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How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

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Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#191

Post by hx87 »

Veen wrote: post #151
tootie wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally abhor empty formality. I got married 10+ years ago and can't for the life of me remember what we did for invitations and I doubt anyone who came remembers either. I remember the food pretty well because it was great. We did a chocolate cake (black forest) which people still remember.

I think it's useful to differentiate between empty formality and an effort to raise an occasion above the humdrum of normal existence with rituals and behaviors that connote its specialness. The formality isn't empty in the sense that it's purposeless: it's done for a reason. After all, marriage itself could be considered an empty formality, so if you're going to bother getting married you might as well embrace the f…

Marriage (the legal bundle of rights and obligations) is certainly not an empty formality, although weddings might be.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#193

Post by Veen »

hx87 wrote: post #191
Veen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's useful to differentiate between empty formality and an effort to raise an occasion above the humdrum of normal existence with rituals and behaviors that connote its specialness. The formality isn't empty in the sense that it's purposeless: it's done for a reason. After all, marriage itself could be considered an empty formality, so if you're going to bother getting married you might as well embrace the f…

Marriage (the legal bundle of rights and obligations) is certainly not an empty formality, although weddings might be.

It depends how you construe marriage. Traditionally, it was a vow between two people made at a public ceremony before members of their family and community.

The contractual stuff came later, and is arguably the less important aspect.

If you take the first view, then the formality of the ceremony and its associated traditions isn't empty — it's the whole point. If you think the contractual, legal aspects of marriage are the the only things that matter, then yeah, might as well just sign on the dotted line.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#194

Post by joncalhoun »

sumeno wrote: post #38
andrewguenther wrote: post #23

In my opinion, this makes the whole process very impersonal. I invited people to my wedding because I care about them and wanted them to share that day with me. Although it was a lot of effort, I was happy to make save the dates, invitations, and hand write thank you notes to every singe one of them. If you're not willing to do that, then you're inviting too many people in my opinion.

Not everyone cares about the same things you do. I used paperless post for my wedding because it was easy, free, and physical wedding invitations are not important to me or my wife in any way. Nobody complained, it took a couple hours to get everything set up the way we wanted it, and within a few days we had around a 90% response rate. Only 1 person RSVPed as no so it doesn't seem like anyone got the impression we d…

Sometimes it isn't about you, but it is about the guests themselves.

My wife and I opted to do both physical + digital for our wedding and we found that the older crowd all relied on physical invites and info for things like the schedule, RSVPing, etc, while the younger crowd all used the digital alternative.

To be clear, the older crowd all knows how to use FB etc, and most had smartphones, but many still appreciated having something physical both to remember the wedding (my grandmother keeps the save the date on her fridge 5 years later), and to reference without having to constantly pull out a smart device.

Sure, you could argue that it is your day and you can do what you want, but I look at a wedding as a collective celebration. If it was just my day I wouldn't invite those people. I invited everyone that I wanted to be a part of that celebration with me, so I also put in a little extra effort to help them enjoy the day as much as I did.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#195

Post by criddell »

beart wrote: post #176
pjc50 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've kept every wedding invitation I've ever received. They take up a small corner of my "personal memories" shoebox. I don't really understand how you can have nowhere to keep them unless you're living out of a suitcase.

How often do you pull those old wedding invitations out and what value do you get by holding onto them?

For things that I want to remember I take a photo and then get rid of the item.

I began doing this when my kids started school and would bring home new art every day. I love that they made a portrait of me by gluing macaroni to a paper plate then covering it in glitter, but I don't necessarily want to become the caretaker of that masterpiece forever.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#196

Post by criddell »

madshiva wrote: post #180
mstade wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love it if I didn't get dead tree invitations. I have nowhere to put them and I feel bad throwing them away. And also of course, dead trees.

Seriously? I received maybe 3 cards of weeding and more thant 30 for my birdthay. I kept them all too. We can save tree when there's purpose like printing for reading an email, for invoice, etc. because they don't give or add any value, but my handmade card for my weeding, if you throw it is disrespectful, because If I had invite you, it's that I take care of you. (BTW I made only 15 invitations.)

I wouldn't assume disrespect. Material items don't hold the same meaning or power for everybody. I used to move a lot and if you expect me to carry something you gave me from place-to-place for the rest of my life, well that could be seen as disrespectful as well.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#197

Post by j45 »

andrewguenther wrote: post #23

In my opinion, this makes the whole process very impersonal. I invited people to my wedding because I care about them and wanted them to share that day with me. Although it was a lot of effort, I was happy to make save the dates, invitations, and hand write thank you notes to every singe one of them. If you're not willing to do that, then you're inviting too many people in my opinion.

What you value might not be what everyone else values.

Many weddings in this world also are not just about the bride and groom. They are often family reunions with a wedding on the side as the excuse for lots of people to get together after many, many years.

Weddings are a time for celebration and enjoyment for the bride and groom, as much as guests. Guests often forget that the bride & groom often have no memories of their day as it's a blur.

In addition to printed invitations, I heavily used technology where possible:

- Mailchimp segmented similar to this post was invaluable. - Google Sheet that grew like crazy - My wedding ended up having a ceremony in two cities, double the work and planning - used Asana, worked great. - A little app on Android called Textpansion was fantastic for sending out pre-made snippets of information as needed - addresses, dates, times, locations, updates. All it would take is click on a snippet, paste it into the message, and off I go.

The one thing I couldn't get to?

- Running facial recognition on all the photos that will never see much circulation. Luckily, waiting on this has made it easier.

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#199

Post by zimzam »

x1798DE wrote: post #91
sumeno wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone so offended by the lack of a physical invitation that they don't come to my wedding is someone I wouldn't want at my wedding anyway. Two birds, one stone

I wasn't offended by lack of a physical invitation, but a friend of mine got married and invited my wife and I in a very informal way with a text message. We ended up waiting until way too late to book tickets, because my wife was expecting a physical invitation to follow the informal SMS save-the-date, and we ended up missing the wedding because flights got ungodly expensive (and involved many complicated connection…

Isn't the point of the save-the-date so people can book travel in advance though?

Re: How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding

#200

Post by xzel »

lukaszkups wrote: post #139
xzel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you followed up with "in my opinion". All in all sounds very preachy to me. Either way, this sounds like a way you say it vs. what you said argument. I'd rather have someone share a special moment in their life with me than worry about wasting 10 minutes writing an invitation. Plus as stated else where one can pay a company to handwrite notes for you.

I think writing all these programs and functions, setup everything etc. in total it takes longer than just doing it 'by hand'..

Well now you have some source code to start with :)

I doubt writing all the notes which people send out, of which there are a few batches (invites, RSVP, thanks), could be less than writing this, which isn't much more than sample twilio and a database, and reusing it for each letter "event".

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