How to talk about your wedding on Facebook without pissing people off

Comments on How to talk about your wedding on Facebook without pissing people off

1. I know it’s probably stating the obvious but it’s worth bearing in mind that making a list or group for private status updates doesn’t guarentee they’ll stay private.

   On top of those helpful individuals who take it on themselves to make sure everyone knows what everyone else is saying about everyone there are people who just don’t realise a group or status update is supposed to be private.

   I doubt there’s any harm if it’s just someone passing on how exciting your wedding will be to those who aren’t invited (there is no rule against having a great party and not inviting everyone on earth so then the fault is all theirs for telling) but it can cause trouble if it’s someone passing on how much a friend/relative is driving you insane.

   • “I know it’s probably stating the obvious but it’s worth bearing in mind that making a list or group for private status updates doesn’t guarentee they’ll stay private.”

     Yep: that’s why Megan’s first suggestion is Stating the obvious solution: Resist the urge to discuss your wedding on Facebook at all. 🙂

2. I really deeply recommend not putting any of it on Facebook. Any of it.
   I think an invite-only, private Facebook group is ideal for only parents and other bridal party members. That way, you can keep people who need to be in the know in the know.
   If you need a place to share your excitement, do it on a wedsite. By visiting your wedsite, people are expressing consent to hearing you go on and on about your WEE YAY JOY. Not so much with your Facebook friends, even if they’re attending the happy affair.

   • I agree with the no Facebooking wedding anything. It’s one of the reasons I joined The Tribe. If I need support from friends, then I will text/call someone to share or vent, not post every little bullshit situation on the FB. I have seen the mess it makes so I chose to not switch my relationship status to “engaged” (engaged 2009, wedding circa 2012/13). It’s not that I’m not happy about it, I just thought it would be less stress for me. And I’m happy with my decision.

     I don’t know how many times I’ve had to “hide” people’s status on FB due to their wedding nonsense/drama, especially the ones that I wasn’t invited to and even more so those who angrily post 10-20 times a day. I’m not one to engage in the negativity, so it is extremely frustrating to see someone brand themselves as a ‘bridezilla’.

     One of my friends did an interesting thing: she is friends with most of her fam on the FB so she signed up for a Twitter account under a pseudonym specifically for typing whatever was on her brain and also made it a point to NOT be friends w/anyone she knows. It’s her outlet to type whatever she wants (or as shes says, ‘to put it out into the world’) and not have to worry about what other people say. I thought that was kinda clever.

     • Yeah… do you really want to put your questions and thoughts out to Facebook and get the opinions of all your on-beat family, friends and colleagues? If I were to post a picture on Facebook of, say, a purple wedding dress, it’d get dozens of “… whaaaat? Eew. What are you doing? Is this, like, for the reception?” comments.

       I feel this way about people with babies who post only about their baby all day every day. “My kid just pooped and it was very endearing to me. He’ll be eating peas later, which will be so difficult to get him to eat, but he is my baby angel child magical crotch dropling.” And I’m like. “Hey, I’m friends with YOU, not your baby/husband/boyfriend/wedding.”

       (Uh, this sounds a bit grumpy. I mean, I love my friends and their major life events. But substituting your own identity with the current event in your life is difficult for me to navigate, yo.)

       • word!

       • “Crotch dropling” = best phrase ever.

       • Oh Gosh The Crotch-Dropling Posts!

         The worst is when they change their profile pic to a pic of their spawnling and you’re like “why is all my friends babies? Did I imagine the last 20 years? am I in kindergarten again?”

         Also: Bwahahahhaha! (I see another post of the week happening here. tThis made me laugh so much.)

     • Similar to the twitter thing, I have a tumblr for venting and its very theraputic knowing that i’m not going to get hastle for what ive put.
       I kind of wish I could start my facebook all over again so that I don’t make the mistake of adding certain people that I now feel bad deleting.

       Also on facebook when you change your status you can just delete the ‘…. is now engaged’ post from the feed so no one can see that you’ve changed your status unless they go looking in your info.

       • ha ha! It’s great to have an outlet like that, no? 🙂
         Ah. Yes. I totally know about deleting posts, but with the new fb profile, in addition to the actual long-story info page, there’s a mini-bio at the top of the profile page. All it will take is just one person to notice and for it to turn into a *Muy Caliente Escandalo* out of it. And if I have to edit my account preferences to NOT show relationship status, then *sigh* I feel like it’s a bit of a waste :/ I’m sticking with not changing it, period.

     • I totally made a separate Twitter account when Mr. Zebra and I first started dating to express my frustrations about him being a clueless man. 🙂
       (He’s not that clueless, but I’m sure you know what I mean.)

       I haven’t used that account in like 2 years… I should totally pick it back up again and utilize it for Wedding joy and frustrations alike!

3. Yes, Facebook’s group feature is a pet peeve of mine too. It would be great to be able to opt in to group membership (more like a suggested friend) than just automatically be added.

   If you choose to deactivate, you can download all of your Facebook content: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150292657680484

4. I’ve actually been lucky that, even though I’m talking about my wedding on facebook, most of my friends are really understanding that it’s a small, intimate affair with mostly family and my few, closest friends. And some of my closest friend’s moms. I still don’t know exactly how that last part happened, but… whatever. D:

   Still, I think communicating about your wedding is nice, and being able to communicate that not everybody is going to come is also nice. Some people might get upset (like FH’s aunt, who basically whined herself onto the guest list. He’s such a pushover.) but it’s a price I’m willing to pay to share my happiness with friends who I otherwise wouldn’t be able to share anything with.

