If there is one thing I really care about in weddings (okay, ha, there are a lot of things) it’s trying to switch the focus from how to make weddings pretty, to how to make them fun. The wedding industry is built on cute things you “need” to buy, somehow forgetting the fact that pretty isn’t an emotion. And if your guests show up not knowing each other with nothing to do but stare at spray painted mason jars… well… results will vary. Which is why, after friends of ours asked us to use it at their wedding, I decided Wedding Party was the best. For whatever reason, David and I don’t tend to go to a ton of weddings (we half-joke that our friends are not the marrying type) but the weddings we do go to tend to be… awesome. So when friends asked us to download a wedding app I’d never heard of to use for their “Friend Wedding” (a wine tasting tour hosted on a Google Bus, in case you were wondering), I figured it was going to be good. And oh, was it. Plus, in the past year or so they’ve made it way, way better… making me hope we’ll get to use it at the next wedding we get invited to.
Here is the deal. Wedding Party combines basic organizational tools (from helping you communicate with guests before the wedding to helping you collect photos after the wedding), and adds a ton of fun party features like guest mad libs, group messaging with your wedding party, and a brand new photobooth feature that brings all the fun of a traditional photobooth straight to your phone, without the need for complicated technology or a huge booth setup. In fact, I’m planning to use Wedding Party as more of a Party-Party app for our next big get together, because the photobooth feature is… the funniest. (P.S. Did I mention it’s free?)
Wedding Party, which has a mobile app available for iPhone and Android, plus a website for desktops, started out as an easy way to collect and organize all of the guest photos from your wedding (because if you thought getting them to RSVP was hard…). But in the past few years, the app has morphed into an awesome hybrid of organizational tool and party game. Here are just a few of their party tricks:
1. The Phone-o-booth: DIY photobooth setups are stressful, y’all. They’re stressful for professional photographers, which means they’re for sure stressful for the rest of us. But if there is one thing all your friends know how to do, it’s take pictures on their phone. So, boom, Wedding Party has just launched a mobile photobooth (phone-o-booth? Eh?), which lets your guest create digital photo strips and squares, or even make their own selfie gifs, without any need for complicated software or equipment. (If you think I’m not downloading this for my next big party at home, you’re wrong.) And if you sign up for Wedding Party today, they’ve even got a free download for printable photobooth props. So get at that.
2. Redefining the guest book: Weddings are infinitely more fun when you know the other guests. Wedding Party lets you do that long before the festivities begin, but without a bunch of effort on your part. Hooray! They have an interactive digital guestbook that your guests can fill out with fun trivia (basically turning your Wedding Party website into a virtual yearbook).
3. I Spy A Game to Play During the Reception: Getting guests to interact with each other isn’t always easy, especially before the cocktails kick in. So Wedding Party created a fun iSpy game that your guests can play during the wedding. Just download and print your customized iSpy wedding scavenger hunt game and then let your guests have fun finding and taking photos of every item on the list. You can even project a slideshow during the reception to show photos being uploaded in real-time, like Grandma busting a move on the dance floor. Or heck, this is the perfect alternative for when there is no dance floor!
3. Thoroughly Modern Messaging: Nothing makes weddings less fun for guests than when they don’t know where to go and when to be there (and somehow, the address to the rehearsal dinner is always left in the hotel room). But with Wedding Party’s real-time group messaging, you can keep all the wedding planning communication in one easy-to-find spot, not to mention, let your inbox go back to doing what it’s supposed to do (aka collecting Target deals and promotions). Have any last minute changes that need to be communicated to all your guests, like, say, the welcome picnic is actually on the other side of the park from where you’d originally planned? With one click, you can use the broadcasting chat group “All Guests” and Wedding Party will send a notification to all your guests so that they know what’s going on.
5. Don’t forget the photos: Wedding Party’s photo collecting service is still one of the best reasons to download the app. There’s no limit to how many photos guests can upload to your Wedding Party page (your uncle will be thrilled), plus Wedding Party makes it easy for you to choose when and how you want to share those photos. You can auto-publish all your pictures to Facebook (but only if you want to!), or download all of the photos to your computer for future safekeeping or for when you want to put together your holiday cards. No more hashtags. No more Flickr groups. Just one easy (free) app.
And that’s just the fun stuff. Wedding Party offers a ton of other logistical tools, from a wedding website, to custom printables so that the procrastinators who haven’t signed up for your Wedding Party event yet can do it at the wedding and not miss out, plus a killer blog that features lots of tips from recently married couples. The Wedding Party blog might actually be my second favorite wedding planning resource after our own.
Wedding Party makes it super easy for both you and your guests to sign up for the app. You can download it on your phone, or if you’re stuck at your desk, just go here and create an event in just a few clicks while you’re pretending to do work. There’s even an option to sign in using Facebook; Wedding Party will auto-import your profile photo and everything. And since Wedding Party is our kind of people, the roles you can assign yourselves are: Bride, Groom, or Partner. So if you want an awesome (free, did I mention free?) tool to help make your wedding more organized and more fun, then go sign up for Weddng Party today.
Anyone who signs up for Wedding Party will get access to their new printable photobooth props. Click here to create your free wedding party event today!
