,000 event for 125 people -- the average wedding cost and size according to the National Association of Wedding Ministers. Arguably, the most valuable feature of many wedding social networks and websites are their surprisingly sophisticated project management applications which allow you to create and execute projects plans down to the smallest task. You can quickly and easily create timelines and budgets, assign tasks, and track completion -- all online and for free.

On "social network, community, registry, and wedding shop" The Knot, you can "create and track your wedding budget, create guest lists, create wedding albums, find products, discover ideas, share wedding and reception locations, and recommend local service providers". According to Noelle, "one of The Knot's best features is their hosted offline social networking events which allow brides and grooms to form local meetup groups to discuss all things "wedding", and form new real-life friendships with local couples whom they wouldn't have otherwise met."

Share New Ideas

As brides are usually on the receiving end of "help" from every friend, family member, future in-law, and colleague at work, wedding social networks and websites enable them to network with their peers who have no agenda other than to share their ideas and real-world experiences. Learning from others disasters and successes is invaluable in planning for what is often a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The staff of Wedding Channel share their professional expertise, and their personal experiences as wedding guests, wedding party members, and brides and grooms. The Wedding Channel, "strives to embrace and celebrate the very best of marriage traditions, while at the same time addressing the unique tastes, interests and issues of concern to today's couples."

Make Better Decisions

Economics 101 taught us that the more information we have on the quality, service, and prices of different product options, the better decisions we will make. With exhaustive and recent peer reviews on all local wedding vendors, wedding social networks enable you to source exactly what you want from the vendor best able to meet your specific needs.

This is at the heart of WeddingWire's business model: "Based on our personal experience and the consistent complaints from other engaged couples and vendors alike, the WeddingWire team became aware of a remarkable inefficiency in today's wedding market. With engaged couples continually struggling to find the vendor that best suits their needs and vendors constantly searching for new ways to expand their businesses, WeddingWire set out to solve this persistent disconnect and provide both parties with simple, yet productive, channels to interact."

Save More Money

While not all vendors may appreciate the ease with which wedding social networks and websites allow couples to compare prices -- after all, all else equal, why would you purchase an item from store A when the identical item can be purchased from store B at half the price? -- brides, grooms, and their families enjoy the cost savings.

Our Wedding Day helps couples to "save time and money at every step with your own personalized Wedding Website, Save The Date e-cards, Gift Registries, Address Book Assistant, and our constantly-updated Hints and Tips Article Archive".

Wedding social networks and websites are aggressively competing for your attention, which means you can pick and choose the best product information, project management applications, and online communities from each site to help you plan for your big day.


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