Being a bride in the digital era comes with its perks and complications. On the upside you have access to amazing ideas, inspiration and tools to make planning easier. On the other hand, you can lose hours of your life searching for “Ampersand wedding accents.”

As someone who is 4 months deep in wedding planning, my advice is to use digital tools to make your life easier, not more difficult – which as you get further down the path can feel like a blurring line. Here are some Do’s and Don’ts based on what I’ve learned so far:

1. Don’t get confused and think your wedding is the September issue

Yes, you’ve lost 10 lbs for the wedding, got your teeth whitened and look kind of amazing, but it’s not okay to upload 50 plus engagement photos to Facebook. The trend in social media is to share fewer but higher quality things, so pick a handful of your favorite pics and send the full album to your parents and grandparents – people that have time to wait for high-res images to load and won’t snark at the fact that you did two outfit changes.

2. Do step away from your email when navigating family drama

Weddings have a way of bringing out family issues. If conflicts or differences of opinions arise, hash it out with a live conversation so you can hear everyone out and recognize that your feelings are not the only ones that matter. Emails can easily get overly transactional. Take it from me; I recently asked my fiancé if he could lead “next steps” with our photographer.

3. Do trust the wisdom of the crowd.

While wedding dress shopping, I was bombarded with dress opinions from people who loved me and people who wanted to sell me a dress – both bias parties. To solicit some objective feedback I actually took to Instagram with a mini #pickmydress campaign to let the crowd weigh in on how I really looked. Whoever said “Facebook is where you lie to your friends, while Instagram and Twitter is where you get the truth from strangers” – was spot on. And I did get brutally honest feedback which helped me make a good decision.

4. Don’t let Pinterest make you miserable

Antique baubles. Custom gelato carts. Vows engraved on the bottom of Jimmy Choos. If you can dream it, you can pin it. While some of these stunning details can take your breath away, they can also take the wind out of your sails, leaving you unfulfilled with the decisions you’ve made. It’s sort of like the paradox of choice – more options can lead to greater unhappiness. My tip for brides-to-be? Marriage is about committing to the choices you’ve made. Start with committing to your centerpieces.

5. Do share your vision gracefully

Every girl hopes she looks as hot as Stephanie Seymour in the November Rain video in her first wedding upload, but thanks to overly enthusiastic wedding guests this is not always the case. To gain some image control, I have seen brides use their programs to ask guests to refrain from photographs during the wedding. While this is understandable, it can also be slightly obnoxious. While wrestling with this issue, I asked my friend Anna Leath of Just About Married to weigh in. She, as always, had a genius solution, suggesting that wedding hosts hand out cell phone sleeping bags for guests during the ceremony as a more inventive way of saying, “I want you to be fully in the moment at my wedding and I don’t want to look like a still shot of Beyonce from the Super Bowl when people see me on Facebook.”

What are your best tech tips for brides? Tell us in the comments below!

Written by Adrianna Giuliani 

Adrianna Giuliani leads the planning department at DeVries Global, a PR and Social media firm. She is the founder of Techromance, a blog that examined the intersection of dating and technology and continues to be fascinated by how social media has changed from a reflection of how we communicate IRL, to a force that shapes how we relate to each other. She has guest blogged for Social Media Week, PR Week, the College Crush and Dot Complicated. You can follow her on Twitter at @adriannagiuls.

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