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

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41–50 of 233 posts

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

#41
post #10

Physical wedding invitations are still tradition such that people may get offended if they do not get one in the mail.

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

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

#43
I'm terrible at responding to physical invitations (I had two friends actually have to ask me in person after I didn't get back to them for over a month).

But an SMS invite I most likely would get back to you within a day, most likely, possibly within ten minutes. For people like me, it's so much easier and much lower friction to respond to a text.

I can be just as bad with email. My parents get responses from me a lot more quickly now that they've started getting into the habit of texting (yes, it's taken that long).

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

#44

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.

[deleted]

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

#45

If and when I get married I probably won't take it to this extreme, but I can imagine it might be nice to use some sort of CRM to manage my communications with all the guests and wedding vendors.

"small pad of paper and a pencil"

It's a great CRM for the sort of thing you're considering.

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

#46

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.

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.

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

#47
post #6

>invites are not environmentally friendly As opposed to the sustainability of dozens of people traveling from near and far.

They're doing what they can. Are people now supposed to not have weddings because it offends environmentalists' delicate sensibilities?

>They're doing what they can

To be a little more accurate, "They're doing what they choose to." Nobody does what they can.

My problem is in even saying that this is an environmental decision, like that matters at all.

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

#48
post #13

Why do you need to "automate" an action you're expecting to perform, in the happy case, once in a lifetime?

In addition to the other reasons, there are hundreds of other things you have to attend to when planning and prepping a wedding. Figure out what's important to you and focus on those things first and foremost, automate the rest away (or hire someone...)

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

#49
post #6

>invites are not environmentally friendly As opposed to the sustainability of dozens of people traveling from near and far.

I don't understand the mentality expressed in the article, where environmentalism is only observed for tiny pieces of waste that don't matter. These same people (like you mentioned) fly dozens of people on airplanes, which is so much worse. Or they have kids or don't update their home's insulation or drive a gas-guzzler. At the end of the day, there's only so much you as an individual can do (and certainly the CEO of…

Penny wise and pound foolish...

Micro-optimizations are often easier to wrap our heads around, so we tend to want to focus on them. They're also often situations where you can get a clear win rather than a much more imperfect improvement. In development, it's sometimes called bikeshedding. You see it often in financial planning where people would rather cut out their morning latte than focus on investing better.

This behavior makes little sense, but it does appear to be a fundamental human tendency and those who are better able to maintain perspective definitely have a huge advantage in life.

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

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're doing what they can. Are people now supposed to not have weddings because it offends environmentalists' delicate sensibilities?

>They're doing what they can To be a little more accurate, "They're doing what they choose to." Nobody does what they can. My problem is in even saying that this is an environmental decision, like that matters at all.

They're doing what they can within the confines of the activity they are engaged in, which happens to be having a wedding. That involves travel, whether environmentalists like it or not.
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