5. I make it a point to not mention much about my wedding on Facebook to avoid receiving comments from people who assume they are going to be invited. There have already been some awkward moments. There are lots more people we would have loved to invite, but space/budget constraints have limited our choices.

   Why do people assume they are invited to weddings???? It makes me feel so bad that I can’t include everyone.

   • I think it comes from the Big White Wedding trend – why WOULDN’T you invite everyone you’ve ever met?! All 1,000 of them. It’s really sad that when someone mentions they’re getting married people don’t think about the commitment they’re making or their relationship, but about open bars, dance parties, and a free meal. Big White Wedding Thoughts can suck it.

     • What’s hilarious is even if I invited my entire friend’s list, it wouldn’t be considered a HUGE wedding by most standards since I keep my friends list around 150. That’s actually much easier than it sounds. But there are a lot of people who aren’t Facebook friends (many of who just don’t have a Facebook) who’ll be invited and many Facebook friends who won’t.

6. It took me MONTHS to change my status, and then I guffawed when my fiance went on facebook for the first time in years and actually accepted my relationship request! After over six years together, my relationship finally wasn’t with an unnamed individual!

   I haven’t even shared the wedding date on Facebook, so most of the WWW probably thinks I’m getting married in two years or something.

   I advise not sharing too much! My co-workers know I’m engaged, but most don’t even know when the wedding is because I. don’t. talk. about. it. When’s the wedding? This fall! Really? When? October! When? Early October!

   If they don’t get the hint from that!…

7. Really, I think it’s just rude to assume you’d be invited to anything unless you WERE specifically invited. When we were engaged I felt free to discuss specific details because if they decided to invite themselves I had no problem meeting rude with rude – they offended first. It’s not everyone’s style, but I’ve always been known as the person to go to when you want to hear the truth. “When’s the wedding?” “June 12th!” “Sweet! I’ll have to pencil it into my calendar!” “Why? I didn’t send you an invitation…” Then they blush, mumble something, probably go back and call me a bitch, but they can’t possibly misinterpret that! Unless they’re seriously stupid. And really when have there EVER been social events that everyone thinks they can just show up to without an invitation?!?! ARG.

   • Haha,you are The Best!

8. Another option is to keep the wedding updates online, but take them off Facebook altogether. Not all of my family are on facebook (and Lord knows the Boyfriend doesn’t check his but once every six months). The solution? YahooGroup! Private, invite-only, and emailed directly to your inbox.

   You do have to put up with Yahoo’s awful UI and bugginess, but really, compared to how often Facebook is rolling out “improvements” without fixing previous errors, it’s six of one and half dozen of the other at this point. 🙂

9. Thanks for the helpful piece! As always, OBB is awesome.

   I had a run-in with all this yesterday. An annoying third cousin of mine (yes, third cousin) recently commented on a birthday post I wrote to my sister (yeah, she doesn’t understand how Facebook works) and was trying to reconnect. I wrote back and said I was living in Seattle with my fiancee. Then I immediately regretted it. That side of the family might have heard I got engaged, but I really regretted reminding them. Fortunately, our wedding will be a “small destination wedding” for everyone but us (wedding in Seattle; guests coming from the Midwest and East Coast), so that should provide a good enough explanation. But oy. It was a good reminder to tread carefully.

   I’m going to create a list of wedding guests and make it so only they see my very occasional updates about the wedding. I already use friend lists to prevent professional contacts and “adults” (anyone from my parents’ or fiancee’s parents’ generation) from seeing most of my posts, mostly to avoid their annoying and incessant comments. 🙂

10. Outside of changing my status to ENGAGED and calling my fiance…FIANCE…I don’t discuss my wedding at all! Reality is 80% off the people on there are NOT invited!!

11. This is a very good article to have. Honestly, one should just NEVER talk about wedding stuff on facebook. When my sisters demanded to be kept in the loop (complete with wedding shopping photos) I created a private event that only they were invited to, made the event a month long, and just change the date whenever the event comes close to expiring. I also made sure they knew to show no one else, and we are able to communicate details that way.

    A good “Facebook can fuck things up” story is that of my first nephew. Turns out, my sister in law and brother were so excited when they found out they were expecting they let it slip to their friends, who are in a very very tight knit giant group other other friends- who all started messaging “congrats” before my mom and dad or any of our family knew. There were certainly some ruffled feathers. Rule 1- If its at all personal, keep it OFF facebook 🙂

    • I was going to suggest the same with the event. I’ve done that with my kids’ christening and worked great. No uninvited people got a look in

12. Great piece- while I was excited to change the relationship status, I really resisted talking about the wedding on Facebook at first because I didn’t want to be THAT girl. Then I realized somebody somewhere is going to think I’m THAT girl regardless of what I do and chances are I have one of those somebodies on my friends list. AND THAT’S OKAY. They don’t have to like what I do and I don’t have to be mad at them for not liking it. So now, if I want to talk about weddings on Facebook, I do. I follow MY thoughts on updating- I don’t say negative things about my friends, I don’t update every little thing… and I’m good with it.

    I like the list idea- once the guest list is near to finalization, I’m doing that. Right now, I just respond with “we aren’t sure who we’ll be able to invite” to anyone who asks or makes awkward assumptions.

