Wedding Mapper Blog

Happy 2008! We are excited for the start of a new year and have been hearing all over the place that engagements over the holidays are at an all time high. In fact, Jared is actually part of those stats as he decided to pop the question to his girlfriend, now fiance (still not quite rolling off his tongue!) on a a romantic snowy night in Boston. We look forward to seeing his wedding map!

He has actually already started creating it and we have found that a lot of our users are deciding to create wedding maps earlier in the planning process. We think this is a great use of the wedding map because it allows you to plot all of your reception and ceremony venues in consideration, upload photos of each from your site visits and help decide which locations to ultimately choose. After you make your venue decisions, you can add in restaurants, hotel accommodations and other markers that make your wedding map unique to you. We encourage you to start creating your wedding map soon after your engagement!

We are also please to make the following announcements:

1) We have finalized a partnership with Brides.com to integrate wedding maps into Brides.com Wedding Websites. Now, when you create a wedding website with Brides.com, you will receive a free premium version of our wedding maps. The program will be live at the end of the month, so please check it out at www.brides.com.

2) We have hired a third member of the team. Alison Gursky is a newlywed in the SF Bay Area. She is going to be our eyes and ears on the street and will be interacting with other newlyweds, brides and vendors to get feedback on our product and provide recommendations for site enhancements/better user experience. We are excited to leverage her passion and enthusiasm for the industry to help grow our brand!

As we head into the New Year, we continue to make enhancements to the site to improve user experience and pretty soon we will have some new functionality in place that will aim to facilitate communication between brides, vendors and guests at the local level. Look for this functionality coming soon!

Warm wishes for a blissful year with family, friends and fiance’s!

Julie

What do you think of our new look?! We’ve spent months on a new design that better exposes all of the great real wedding content that you’ve created over the past year!

As a former bride and someone who has spent years in the industry, I know that brides want to get ideas and inspiration from other like-minded brides. The single most important thing I used to plan my wedding was a portfolio from a friend of a friend who was married at the same venue that I chose. I took her notes and ideas on vendors and I used them to plan our perfect day. Today, brides who have been married at the same venue are creating networks to share ideas and learn from each other. Our wedding is one of the biggest days in our life- a time where all of our family and friends come together- and we do want it to go off without a hitch!

So, Wedding Mapper is striving to have the richest and most comprehensive collection of real weddings that you can use to get ideas to plan your own wedding. When it’s your turn to make your wedding plans, create a map to share with your guests. Your guests will absolutely thank you for it! And then, you too can publish your map and help future brides with insider secrets. Happy planning!

Julie