The Wed Tech Summit was hosted in San Francisco, CA, on November 10, 2014 and boasted a great attendance of wedding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. Panelists, including our CEO Preeti, discussed upcoming trends and necessary tips to stay on top of technology and wedding markets.
The event was conducive to new ideas and new connections – we learned a lot about how technology relates to wedding planning. Here’s what the 2015 forecast looks like for our beloved wedding industry:
Consumer Demands
From the “Future of the Wedding Industry Panel,” we learned that more and more traditional wedding planning and executing duties are being carried out online. Social media plays a big role in keeping brides and grooms connected to their guests and their planning team.
Most importantly, technology is changing the field as we know it. There’s now more collaboration between wedding vendors and consumers, and as this supply increase, the price of wedding planning is expected to fall with the simplicity factor of technology. As panelist Rob Farrow of Aisle Planner put it, “a wedding is like two personal brands coming together.” Technology now makes this daunting task a bit easier to coordinate.
Upcoming Challenges
Multiple panels, including “Future of the Wedding Industry” and “Bridging the Gap between the Wedding Consumer and Vendor,” discussed some challenges related to the growth of technology in such an intimate market.
One such challenge is how wedding vendors and companies can draw from multiple influences. Whether its a larger market like tech or marketing firms or global influences that redefine traditional wedding customs, it’s important that each player in the wedding industry understands that the scope has expanded. It’s no longer just one small market or one target consumer – weddings are getting bigger and more personalized, so vendors and consumers alike need to stay connected and focused.
Another challenge is increasing technology knowledge for vendors. One audience member, a photographer, asked a bold question: when will there be an app that allows vendors to personalize themselves so clients can find the one that suits them? While some apps rank vendors by user ratings, there’s yet to be a device that sorts vendors by specialty or profile. Increasing vendor information via social media or other tech would help brides and grooms find their perfect fit for their big day.
Social Media Trends
Preeti joined a panel with speakers from Indiegogo, TourNative, and BlogHer, to discuss “Social Media and Building Community.” This panel was particularly well received, as audience members had a lot of questions about how social media is changing with the advent of more technologies and how wedding vendors and consumers can adapt.
One key lesson from this panel: technology still needs human interaction. While it’s easy to program a Twitter Bot to blast tweets for you, it’s not easy to reveal the human behind the screen. Vendors, consumers, and all wedding enthusiasts need to know the person helping them out – even if they want to make use of online services. Wedding industry members should remember to attach a personality to their brand and maintain their reputations. It’s important to have your brand and to defend it.
Preeti gave an example of how inappropriate comments regularly pop up on our Facebook page or website and how we respond to them. She mentions that it’s important to hold your ground – no matter how many likes their comment gets or how it is perceived, we discard rude comments in order to make a happy, inclusive space for our readers. Defending your brand is one way to stand out across the wide abyss of impersonal social media.
The WedTech summit welcomed wedding industry participants from photographers to planners, and the result was a huge success. We’d like to thank the moderators and organizors for such an informative and fun event, and we look forward to meeting more inspiring wedding enthusiasts in the near future!