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Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

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Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#171
post #7

Happy Anniversary! For those looking to use this, the following may help a little: find /path/to/folder -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/Ram/YourName/g' find /path/to/folder -type f -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/Antara/OtherHalfsName/g' Edit: FianceeName -> OtherHalfsName (some people are easily offended) :P

I always found the concept of a whole website, domain name, etc dedicated to a wedding to feel a little... heavy. I understand it's a big occasion. It just feels like a lot for a single event and domain that will become irrelevant after the event is over.

In India the online RSVP is pretty useful because

1) The average middle class or upper middle class wedding is several hundred people

2) Vegetarian / Non vegetarian food preferences are helpful to estimate costs and convey to the caterer

3) Choice of alcohol preference is useful because you are only allowed to serve alcohol if you buy a permit and every bottle is tagged and photographed by the excise department in some cases. Most weddings do not serve alcohol, but those that do are usually helped by including a alcohol preference question.

4) Destination weddings are increasingly common, or the wedding will take place in only one venue i.e. the bride or groom's hometown. In this case it's common to rent hotel rooms for the entire opposite side of the guest list. For this, having a digial RSVP is useful to organise rooms.

5) For Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, a wedding typically involves multiple days of ceremonies and meals with multiple venues for each one. Sometimes people will attend all. Sometimes they will attend only a few.

For events of that size, organising information is a big deal, and having enough of a heads up helps manage costs and be better prepared.

The website will be irrelevant in a year, but just the RSVP feature can potentially be extremely helpful.

Once you have the RSVP stuff in place, the map and other stuff just becomes basic pages that you may as well put in place.

Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#172
post #6

I still find the idea of a digital wedding invitation pretty strange, because here in Hungary the bride and the fiancé invite everybody in person together. Maybe distant relatives are invited by mail or something. Is digital invitation a common thing nowadays? Or was it more common even years ago in other countries?

As others have said, in the US the formal paper invite is considered official. When my wife and I married we still did this but we encouraged people to RSVP via the website or email. No sense in sending more paper. It’s sad to me that we felt so pressured to do the paper invites. They’re ridiculously overpriced and all of that paper and emissions for delivery for something that can easily be delivered electronically…

Looks like the CO2 emissions of sending a letter are 25 grams or so. Meanwhile, an email with a 1 MB attachment is estimated to emit 19 grams of CO2 [1]. I think the real numbers might be off by a factor of 3 or more - there are so many variables: opening the email on a desktop PC and watching a video and sending it to friends would use much more, and maybe you mail the invitation to someone who doesn't get much mail and lives out of the way so the mailman has to drive 5 more minutes just for one letter.

In any case, the CO2 emissions of the invite are negligible compared to other things: say on the night of sending the invitations you have a lamb dinner with your fiance and you each eat 12 oz of lamb, that dinner was responsible for 27 kg of CO2 emissions vs. 120 invitations would be only 3.5 kg.

In turn, that would be far less emissions than feeding everyone 12 oz of lamb (1607 kg of CO2), which would be far less emissions than that produced by the guests arriving (say 7% take transatlantic and 28% take cross-country flights, all economy) - a whopping 73920 kg CO2 [2].

[1] https://90by2030.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/carbon-footprint-l...

[2] BER-NYC roundtrip is 2.4 tons/passenger in economy = 0.07120=20.16 tons + SFO-NYC roundtrip 1.6 tons/passenger in economy = 0.28120*1.6=53.76 tons. Total 73.92 tons.

Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have said, in the US the formal paper invite is considered official. When my wife and I married we still did this but we encouraged people to RSVP via the website or email. No sense in sending more paper. It’s sad to me that we felt so pressured to do the paper invites. They’re ridiculously overpriced and all of that paper and emissions for delivery for something that can easily be delivered electronically…

>> It’s sad to me that we felt so pressured to do the paper invites Doesn't the entire wedding industry basically revolve around "encouraging" everyone to do a whole bunch of stuff that's either unneccessary, over-complex or simply over-priced? Paper invites are the least of your worries.

Remember, this isn't a vendor from the evil wedding industry that forced them to do that, most likely a bunch of family members. The wedding industry is well and alive because of families and people that want to keep it alive! We kept telling everyone we didn't need or want a wedding cake. Well we ended up with a wedding cake, paid for by the sister in law, because she couldn't sleep at night thinking there wouldn't be a cake.

Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It’s sad to me that we felt so pressured to do the paper invites Doesn't the entire wedding industry basically revolve around "encouraging" everyone to do a whole bunch of stuff that's either unneccessary, over-complex or simply over-priced? Paper invites are the least of your worries.

Remember, this isn't a vendor from the evil wedding industry that forced them to do that, most likely a bunch of family members. The wedding industry is well and alive because of families and people that want to keep it alive! We kept telling everyone we didn't need or want a wedding cake. Well we ended up with a wedding cake, paid for by the sister in law, because she couldn't sleep at night thinking there wouldn't…

Well, it's a bit of both. Why are diamond engagement rings a thing? A vast, hideously expensive and massively successful marketing campaign. The same goes for a lot of it; people push this stuff because marketers have told them it's required.

Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#178
Related idea: Prediction market for how long a relationship / marriage is going to last.

If most of your friends are betting against the marriage, perhaps you should call it off, and the betters get their money back.

Not sure how to solve the moral hazard problem though.

Re: Show HN: Open-sourcing my wedding website on my first anniversary

#180
post #6

I still find the idea of a digital wedding invitation pretty strange, because here in Hungary the bride and the fiancé invite everybody in person together. Maybe distant relatives are invited by mail or something. Is digital invitation a common thing nowadays? Or was it more common even years ago in other countries?

The tradition for many in the US (in my experience, at least—it's far from universal, of course) is that the paper invitation is considered "official"—often even more-so than an in-person invite. In-person invites are still welcome, of course, but they're often seen as informal. Since a mailed invitation is already considered by many to be the most formal route, it makes sense that electronic invites have gained popu…

Not kidding. And once a print shop catches a whiff that it's for a wedding the price goes waaaaay up.

We're doing digital invites by default and paper invites for family that who would get frustrated trying to use one. Cheaper, better for the environment, most people think it's neat, and it's a fun project.

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