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Ask Slashdot: Techie Wedding Invitation Ideas?
Qa32 writes "I am getting married in a few months and being a hardcore techie I wanted to come up with some novel way of making my wedding invite that will truly have even my mom say, 'wow, that was cool.' Has anyone out there done anything similar, or have you thought of something similar you'd like to share? I already have a few: have QR codes, have some basic embedded circuit/plate with wire leads that maybe plays a song when you connect a battery, have a way to turn up a display LCD, etc."
...at least you didn't propose on Slashdot.
paintball
If you send your wire-laden invitation to anyone's workplace and they have mailscanning, the building will likely be evacuated, your invitation destroyed and someone will be pissed off at you for not inviting them to your wedding.
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It's a wedding. Those are supposed to be big, formal events.
Sure, you can have a bit of fun, but you got to keep in mind that not everyone is necessarily a geek. The QR code by itself, coupled with an otherwise elegant card, will more than suffice and drive across the point that you're geeky.
On a fucking wedding invitation? Are you planning on having any of your parents' friends attending?
Boy does your Wife have some work to do...
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Assuming your friends and/or relatives are also into technology, why not keep the card relatively simple, but throw in an easter egg or two? Just as an example, embed a RFID chip and have it setup to react to NFC's embedded in phones. Include a subtle hint on the card, and perhaps make a puzzle out of it.
The corner of a round room
My friends invited me with one of these. http://youtu.be/bsdCeiae7Mo
In the comments, he briefly describes the design.
Mod me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Even better!
which is totally what she said
I am married and I can tell you that it is almost impossible to continue with beeing geek after a marriage. When you get a wife that needs attention and maybe some kids after some time and you are becoming responsible for maintaining them, it is very little time left.
A big love for geek things will be in contradiction to marriage in one way or another. My tips is to drop the geek things already now or reconsider if you should marry at all.
A slashdotter getting married? Please.
[Oops! Meant to login before posting that comment. Here it is again with a 1 higher score ;-)]
Take a look at these guys:
http://www.bareconductive.com/
They make conductive gloopy black paint that you can use both to paint circuit boards and to cold solder components into them. I met a couple of the people behind the company at a trade show a couple of weeks back and bought a pot (no other connection to company). It's very clever stuff and they have a load of tutorials and examples on the site.
How about you get a professional printer to print the invites with a nice font on high quality paper.
Then your mom might think you have reformed instead of wondering what the hell is wrong with you.
You could also have some things at the reception that are triggered off by sensing the NFC chip - again, entertain the younger generation without worrying the older one.
Or, you know - you could just have an absolutely straight wedding with no techno toys at all. A friend of ours got married recently and had a cartoonist to make sketches during the wedding and the reception. The resulting sketchbook was far more popular (and memorable) than the photos or the video.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Nerd friend of mine had a QR Code on the back of the invitation. The people who knew what a QR Code was, all got rick rolled. I thought it was hillarious.
trans corpus mortuum
As someone that tried to be "a bit different" with my own wedding invitations it's perhaps worth sharing some details of the experience.
All of our invitations included a business-card with a URL on one side and a unique username and password on the other. With this the guests could access our wedding website, where the they could indicate their attendance, get directions, etc. Since we knew which guests had each username we could customise what was displayed to the particular guest and the "level" of their invitation - pre-populating the RSVP page with their names, allowing them to enter their "+1"s only if their invite happened to include them, and only showing the directions to the event they had been invited.
Unfortunately, this approach confused a surprising number of people who either didn't bother to visit the URL on the card, didn't realise that they needed to detach and turn over the business card in order to find their username/password, or just assumed that since there were no RSVP or location details included with the physical invite, that it was simply a "save-the-date" and that further details would follow later. Even some of the more "tech-savvy" people had problems, and in the end we had to do far more chasing-up than we perhaps would have done had we relied on the more traditional invitation.
With this in mind, it may be best to avoid trying to be too novel with your invites, or perhaps produce a more traditional invitation for those guests that might have more difficulty with something out of the ordinary.
Paper Record Player: http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/133206/couple-sends-record-player-wedding-invitations
Hivemind harvest in progress..
My wife found these lego candies that are actually stackable like real legos. She loves legos like any geek and realized that they'd be great as little favors to put on the tables. Not only did they have a little geekiness in an otherwise normal wedding, but they kept the guests' kids entertained.