    One thing that really struck me, though, is the other side of the coin. How do you deal with other people who are constantly posting about their wedding and you get negative feelings? I certainly felt stung when one of my Facebook friends getting married joined the Knot and sent out this automatic update: “Today I crossed the first official threshold of modern bridehood and visited TheKnot.com.” “So I’m not an official bride?” I wanted to say. But didn’t.

    • I had an issue really similar to this–a friend of mine used Facebook to stress out about her wedding in a major way, from ranting about her family and the weather forecast to mentioning how much money she was spending on things that weren’t turning out the way she wanted: “I’m not spending X just so Y can go wrong!!!!” kind of posts. It was super awkward to read, because she was making herself look bad *and* I was envious that she had the amount of money she had for her wedding.

      The answer? Well, the Hide feature is one. 😉 If she’s really close to you, it might be worth having a non-Facebook conversation with her (it never works to criticize someone about her behavior in such a public place as Facebook–they usually feel embarrassed, and therefore obligated to get pissed off and defend themselves).

      Sorry you have to deal with that. Sometimes the best thing you can take away from a situation is “Well, now I know better than to act like *that.*”

      • Sarah basically nailed it. I don’t have better advice than that. Just wanted to agree that the “hide” feature is your best friend when it comes to not wanting to deal with whiny friends.

        If you aren’t familiar with the “hide” feature. Just click on the X that appears next to your whiny friends update, you can choose to hide that particular post, or hide your friend’s posts completely.

        • This is my favorite feature on fb. 🙂

        • Similarly, my iPhone Twitter app has a “mute” feature. If I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings/lose access to them by “unfollowing” them I can simply “mute” that person so the noise will stop (unbeknownst to that person) but the friendship can persist. I don’t know if all Twitter apps have this feature, so you may want to check yours.

          • Related: 85% Of Women Are Annoyed By Most Facebook Friends

            http://www.allfacebook.com/85-women-are-annoyed-by-most-facebook-friends-2011-03

    • “if I want to talk about weddings on Facebook, I do. I follow MY thoughts on updating- I don’t say negative things about my friends, I don’t update every little thing… and I’m good with it.” I agree with jordannalie there. Here is the thing -people are eventually going to realize you got married and they weren’t there. Sure updating every detail is annoying, but are you trying to hide the whole event? If so why be on facebook at all? Maybe you aren’t actually friends with your facebook friends at all, and then what is the point? The thing is I have a lot of friends from high school getting married and I am not invited to all of those weddings, but I am very happy for them and I like seeing the pictures. Anyways when I used to talk about “Mad men” and cooking all the time there were people who didn’t care about that either. I also think weddings are interesting as a sociological, humorous, historical subject. I posted a funny wedding related link (http://www.goingbridal.com/etc/wedding_crap.shtml) on a friend of mine’s wall who is getting married and she acted like I was raised in a barn saying she can’t invite everyone. People are pissed about me putting a funny link on her wall? Really? Would they care that much? We cannot mention the word “wedding”? It is an important thing in society and in my experience a lot of older married /recently married people are entertained by it too… I think people must expect budget constraints/know how close they are to you/not actually care.

      I do agree overdoing it is annoying, and same when I log on and it is all infant pictures. But come on do I need to pretend I am not getting married? Then just deactivate it, what is the point at all?

13. I’ve DEFINITELY made it a point to not bring up any of my wedding stuff on facebook. But then there’s my mom, doing her own “OMG, Bethany’s getting married a month from today!” countdown status posts, and I had a friend guest who asked me a “what should I wear?” type question on my wall instead of private messaging me. I didn’t want to delete it, and make a big deal out of it, but I’d rather not talk about my wedding on facebook at all. I don’t want to offend people who aren’t invited.

    I also have made a point to not post status messages about what I’m planning, or to constantly be like “OMG! Wedding is just [blah] days away!!”, because I realize that, while it may be a really big day for me, most people don’t care as much. It’s so nice to have OBT as my outlet for that stuff, especially when I’m really freaking out over something. That way, my guests don’t have to know that I was panicking over some really minute detail, they can just think I pulled the wedding together no problem!

14. I actually had two lists – one for wedding guests, which I pruned as RSVPs rolled in, and one for the people who wanted wedding planning full-frontal (much, MUCH smaller). The guests got a reminder about times and location and such, while I saved the agony and squee for the small subset who cared.

15. Seems kind of like lying by omission to be participating in FB and not mention your wedding. If you were talking to a friend you weren’t going to invite and they asked you what was new in your life, would just decline to mention you’d been planning a wedding for the last five months? Also, are you going to post your wedding pics on FB? I think I’d be a little annoyed to discover someone I thought was a friend had been hiding this big news from me for months.

    • The thing is, a lot of people (myself included), have folks on our facebook who don’t even really fall into the “friend” category. Acquaintances, business contacts, coworkers, etc. And sometimes these people don’t see the relationship in the same way we do. Someone who you really only view as an acquaintance or coworker might consider you one of their friends, for example. I’ve experienced this some, and I think it could make the whole “not-invited” thing quite sticky. Also, if I’m really that great of friends with them, I’d probably talk with them IRL about it. I would be willing to take the risk of offending someone on fb by keeping mum, I think, for the sake of not dealing w/ people inviting themselves. But I guess I’m not completely sure. 🙂 Good point, either way!

