I just got married ... thanks Google!!!

Thanks to the the fact that Blogger allows you to write a post and have it posted at some future date and time, this should magically appear on the interweb just as I walk down the aisle with my beautiful fiancee.

I wanted to write a little post about all the wonderful ways that Google had helped make the planning for this event possible. By helping us to share information with each other and with our guests, the whole things was a very smooth process.

First, there is Google Docs. We stored EVERYTHING to do with the wedding on here. Draft documents, to do lists and most importantly the list of invites, RSVPs and such like. That way my fiancee, myself, our parents and others who needed to know could always have the latest information to hand and could make changes as and when they needed.

This also allowed us to have one master list of guests. One version of the truth for everything from who was coming, how names were spelt, where people were staying, addresses and on and on. This saved an amazing amount of time!

Google Page Creator was the next great thing we used. We could share the news with friends and family and update them with information about the wedding as it became available.

Google Webmaster Tools helped us to keep the site private.


Google Analytics helped us to see that people were actually using the site.


On our website, we embedded personalised Google Maps for a couple of reasons. Partly to show guests where the wedding was and where the key things were in the area: hotels, bars, sights.


... and partly because we wanted guests who were travelling from the UK to the wedding to get a feel for New York and Boston so they could easily turn their trip into a holiday. We have a shared Google Map that either of us can add things to with a couple of clicks of the mouse and they instantly feed to the site and are available for guests. We gave a couple of friends access to the map, so they could add places, which automatically appeared on our site. Just remembered a great restaurant to eat at? No problem, it's there in a couple of clicks!

Here is our New York map.


View Larger Map

One other fun Google tool we used on the site was the forms you can now add to Google Docs. We had a page where we gathered guests' ideas for songs that mean something to them. The results were gathered automatically in to a neat Google Spreadsheet and we picked the best ones and added them to the playlist for the evening.


Gmail helped because of the large amount of free storage and how easily you can search it. Can't remember what Aunty Valerie wanted to eat for the rehearsal dinner? No problems! Did Dylan ever send me his address? No problems! A quick search will answer the question for us. (She wanted lobster and he didn't send his address!)

Google Calendar helped Bergin and I to coordinate our schedules. She can see my calendar and I can see hers. So when it came to picking a wedding date, there was no need to compare diaries, they were both right there in front of both of us!

Oh, and we'll of course be sharing photos from our excellent photographer and from our guests on Picassa.

So thanks Google. Your mission to make information accessible and to help to share information helped set us up for our special day!