On the occasion of my 33rd birthday, I announced on social media (the irony is not lost on me) that Rachel and I were contemplating how we can keep in touch in deeper and more meaningful ways with our family, friends, and coworkers, and really the effects of social media in general.
I proposed leaving Facebook, Instagram, etc and creating a more private setting (e.g. monthly email and/or friends/family-only blog), hoping you would come along for the ride.
This revamped version of our site attempts to do at least part of that: it’s a private setting that we are encouraging our family and friends to sign up for to get updates on our life.
To make it as easy as possible, you’ll also be able to receive daily or weekly updates (or both, I suppose).
This is an engineering experiment — not be confused with rigorous scientific experimentation method — so we’ll see how it goes and tweak things as needed.
Have we got an awesome update for you! Remember how Back In The Day™ people would have disposable cameras on the tables at their wedding? We would all grab them and make silly faces and take awesome and hilarious pictures.
I was never actually at a wedding that did this, digital cameras had become ubiquitous enough by the time my friends started to get married that we just took our own pictures.
The problem with people using their own cameras (digital or otherwise) has been: how do the bride and groom get the photos from everyone after the wedding?
Myriad of providers have seemingly popped up overnight vying to get a slice of the cake. I’ve spent the last several months field testing, reviewing, observing, and analyzing. After searching high and low we settled on WedPics.
WedPics has an awesome app for iPhone and Android that will easily let you take photos and upload them to our online album automatically1. Sign in using the Wedding ID: “Ferguson” and then create a user account2.
Taking and sharing pictures is as easy as 1-2A-2B-3:
1) Go to the camera to take the picture
2A) Edit the picture, you can even apply filters
2B) Caption, select an album (if you want), and then post
3) Leave a note on and “Love” other peoples photos!
Frantically Anticipated Questions:
Q: Do I have to wait until June 8th to download and use this app? – Jose, New York
A: No way, Jose! Download the app now and take pictures on your trip out to Bozeman! We even created a special album just for that: “Guest Road Trip!” There’s also a “Memory Lane” album if you have any pictures you want to share now, maybe from that camping trip we went on last year.
Q: What if I normally post using Instagram? – Carmen, Seattle
A: WedPics will also let you upload pictures that you take in other programs, like Instagram (#arfwed) or AfterLight. In the WedPics Camera pane, tap the iPhone album icon (bottom left), then choose one or more photos to upload!
Q: Do I get a copy of the pictures? – Rachel, Billings
A: Yup, for all the picture you take a local copy is also saved on your device. You will also be able to browse, in real time, photos our other wedding attendees have uploaded. You can “like” them and comment on them too!
Q: What if I don’t have a phone that can run WedPics? – Kolby, Seattle
A: Don’t sweat it, Kolby. If you don’t have an iPhone or Android3, log on to WedPics.com when you get home to upload and share your photos with us!
Q: What if I want to post on Twitter?
A: Just use #arfwed
Q: What happens if I take pictures using WedPics on the road trip but I don’t have a cell phone signal?
A: WedPic will save the pictures and wait for you to get back into reception range. Once it has data access, it will automatically upload any photos taken while you were offline!
Download Now:
This also solves “The One With The Red Sweater” issue ↩
You can also sign in with your Facebook account, if that’s your thing ↩
no services we evaluated currently support Windows Phone, which is a bummer ↩