The Royal Wedding made news with its “Do not Tweet” wedding etiquette policy. It was a very well thought of measure by the royal house to prevent the guests from tweeting and sharing live updates from the wedding.
The guests who are avid social media networkers can really create some unintentional mischief, in their need to display their gusto over their friends’ wedding. Posting the wedding pictures of the bride and groom without permission is not at all the thing to do. May be the couple wishes to share the pictures of its best wedding moments only and one must respect that.
Here is a list of few additional wedding etiquettes that should be observed in the current digital age:
No minute by minute account
Blackberry, iPhone and other smartphones have made it much easier to share information on the social networks but by all means, resist the urge to give a play-by-play account of the wedding. “The baraat arrives”, “Bride comes forward with a garland”, “Groom out of reach of the Bride’s Garland”, “Kanyadaan done, bride’s mother can’t stop her tears” and other such details can really take the charm off the big day for the bridal couple.
If the bride and the groom want to check in on foursquare from their wedding, they can very well do it on their own.
Moreover, before congratulating the bride on her engagement, make sure she has already made a formal announcement. If not, then your over enthusiasm in her happiness can prove to be pretty irksome for her.
(Anecdotal reference: My first cousin deleted my best wishes for her engagement on her Facebook wall for the simple reason that only the immediate family knew about it)
Don’t be a Page-3 Journalist
May be you love sharing pictures of your everyday activities on Flickr and Facebook but the bride and the groom may have serious reservations against sharing the risqué pictures from the bachelorette/bachelor party or other events publicly. Many brides have expressed concern over guests attaching videos and photos of their wedding and tagging them in those. Imagine spending close to 100 grand on appointing a contemporary videographer, only to have the most unflattering videos shared with the world, courtesy some over-enthusiastic guest.
(Anecdotal reference: I ended up sharing the incomplete wedding website of a friend on Facebook, much to the dismay of both the bride and the groom)
No RSVP via Tweet/Facebook
Traditionally, the RSVP is via a card attached to the invitation card for the RSVP purpose, through the phone call or email. Unless the invitation card explicitly says “RSVP on Twitter” or “RSVP on Facebook”, don’t do that.
The idea is simple: you cannot expect the bride to invite all 500 friends on Facebook. When you RSVP online, others may feel bad because they have not been invited!
Do not even create an event for your friends’ or siblings’ wedding on their behalf. They can very well do so, if they want and invite whoever they want to.
(Anecdote: I confess to feeling bad when I am not on the wedding invite list of a school chum who I haven’t spoken to in the last 7 years, who is nonetheless there on my Facebook friend list)
So you see, I have virtually committed all sorts of etiquette gaffes on social media platforms with regard to the upcoming nuptial of a friend or family member. It is by virtue of firsthand experience that I advise you to follow the above mentioned digital wedding etiquettes very astutely.