      • I have filters for people who aren’t actually friends. I can’t even imagine having to constantly self censor every thought to be appropriate for professional acquaintances as well as friends!

    • “Seems kind of like lying by omission”

      That is assuming that everyone has a right to your life at all times on Fb. People don’t have the right to know everything going on in my life in the real world so it’s pretty obvious they don’t have that right on the net either. It’s up to you and it’s certainly not lying by omission if you don’t want everyone to have full insight in everything you do.

    • Exactly. Not all Facebook friends are true friends.
      If I saw some of these people in person I would probably mention it. But I keep all personal information off Facebook because even with the privacy settings, FB changes their settings quite often, leaving windows of opportunities for uninvited people to see your stuff. And with all the personalized ads etc. I don’t trust FB not to sell that information to some company. Once that info is out there, you can never get it back.
      My posts quite often are about something delicious I ate, nice weather, and that I am very happy–no details. For those who need to know, I send them a separate e-mail, off Facebook entirely.

16. Thank you for this article!

    totally agree with keeping the wedding stuff on the DL or not mentioning much at all. I have an acquaintance I know also getting married and the constant profile updates (countdowns etc) are annoying.

    I try to type to Tribe or keep it PC especially in regards to others’ feelings. A few friends were due to get married but it fell through so I try to be sensitive of that.

17. I used the list feature a lot, and got really positive responses from everyone who could see it because they were almost as excited about it all as I was… and felt priveleged to be involved with whatever I chose to put on there… For instance, getting people to save jars for me (for our centrepieces though they didn’t know that).

    As both of our sets of parents are divorced and remarried and come from big families, we had over 40 aunts and uncles, not all of which we could invite however much we wanted to, let alone my first cousins who I am actually quite close to.

    For this reason, we also did a fb invite to the ceremony (we didn’t care how many people rocked up to that) which explained not everyone would be invited to the reception. Yes, some would say that’s rude, and poor etiquette, but at least it was out there from the get-go and people weren’t only finding out that not all of the family were invited by not receiving invites…

    We still had a couple awkward moments, but after telling all the fb community that not everyone would be invited, it was slightly less awkward than it would have been otherwise…

18. I’m wondering whether this is a culture thing — I put a LOT of stuff wedding related on FB and I didn’t have any awkward moments of people assuming invites (ah, apart from husbands father, but that’s not FB related, and a different matter altogether). The people I’m close with, knew they were coming, and the other ones (like girls I went to high school with) were congratulatory and all “can’t wait to see photos!”. It was pretty cool.

    I think it also helps not adding people that you don’t actually like … my friends list is only in the region of maybe 110.

    • Amen! I also had people who weren’t invited to the wedding telling me off for not inundating them with wedding planning statuses because they were so excited for me!

    • Same. I put an average amount of wedding updates on my fb page and a lot of girls from school,work etc would comment with their own experiences/advice and congrats, but none of them ever assumed they were invited…

      Though I’ve heard its more normal in America to invite lots of ppl you’re not close to like business contacts, your parents friends etc? That’s not really the norm in Aus so maybe it is a cultural thing…

    • I have a pretty huge friends list (over 800 for various reasons) and my fiance is the same with his list. I guarantee there are people who will be upset that we couldn’t invite them, but we are having a backyard wedding and space is super limited, especially if it rains. People on both of our FB friend lists know we are going through some financial issues outside of the wedding. I think we only had one or two people ask about the wedding (and they were on the B list anyway). We did end up inviting them after all.

      I don’t post about wedding things all that much, but when people comment about the pictures of me painting the shed and falling off a ladder, friends in the know will say things like “don’t want a bride with an injury so close to the wedding” it is pretty obvious. I have lots of friends who are photographers, and I guarantee pictures will be plastered all over my wall. Can’t really hide it.

      My way of dealing with it is to talk about it up front without shoving it in people’s faces. Here and there mentioning of space or lack of a budget (or DIY hell!) is going to happen. When we got engaged a couple of years ago, I made a point of posting my feelings about weddings and how it sucks that not everyone can be invited, but that is just the way it has to be sometimes. I made a point of saying I wished I could invite everyone I know, but when we did get married, inviting everyone couldn’t happen. It was an easy way to explain how bad I felt from the get-go. Seriously, if I had the space, was guaranteed it wasn’t going to rain and an infinite budget, we would invite 500 people easily. How we managed to get it down to 100 is unreal. We both know a lot of people!

      I have a group set up for just my bridesmaids. We bitch and moan on there (not about each other) so we can do so quietly. Guests don’t need to know what is happening behind the curtain. It gives us a great place where we can manage ideas, plan projects, share photos, and track progress. While the DIY hell is stressful (especially with a few very busy and non crafty bridesmaids), at least we can communicate through the group. I have been trying to spend a day here and there with each of them on a project I think suits their skillset, and let them voice opinions or ideas where I can really hear what they have to say. Less than two weeks, and this insanity will be over. Amen to that!

19. Oh and also, it seems to be the year of the wedding with the group of girls I went to high school with (and babies), with 5 off the top of my head and at least 2 babies, so I didn’t feel all “look at me!!”.

20. This was a great piece, but I want to touch on the part about the ads that show up. I’ve always been upset by weight loss ads that feature unhealthy-looking women, and I’m even more offended by the ones that have been bombarding me on Facebook since I announced my engagement. As such, I’ve started labeling them as “offensive.” I encourage you all to join me.

