The world's number one search site is doing more than sporting a love-inspired doodle on its homepage this Valentine's Day. They just launched Google Weddings to help you plan your big day.
This new service makes it easy to create a website where you can share your engagement story and tell guests about your special event. While the basic templates won't likely win a design award any time soon, they do the trick. In true Google fashion its the simplicity that sells. Within a few minutes, anyone with simple word processing experience can get a site up and running.
Once you have your page online, Google has done a great job of explaining how Google Docs can help you nail down all your wedding details. They've provided templates for a music list, seating chart, and budget planner. Oh, and they've hinted about how other Google tools, such as customizable maps, will get all your guests to the right destination.
Finally, this new service includes help to tweak your photos and share them with your friends and family. Picknik lets you edit pics and Picasa helps you organize them. While both are existing web apps, if you start your planning in Google you might as well use this sites to keep all your wedding activities linked up. There is also a page of tips from well-known wedding planner Michelle Rago.
Some women (and maybe a few good men) probably want more bells and whistles (pardon the pun) from a wedding site. For example, WeddingBells.ca includes a photo slideshow with 16 ways to incorporate hearts into your wedding (think cake balls and red balloons), cupcake decision help, and tips to avoid turning into bridezilla.
If you find the entire planning process a little overwhelming (after two years of being engaged I clearly fall into this camp), Google Weddings strips away all the fluff and makes event organization seem like nothing more than putting together a big web-based project, no frills attached.
