Wedding hashtags are a great trend, and I love it! Here are some tips to make your life easier, and who doesn’t need that.
A custom hashtag organizes your photos, your photographer’s photos, and your friends’ snaps!
If you know me, you know I’m OCD and I love to organize things. (It’s a sickness.) When you create a custom hashtag, anyone can tap it to see all the photos associated with it in one stream. While shooting a wedding, we Instagram the Polaroid prints we take, as well as some behind-the-scenes pics and videos. After the wedding, the bride and groom can check their wedding hashtag and see all that goodness, and their guests can see pro photos right away. When the film comes back from the lab, I always post a selection of my clients’ wedding photos to Instagram and use their custom hashtag so friends and family can easily see them. People don’t need to keep asking, “Where are your wedding photos??” It’s easier for you!
It’s a lot of fun to see what people snapped during your reception.
You know those embarrassing dancing photos of your friends you love to laugh at? Wouldn’t it be great to have all that blackmail in one place? Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.
I do suggest you have rules set in place regarding photos.
If you don’t have rules in place, people will go crazy snapping photos to use your wedding hashtag. As you can see in my blog Wedding Photo Sharing Apps for Guests ~ Yay or Nay? I’m not a fan of people snapping photos all day long, relentlessly, getting in my way. It’s distracting to other guests as well. My suggestion is to have an “Unplugged” ceremony. Then that sacred part of the day can be enjoyed by all without a sea of smart phones in the audience. There’s plenty of other awesome events to take place during the wedding, like the cake cutting, special dances, etc.
Make sure your hashtag is unique.
Before settling on a hashtag, search it on Instagram to make sure it’s not already in use. Even if you’re using your last names, it’s not necessarily available. Instagram has over 400 million users, and it gains 100 million per year, so it’s pretty saturated. A unique wedding hashtag I love is #louisandsouzacollide from Claire and Dustin’s wedding. It’s cute, unique, and easy to remember.
Put up a sign at the reception with your wedding hashtag clearly visible.
If you want people to use your hashtag, they need to know what it is. Yeah, I know, that’s a given, but we’ve done weddings before that didn’t have the hashtag posted and I had to keep asking what it was. A sign at the reception on the guest book table is a great place to put it.
If you have any other suggestions, comment below!