    • @Emmy, I’ve been with you on labeling the weight-loss ads as “offensive” for many many months! Amen!

    • Good idea! I’ve just been ignoring those, along with all the big diamond ring ads… but those weight loss ones should definitely be marked OFFENSIVE!

21. I’ve shared maybe one wedding or marriage related article on FB, with the note, “and that’s all I’m going to say here, probably, because we can’t afford to invite everyone that we’d like to!”
    Occasionally people have asked questions on my Wall, I’ve almost always responded by private message. I did delete one Wall post, as it was a response to a PM that I didn’t want up! It was partly my bad–I had added an acquaintance-friend as a friend, and asked in the message about his DJ rates…and then he replied on my wall. So I let him know by PM that responding publicly to a private message is a faux pas, and I thought he was geek enough to know that, and that some brides wouldn’t hire him based on that, because what other gaffes might he make?
    But yeah, definitely keeping it to a minimum~!
    I don’t really think it’s lying by omission. Maybe if your friends list is teeny tiny, but I’m having a smallish wedding, and don’t want to chance having crashers.

22. When my wife and I were planning our wedding, we definitely kept things understated. We did, however, post our wedding website on our accounts (not in our statuses, just in a place that people who were interested could find). This worked out really well because our website explained in more detail that our ceremony was a really private affair, but still gave our friends a personal way to wish us congratulations.

    I agree about the issue with ranting about plans on your Facebook page. No one wants to have a window into your personal Wedding Hell… we all want to be happily deluded into thinking the whole process has been perfect. 😀

23. I’m getting married in a week. I have posted nothing about it – nothing – no staus change, no mention of the word ‘bridal’, ‘wedding’, ‘enagaged’. To be honest, part of me wanted to post things when I need motivation or a ‘good for you! How exciting!’…but for some reason it just gives me a bit of anxiety. It’s such a personal things I don’t want to put it out there for random people’s comments.
    Likewise…I don’t want wedding photos splashed across facey! Hoping we can put a little sign up or something like that…one of my friends had photos put up on facey by family memebers in between the cermony and reception. She was furious.

    • I feel the same way. I don’t trust Facebook’s “privacy” settings.
      We’re making a separate wed site for info and photos that will ask people not to discuss or share photos on Facebook.
      We’re also making some signage at the wedding on various parts of our relationship, which partly includes FB, and we will be asking again.
      Though I have a circle of Internet friends and when we get together they like to take a lot of pictures. I ask them every time, PLEASE don’t put pictures of me on FB, but then they do and then say, “I hope that’s ok.” So I hope that they will listen.

24. Am I the only one who never thought to discuss my wedding on FB right off the bat? I guess I’ve just gotten so used to finding other topics for status updates that I looked at the first piece of advice, said “Duh?” and just kind glazed over at the rest. *shrug*

25. I don’t think I posted anything about getting married while we were engaged. We were keeping it small and a few people had invited themselves, which was incredibly awkward when we told them they were not actually invited.

    Facebook is a beast best left alone sometimes.

26. I totally did the list thing to prevent other people from seeing wedding related posts, especially because I had a wedding related blog too for people to get wedding info off of.

27. I am wondering something similar to some commenters. I was really excited to do the “relationship status” change, but now I am getting the feeling from the comments that even that might be too much? For those that didn’t, will you change it to “married” when you are? What about putting the photos up there? A lot of recently marrieds use a posed wedding shot as their profile picture. Is that frowned upon in this context? My personal rule for that has always been, “it’s cool, but maybe if it’s FIVE YEARS LATER you’ve done SOMETHING more worth a profile picture than your wedding?” What is the general take on that? (For me it would be six months or less before I think it is weird, but seriously, I don’t get people who leave that picture up or put it up again when they’ve been married for years.)

    • I don’t think you’re going to get any sort of consensus answer here. It’s whatever feels right to you!

      • I’ve been reading all of them through my hotmail account and was about to come post this exact same thing!
        In a site dedicated to “offbeat” weddings where none of us think the same thing about weddings, it seems some people still expect us to think the same about this…

    • I’ve seen some of my friends put their wedding pictures as their profile pictures on the day of their anniversary… which I think is a really sweet idea.

      Plus, it helps me out because I can barely remember my best friends’ birthdays let alone their anniversaries!!

    • @ Sam – I’m only recently married, but can almost guarantee I’ll do this down the track… much like I will re-post favourite girl’s holiday photos/nights out etc as my profile pics after the fact.
      It’s not right for you as a person, that’s fine – just explaining why some people like me do it… Less of a “Haven’t done anything worthwhile in 5 years” thing and more of a “Gee. Wasn’t that an amazing time? I remember that so fondly and it was so special that I want to share it subtly with everyone…” if that makes sense?
      I am a bit of a FB fiend though, and I’ve changed my profile pic 5+ times in 2 weeks (all wedding photos atm). I don’t agree with leaving the same one up for 5 years either… but I know people who do that (and it’s not wedding photos) just because they like that particular photo of them, and can’t be bothered finding another nice one just for the sake of changing it…

28. I think FB is always about common sense. I think it is completely inappropriate to bitch about a friend in public manor regardless of wedding related or not. And I enjoyed the congratulations from more distant connections when I changed my status to engaged. I had previously kept that part of my info hidden. Part of FB is sharing info about your life, and marriage is a pretty big deal, so to not include that info does seem to me almost like you are hiding the importance of that person to you. I am still independent, I am still my own person, but my life has changed and become more closely integrated with my FH. I also think that can be true of wedding info on FB. I agree that there are many people who take it too far, but for a lot of us, dress shopping the first time is a big deal, if they want to post that, it is valid. I have not posted anything beyond getting engaged, but you can bet that when May 25 roles around, I will be posting something about getting married in a year, because I am excited about that day. And we are grown-ups. If someone assumes they are invited, we can politely inform them they are not if necessary. Sometimes doing the mature thing isn’t easy but it still should be done.