If you do it right, you only get one of them. If you consider it important enough to invite friends and family, send a nicely printed card with the following information: (1) Who you're marrying, when and where; (2) When and where the reception is to be held; (3) A means for people to respond; (4) Something to the effect that you hope they will be able to attend. Do this unless you are planning to be married in Klingon garb at a convention.
Why? Because the invitation is actually not about you. It's about the person you're inviting. It's intended to communicate to them that you'd be tickled to death to see them on the biggest day of your life, and then to make it as easy as possible for them to get there. You're asking them for the honor of their presence even if you don't use that wording.
Hire a promising art or design student to design it for you, send it via SnailMail to peoples' home addresses, and then give thanks that in these casual times it does not have to be engraved from a copper plate and addressed by hand.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
If you're getting married and want your friends and family to come I don't think its asking too much to use a phone, get a pen out or even get proper invitations created that you send by snailmail. Doing it online is all very well but just like email xmas cards , it really sends out a kind of "meh , whatever" message - that you couldn't really be bothered to make much effort and 1 minute in front of a PC is all your F & F are worth.
My cousin and her wife both work in tourism, so they fashioned their invites as plane tickets.
This confused a large number of people. My mom for example threw the invitation straight in the bin, thinking it was some mass mailing.
Be careful.
They don't have to be typical green PCB color either, you can get the solder mask in a few colors. (green,white,red,black,blue)
Also you can get the exposed metal gold or silver plated (not expensive at all).
I quite like gold text on a blank mask, but for a wedding maybe silver on white.
As a rough idea, i recently got 300x PCBs made with gold plating and blank solder mask.
They were 55mm x 58mm and cost ~US$300 from pcbcart.
All you need to do is find someone who's experienced with PCB drawing software.
If you want to go all the way and have a microcontroller and led display, Jameco have 0.7inch 7x5 pixel dot matrix led displays for 75c each in qty of 100.
Simply send out mini cds with a video invite and request a video response. Compile all the responses (positive) with the invite and make it all part of the wedding DVD. Could also be done with small thumb drives they are pretty cheap now, but if the mini cd is commercially printed it can be made more appealing.
Have tattooing equipment brought to the wedding and have each guest carve a reminder of the committing required to make a marriage last on the backs of the bride and groom ;D.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"You are invited to my wedding if you can find the coordinates of the church" :)
Its also a selection process
"It would take a lot more than just a minute to design and build if you actually put some effort into the aesthetics, though obviously it would waste a whole lot less time than making physical cards."
Well thats debatable. I could get some physical cards made from the shop in my high street in about an hour.
"It makes responding really simple and instantaneous for the invitees"
Perhaps you don't have elderly relatives but some of mine don't even own a computer, much less know how to navigate around a web site. People such as yourself really need to stop assuming that everyone is online.
If you're willing to spend money on adding actual electronics a countdown clock would be cool. Preferably counting down to the exact time you're going to kiss the bride. That way you're making sure the ceremony is strictly time limited as well.
So what's wrong with options?
I agree that sending out cards is certainly appropriate and proper, as is including rsvp cards. HOWEVER: Also including a URL, email address, or social media method of response is certainly appropriate. That allows your guests the maximum number of response paths, and lets them choose which one they are most comfortable with using. It shows thoughtfulness for your guests, and puts the onus for the extra labor on yourself, thus showing that your guests are worth the effort.
Also, to the original question writer, if you are the guy, remember that if you want to do something special and cool for the invitations:
A) Respect your fiance's wishes. If she doesn't like the idea, DROP IT.
B) If she does like the idea, OWN IT. Ensure that you take complete responsibility for compiling the guest list, gathering the snail mail addresses, packaging and sending the invitations, and collecting and collating the responses. Don't shut her out, of course, but take the lead in getting your cool idea done. Trust me, she has more than enough to do to get ready for the wedding, taking one of the most tedious and boring jobs off her plate will be greatly appreciated.
If you are the girl, well then I guess the same general rules apply, but be aware that you will be making lots more work for yourself, unless your man is majorly into handling some other aspect of the wedding, or you guys are taking a more egalitarian approach to the wedding than most western folks do.
Regardless, Congratulations and I wish you both all the best in your future life together. Also, always remember; True Love isn't something we are "in" as though it were a trap to fall into. True Love is a conscious choice we make every day to set our partner's needs ahead of our wants. As long as both partners do that every day, a solid marriage follows. Good luck you two!
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Even better - include a QR code which registers the RSVP when scanned by a smartphone.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Damn you internets. I'm already doing this and the parent's idea right now for my wedding invitations. It fits, I did propose to my fiancee on a circuit board.