News

The New Wave: Wired Weddings
Everything clicks when making arrangements and sharing memories

June 15, 2003

By Shawna Van Ness
Shawna Van Ness produces entertainment content for newsday.com.

From personal "wed" sites and e-RSVPs to digital coffee table books, video DVDs and custom- burned CDs, there's a virtual tidal wave of technology crashing down on weddings these days. As the generation that grew up surfing the Internet prepares to march down the aisle, enter the wired wedding.

Getting Personal
Between his London-based family, her globe-trotting bridal party and their throng of out-of-town guests, Sharmila and Rajat needed a streamlined way to share details about their Oct. 10 wedding in Manhattan. Since most everyone they know is Internet-savvy, the couple, both 27, created a "wed" site, rajatandsharmilla.virtuallymarried.com. Besides the basics - dates, times and directions - the site includes the story of how the couple met, photos from their engagement party in London and short wedding party bios. With a few mouse clicks, guests can send an e-RSVP, see photos of the reception site and get all the details on upcoming pre-ceremony events. For the out-of-towners there are links to accommodations and New York City attractions.

"Everybody loves it," Sharmila says. "They're like ... 'You guys are so organized.'"

Though sites such as TheKnot.com let couples create bare-bones Web sites for free, Stefanie Schiada longed for something unique and was willing to pay for a service that wouldn't ransack her site with advertising. Moments after receiving the proofs from her October 2002 wedding, she set to work uploading dozens of images to her site (with her photographer's blessing), lukeandstefanie.homestead.com.

"We put our Web site on our thank- you cards so people could see the pictures," says Schiada, 25, who lives in Brooklyn. By popular demand, a clip from their video soon followed.

"If you know how to send e-mail and click from one site to another, you can do this," says Rob Hirscheimer, co-founder of Canada-based Virtually Married Inc. For $99, couples can build their site from 16 predesigned templates, upload as many as 150 photos and update it as often as they'd like for 18 months. At Homestead.com, personal packages are $99.99 per year plus a $20 setup fee.

Music, Please
So long, tulle-wrapped Jordan almonds. Custom-burned music CDs are finding a place on reception tables as a dirt-cheap complement to miniature wine bottles or trinket name-card holders. Spruced up with fancy labels and slipped into pretty paperboard sleeves or plastic jewel cases with front and back covers, CD favors are stately enough to stand on their own.

"Gary and I are very into music ... we have so many songs that actually mean something to us," says Jennifer McHugh, 27, who's marrying Gary Evans July 19 in Garden City. After the couple whittled their favorites down to 18 songs, Evans, 30, burned 65 copies of their mix and designed an accompanying lyrics booklet. "We wanted something people could have for a long time," says McHugh. "They can pop it into the CD player and think of us."

At the Schiada wedding, Stefanie and Luke's CD favors were a surprise hit. "We figured, Who's going to want a bunch of 'our' songs on CD?" says Stefanie. She purchased the supplies at computer shows and spent less than $100 for 70 CDs, figuring one per couple would do. But everyone wanted a copy, and at the end of the evening, the Schiadas couldn't even scrounge a spare for themselves.

For those concerned about their liability for distributing copyrighted music, companies such as cdcelebrations .com have a selection of love songs on ready-made CDs that can be personalized with the couple's names and wedding date.

A Photo Finish
When it comes to photography, most professionals agree a long-standing debate has finally been settled. "There's no longer a question of whether digital is as good as film," says Lenny Marks, the owner of Len Marks Photography in Cold Spring Harbor. "It's better than film."

High-end equipment instantly yields crisp images that are much easier to retouch and enhance than processed film. With the studio's hands-on time diminished, it's less expensive to add special effects such as sepia tones or bursts of color in black-and-white photos, Marks says.

Since "proofs are passe," his clients receive a CD of images that can be reviewed on a computer a few weeks after their wedding. Once the choices are made, an encrypted high-resolution CD or DVD slide show set to music accompanies the couple's wedding album.

"We mix the advantages of digital and film," says Elizabeth Beskin, a partner at Sara Merians Photography in Manhattan. The studio still shoots most weddings with film, but afterward the images are scanned at a high resolution to create digital albums and sleek coffee table books, the industry's newest buzz.

"You can do wonderful magazine layouts for albums now," Beskin says. "Gorgeous, cutting-edge designs using overlaying text or lighter images as backgrounds." The end result is a highly customized book that's big on style but half as thick and heavy as traditional albums with cardboard-mounted photos.

Len Marks and Sara Merians, like a growing number of photography studios, drop the final set of photos into a password-protected Web site so everyone can see the results and, they hope, make purchases.

But don't get any ideas. Photographers are protective of their work and most take steps to ensure that images can't be downloaded online or printed from proof CDs at photo quality.

Designer DVDs
Wedding videography also has enjoyed a much-needed face-lift in this digital age, says Marie Schneider, a co-owner of Wild Rose Video in Islip. "It's much less intrusive," she says, since equipment cords and handheld microphones are kept to a minimum and camera lights are rarely needed. As for editing, "We can go beyond people's dreams."

With all of the post-production work done on the computer, adding effects such as slow motion or 8mm movie-camera-style scenes is simple and seamless. Although VHS copies of the edited footage still are available, most couples favor DVDs, which don't deteriorate in quality over time, says WeddingReels.com owner Rob Zielinnski. His Queens- based business was among the first to produce DVDs with custom splash screens and chapters with titles such as "Getting Ready" or "Our First Dance" that allow you to jump to specific scenes in an instant.

"We're very Web-oriented," Zielinnski says. Raw footage clips are posted at no extra cost in a password-protected area of his Web site for couples and guests to see as soon as the next day. An edited two- or three-minute recap of the entire day soon follows. Downloading and duplication are encouraged.

"Once that DVD is in your hands, it's yours," Schneider says.

Couples who care to pass copies along to those who couldn't attend the wedding will soon have that option at an affordable cost.

Says Zielinnski, "Those memories are priceless. The more copies you have floating around, the better the chance you'll preserve them."

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