29. I’ve learned the hard way not to trust list features of online social networking tools. I update Facebook here and there to link to vendors I’ve booked (give them a little boost), but I’m keeping my wedding updates to the OBT.

    I’m also putting updates on the wedsite, the URL of which will be given to wedding guests only via STDs and invitations…seems like an effective way of controlling who the content gets to. It’s tough though, I’m super proud of the wedsite my fiance and I created, but I don’t want people to read all about the wedding, get interested and then NOT be invited.

    Plus…I’d like there to be a little mystery surrounding the wedding. I don’t want people to walk into a wedding they already know every detail about!

30. When I’m having wedding-related fun, I’ll post about it and simply omit the w-word. For example, last night I was learning how to fold paper cranes for decor use. Instead of being all “OMG learning to fold paper cranes for wedding decor” I just said “learning to fold paper cranes using junk mail.”

31. I email my bridesmaids and one other friend, through Facebook, and talk about the wedding. Other than that, I changed my status and posted the wedding date right when I first had it. Aside from that, I chose not to post about the wedding. I generally don’t update my status very often anyway because I do have work contacts on there and I have no urge to be hassled about things. I also chose not to post about the wedding because I do have some people on Facebook who might expect an invitation, but who I rarely talk to. If I don’t post about it, I don’t remind them that it’s happening. Those who are invited get to see the website, but we aren’t blogging, just giving information. Only those close to me need to know any frustration I’ve been having, or my happy dance over my guestbook after the plans changed 6 times. If people want to know how the planning is going, they can ask.

32. I can definitely see posting wedding pics. Once it’s done…it’s done! LOL!!

33. I actually just deleted mine for a different reason (the real way you mention up top…not just deactivation). This is just yet another reason why I’m not a fan of the site overall. I don’t need everyone I know (IRL) having info on every step I take in life. If people want to talk to me, there are more than enough other (electronic) avenues to get in touch 🙂

34. Here’s something I’ve been pondering about weddings and the way Facebook works that I don’t mean in any condescending way but as a serious point of consideration: Why would one want/need congratulations from people who aren’t invited to the wedding? Or, if it’s a really small wedding, from people one wouldn’t/didn’t tell the engagement news to personally?

    • That seems like a funny question to me…cos its nice?
      I know I like to say congrats to people that I wouldnt be invited to their wedding. Just because I’m not super close to them doesnt mean I’m not happy that they’re happy and want them to know that.

      If I ran into an old friend in the shopping centre and we’re exchanging whats new since we’d seen each other last I’d obviously tell them I was getting married, and most people would say congratulations back. I dont really see the difference…

35. The minute I posted a photo of my ring, I got 50+ comments. It didn’t help that I posted from my phone and instead of “Guess who’s getting effin’ hitched” my phone left out a word and said: “Guess who’s effin’ hitched” underneath the photo of my portly finger. I received many a “WHAT?! YOU’RE MARRIED?!” messages and comments. I fixed my error and posted a status reassuring people that I barely knew that I was engaged, not married. Someone who’s been on my list a few months, and I’ve never spoken to made a sarcastic comment about the status update correction. I ignored it.

    A week later, I changed my status. Someone I don’t ever talk to said “AGAIN?” and another week later I posted something about my fiance’s mom leaving me a really sweet voicemail, and he made another snarky remark. I try not to take things said on facebook personally, but I had a hard time understanding (or maybe I didn’t get the sarcasm) why this person was even concerned.
    While I don’t talk about the wedding on FB very often (it’s over a year away anyway and i’ve probably mentioned it three times since), occasionally I’ll mention something in a conversation. “You don’t like it, either delete me or hide me”.

    While I don’t plan on making it a big deal on a public forum anyway, I think snarky comments are wholly unnecessary. Especially from people who know nothing of me.

36. Being a incredibly internet-loving person, I would really like to think I can work up to just deleting everyone I’m not inviting from my FaceBook in the coming years. High school buddy I haven’t spoken to since high school, should I REALLY feel bad about deleting you? Naw.

    Unfortunately, there are tough ones… cousins, aunts…… I hate to say it, but even my flake older sister who doesn’t even talk to me, much less has MET my FH. Those are going to be the tough ones to get rid of.

37. Yea, we are having the Wedding and the Reception, and then an open house for everyone else the next day. I have the open house public, because I don’t care who shows up to that one-its a free for all- but that is the extent of my Facebook bridieness (besides my engaged status)

38. I definitely support not sharing wedding information on facebook mainly because I definitely support not sharing almost everything on facebook. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I hardly update my status of what’s going on in my personal life and don’t have many posted pictures. I’ll share links or things I find interesting but, my intimate details, even sharing small, mundane things really makes me uneasy. I feel as if someone needed to know what was going on with me, they would be informed in some way other than status updates.

