Advice books often warn people of different religions or cultural backgrounds to think carefully about all the potential issues before getting married. But another difference, one that can potentially doom a good relationship, often gets overlooked … those who love technology and those who do not.
Let’s face it, Hanukkah menorah vs. Christmas tree only comes up once a year but new igadget vs grocery money could come up every month. Whether to give your kids an ethnic name is a decision you’ll make once, whether or not that kid’s picture should be posted on Instagram is a decision you have to make every single day.
At Snapshots, we hear about these arguments all the time. We attract couples that are trying to work out the potentially sticky situation of wanting their friends’ photos and professional photos. We believe that like peanut butter and jelly, most things in life are better together. You don’t want your differing views on social media or technology to derail your wedding, so we’d like to offer some advice on three ways to create a happy marriage between your high tech and low tech wedding ideas.
1. Limit the Decision Makers
From buying your wedding dress online to livestreaming your vows, there are tons of great ideas for using technology at your wedding. A lot of your friends and family will be more than happy to tell you what you “MUST” do. But really, the only people who have a say in how much technology you do or don’t use are the people getting married (and possibly your parents if they’re contributing financially). Turning off some of the outside noise and reminding yourself that there are no “musts” will make it easier to combine your ideas.
2.Keep the Ceremony Separate
One of the easiest ways to solve wedding planning conflicts is to think of the wedding ceremony and reception as two distinct and separate events. Making the ceremony a place of tradition and restraint is the easiest way to go because there is one person understood to be in charge of the ceremony, the officiant. You can always have your officiant state rules such as, “no photographs during the ceremony,” but trying to get someone to enforce rules at a reception is a little more difficult. So, if one of you wants a wedding hashtag and the other doesn’t, consider using your program to ask people to refrain from using social media during the ceremony, but using a chalkboard or other method to announce the hashtag at the wedding reception.
If you can’t keep the reception and ceremony separate, you might want to use the rehearsal dinner as a place to try out either a more high tech or low tech approach.
3.Discuss the End Goals
One of you wants a traditional photographer and the other wants to hire drones to shoot aerial photos (yes, it’s been done). Before deciding one way or the other, make sure you get to the bottom of what’s driving each desire. Do you only want traditional photographs because you’re afraid relying too much on technology might cause you to not have any photos? Does your fiancé want drones because he wants a good story to tell? Whatever the reasons, discussing them may help you come up with a good compromise.
Opposites attract and nothing makes your differences clearer than planning a wedding. But, if you keep your goals in mind and approach the planning with a spirit of compromise even an avid technology user and a complete Luddite can make the wedding work.
This article was written by Marta Segal Block for HuffingtonPost.com.