39. My mom just got married and made a Facebook page about the event. Now, I love Facebook like any other 20something girl, but my gosh she got really annoying with it. Even other family members, who were happy for her, found it really excessive to post every bit of information about the wedding on Facebook. I agree with the first suggestion, just don’t talk about it.

40. So, my boyfriend and I have been together for eight years and he finally popped the question in February. I changed my relationship status, posted a picture of my ring on my finger, announced that I was going to look at and found my dress, but that’s about it. I’m currently working on my funky little wedding site, but other wise I’m keeping my mouth shut on Facebook.

    I have a great photographer so I will be posting the wedding pictures on Facebook, probably with a “sorry I couldn’t invite you all, but here’s the pics if you want to check out our day”. I keep my “friends” list small though. I only have like 75 “friends” and a majority of them are family, whether local or out of state, and I have a few friends from high school and work. So far I haven’t had any awkward moments with people asking about coming or anything like that.

    I say save the facebook stuff until the wedding day is over.

41. I made the mistake of updating my facebook status before my now husband had a chance to tell his brother that we were engaged. I didn’t think Facebook would publish the info until after Mr. Ivriniel had confirmed it. Ooops.

    He was not happy to be the only family member to find out via Facebook that we got engaged.

42. Hey can you give a new tutorial with the new facebook upgrades. Pretty please?

43. I post about my wedding occasionally, but I don’t post anything that I think is funny/entertaining. I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, which shows how much I’ve posted. Other than that, I did a “yay six months til we’re married” post and a couple crowd-sourcing things (how we found our photographer). I don’t want to annoy anyone, and I don’t want to spoil all the surprises for the people who are going to be there.

44. This should be painfully obvious to most people, but most people that use Facebook are gluttons for punishment.

    It has to be the worst idea ever to grace the internet. So many problems have arisen due to Facebook. People have been using it to show off, or as a form of internet bullying. They use it to show off where they’ve been, what they’ve acquired, whom they’ve married.
    It’s a real shame that it became so popular.

    Since when is it acceptable practice to post your wedding photos on Facebook. Do you realize that everyone and their pet dog Fido can see your photos? Do you even care? Do have the foggiest idea how many times security has been breached on Facebook?

45. I have talked dozens of friends through how to do stuff like this with lists and all. It is a nice feature and helps 90% of the time.

    I’ve had a good experience with FB. People who couldn’t come liked to keep up with the wedding. I didn’t over post, not even once a week, no more than twice a month, but the support was awesome.

46. While this may be helpful to a large majority, it’s kind of off putting for me. And by off putting, I mean irritating. If people can go on and on about how crappy their work day is or post photo after blurry instagram photo of the food their about to eat, why should I limit the amount of joy and happiness I’m experiencing due to the huge life dissision I’ve made?
    I made it clear to everyone how things were going to be and I put a cap on how many guests we’d have because it gets out of hand financially. Especially since we were planning on paying for everything ourselves (thanks to the unbelievable generosity of our parents, we were able to redirect some expenses).
    Some of the stuff, like complaining about someone in your wedding party or about someone you invited who declined (shouldn’t have invited them to being with if you didn’t really want them there)…is a common sense kind of no-no.
    So I say, keep scrolling haters cuz it ain’t gonna put a skid mark in my squeaky clean panties! ;-D

    • If people can go on and on about how crappy their work day is or post photo after blurry instagram photo of the food their about to eat, why should I limit the amount of joy and happiness I’m experiencing due to the huge life dissision I’ve made?

      I think you’re misunderstanding the motivations here. The issue is less that you shouldn’t be allowed to share your happiness because people are mean, and more that posting on Facebook can interfere with that happiness in the form of unwelcome guestlist drama, unwelcome advice, unwelcome family interference.

      This post is intended as less of a “you should silence yourself out of consideration for other people” and more of a “how you can avoid unwelcome drama.”

47. It may be because I went full tilt diva in the beginning stages and avoided it right off the bat. I’ve relaxed a bit now that I’m near the end.
    I think it is that, I don’t understand the need to add everyone you’ve ever known to your fb (whether or not one was a friend or foe), which leads to a majority of those awkward drama situations. I don’t understand the stigma that comes along with how people “should” behave/do as far as planning and whose “automatically” invited.

48. Although I don’t talk about the wedding constantly, I’m also not going to act as if I am not planning a wedding. Also, I’m sick of people catering to butt hurt people that cannot understand people don’t have infinite budgets, guest lists, and space to invite every single person they know. I have a good friend who I met at a friend’s wedding who I remained friends with for over 2 years on FB. She and her husband will be invited to my wedding. She is having a 20th anniversary vow renewal. I was not invited, but she is STILL on my guest list. I STILL want to hear of her plans and I want to see all pictures of her big day. What reason do I have to be butt hurt? I am inviting her to my wedding because I like her and she’s so fun to be around & talk to. Friendship should be deeper than stupid parties and whether or not you get invited to them. And people should not have to keep their wedding a secret to keep grown babies from having their feelings hurt. You don’t think people will realize they weren’t invited when they don’t see themselves in any of the pics you and your friends will post?

49. Surely everyone should be conscious of over sharing information on fb! I had deleted my account a while ago but I opened a new one about a month after I got engaged. The purpose is to keep friends and family informed of all the achievements ticked off the list so I get less of the “how’s the wedding planning going?” and then forget to tell some little detail and hurt someone’s feelings when they hear it from someone else (like my sister telling my mum who lives in another country). The only people on my fb are people who I’m actual real life friends with. The kind of people that do care. And I generally don’t moan that much so no drama here! 🙂

50. In the real world, people are still going to get annoyed, hurt, or upset by things you do, say, or feel for MANY different reasons. It isn’t Facebook, it’s the society we live in. Not everyone is going to like the bridesmaid dress you chose. So what. If YOU like it and want to share it, why should there be anything wrong with that? Would you never speak a word again simply because you were afraid someone would disapprove or have their feelings hurt over it? No. Such is life. If someone cannot handle what you have to say, feel, or think, then it should be their responsibility to keep quiet and rid themselves of it instead of cause the drama in the first place by bitching about how YOUR life is unintentionally offending THEM. If they can’t be happy for you, or support you, then maybe they shouldn’t be a part of your life. End of story.

51. I think changing the relationship status and posting a couple of well-considered statements or links during your engagement is certainly okay, depending who you’re “friends” with. I have no co-workers on my FB, and a ton of people I used to be close with over 5 years ago, including men I consider friends, who might like to think there could be more between us (or there may have been at one time). I think the relationship status change is a very easy way to set the record straight, and I do feel it’s important not to omit my romantic commitment in conversations where people might be romantically interested. You may just receive sincere well wishes and a possible vendor referral! Maturity and consideration are key in all FB interactions, but don’t worry TOO much about other people’s feelings. Everyone is only responsible for their own emotions. The best I can do is be kind and not spaz out all over my Facebuddies. That said, I am grateful for Offbeat Bride as a place where we can all just be excited for each other and not worry whether we are too obsessed with The Big Day for other people’s tastes. Definitely an interesting topic here. Everyone handles FB differently.

    • I should add that I changed my relationship status from “single” long ago, as well, but that I believe many men only realllly get the hint when there is a ring on your hand, and I find the status change helpful in establishing those dynamics.

52. I made a whole new facebook account and only added those who are invited to my wedding and made everything private so that they couldn’t share it with anybody else then I want on to my old page and deleted it mind you my new page has what will be my new last name so anybody who was important enough to know that I was in the relationship has had the opportunity to send me friend request and I have had the opportunity to accept or deny

53. So maybe this makes me a terrible person, but when I got engaged ~16 months ago, this guy who used to like me in high school but then turned creepy messaged me and told me not to forget to invite him to my wedding…aaaaand I unfriended him on the spot.

    • I excitedly announced my wedding to my closest friends over private message on facebook when I first got engaged and one of them completely, and I mean completely freaked out on me, actually refusing to believe I was being serious because she didnt want it to happen so much (in hindsight, the fact I didnt realise she had a crush on me is amazing) and I was really upset and I didnt understand why it was happening. She has since apologised but we havent really spoken/been able to repair things since. Similar thing happened with my fiance, he announced he was engaged and his old friend from japan countered by proposing to him o.o I know its not the same as a creepy guy, but I guess im saying that much as we want engagements/weddings to be joyous for everyone, lots of the time not everyone feels the same way and it sucks like vampires. Doesnt make us terrible people though.

54. I think it’s a bit thoughtless to complain or overshare about anything on Facebook, including wedding planning. I stayed active on FB during my engagement, but I didn’t post any details, just here and there about my excitement, as well as a few engagement photos, and some wedding photos afterwards. Is it really that common for people you’re not close friends with, or distant relatives, to assume they’re invited? Maybe I just got lucky, but I didn’t get any of that. I personally love seeing the wedding pics of my FB friends (ie-people whose weddings I’m not invited to).

55. Need to vent…Last night a guest who received a save-the-date this week posted publicly on my and my mom’s Facebook walls wanting to clarify the date (hello–that was on the Save the Date, right?) and the place (which hasn’t been set yet, but she’d heard something from someone–Mom, probably–about one of the hotels we’re considering). Now I get to try to explain to my mom over the phone how to hide posts from your wall…. But the damage has been done–all of the 2nd cousins and 3rd cousins (hell, even some 1sts) have had a chance to see it, as have the myriad friends I would love to invite but can’t afford to…

    The thing that gets me is that it was an electronic Save the Date, so it would have actually been easier for her to just hit reply and ask me these questions than for her to go into Facebook, find my wall…write on it… find my mom’s wall… write on it… then post more, follow-up comments on those wall posts….

    Oh well. Big smiles! At least people are excited about my wedding!

56. I mean, what you say is important and everything.

57. Because our wedding is super tiny and planning is stressful enough, we’ve expressly told everyone who is invited that they are not to facebook and they are not to talk about it outside of those who have been invited. We haven’t shared it with anything but immediate family and the few friends who are invited. We have a photo planned at the end of the night to be shared on social media as a wedding announcement because, of course, there are people we would care to share in our day if we had the space/time/budget, so sharing a sweet notice of love is the next best thing.

58. Im pretty quiet on facebook anyway, but especially with my wedding because when it was first announced I got an invitation to a group for my own event! Made by my mother, where she’d been discussing it with people I hadnt been planning to invite…yeah. gave me a lot of anxiety actually.
    But my own friends list is only 46 people, and I don’t comment on my fiance’s posts with his friends much (just swoop in to defend him when they’re being dicks and leave with a kiss 😉 ) so I guess I keep the drama to a minimum by the sheer power of my social awkwardness. Most people wont even know till I change my name…or until a relative runs their mouth I guess

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