Your Wedding and Facebook
September 22, 2009 · Posted in life by mo
I still remember the day I learned about Facebook. It was sometime in 2004, and I was walking back to my apartment with my friend Matthew after history class. We were dodging the usual suspects on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, when he enlightened me.
“Hey, have you heard of Facebook?”
“Facebook? What is that, some way to check people out without them knowing?”
“Ummm…sort of…it’s like Friendster, except better.”
“Better than Friendster? How is it different?”
“Well, for instance, it lists your class schedule, and then it will show you all the people who are in the class with you.”
“Whoa. Are you serious? How do they know what classes you’re taking, do you list them on your profile?”
“No, they have your class schedule because it’s linked to your school email account. You use that email to sign up.”
“WHOA.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, these guys at Harvard made it. Go sign up, IM me when you have your profile up and I’ll add you.”
So I did. Matthew became my first “friend”. And thus began my Facebook profile. These days, it seems like everyone is on Facebook. Old high school friends. People from work. Businesses. My relatives. I even set up a “Catbook” for my cat. It’s an easy way to get the word out…
…Which is why the boy was pretty adamant about not making a big deal of our engagement or changing our relationship status to “Engaged” on FB. He won’t even let me add his name to the “In a relationship with”, which I think is pretty ridiculous since we have something like 75 mutual friends on Facebook. (Surprise surprise! We’re dating!)
So we’re both listed as simply “In a relationship”. I deleted my blog from my profile, and there are only small scraps of information indicating that we are in fact engaged, like a photo from our e-session. We didn’t tell anyone when we bought a ring. We made phone calls to close friends when it was official.
Why? Well, simply, we wanted to avoid uncomfortable questions from people not invited (acquaintances we aren’t particularly close to). And, because they’re amazing, our friends haven’t really written anything wedding-related on our FB walls, without us having to tell them. On the flip side, I have seen many acquaintances post their engagement on FB, and I personally am not offended because I’m not that close to the couple. So I can see how posting about your wedding can be harmless too.
Do you post about your engagement/wedding on Facebook? Has anyone run into problems, or has everything been smooth sailing?
I got a couple “can’t wait to see it” comments on facebook from people who weren’t invited to the wedding, but maybe only from two people. And honestly, it is a lot easier to ignore the facebook comments then ones in person, because no one responds to every single comment they get! When you don’t respond they don’t normally ask again. I didn’t find any problems!
I really haven’t run into any problems on FB. We didn’t post our e-session or anything like that, but at the same time, we’re not hiding the fact that we’re getting married. Those who weren’t invited seem to still be supportive. I think roughly the whole time my fiance and I have been engaged (a year and a half), I may have had only one acquaintance passive aggressively make a comment about not getting invited.
Liz’s most recent blog post:
er, I think anyone that actually cares will eventually find out
We posted when we got engaged and so forth on FB. Most people were nice and just said congrats.
I had to reign hubby in on inviting the whole world but fb was a great way to include those who couldn’t make it. People still enjoy seeing our wedding photos on fb.
Linda’s most recent blog post: Tilapia and Pear Beet Salad
I think a lot of people want to be supportive and share in your enjoyment even if they’re not close enough to be invited. Well-wishes from friends outside your closest circle, are always good too!
I think most people generally know how close they are to the couple, and aren’t too suprised one way or the other. I’ve been on the fringe a couple times, and I know I will be… I wait and see if I get invited. Never too shocked either way, but always wish the couple well either way. Unless you have those tricky situations where someone thinks they’re way closer to you than you feel they are… in which case it will be trouble either way.
And as a non-close friend, and wedding obsesser….it’s always fun to hear about people’s everything. I mean… I read people’s blogs who I know nothing about! So I wouldn’t hesitate to share some information about being engaged, etc. I think whatever the couple is comfortable with is best. I mean… if you’re a person who shares what they ate for dinner and how many centimeters dialated you are on FB - why not share wedding deets? Personally, I wouldn’t share anything too personal, but that’s how I use FB in the first place.
That is too funny, facebook is how we announced! My future hubby changed his status to XXXX “asked THE question” and then 30 seconds later I made mine went to xxxx “said YES!” then we changed our relationship status.
We go the first phone call within 6 minutes and then our walls exploded. We never thought to do it any other way. It was the easiest way to tell people after the immediate family had been notified.
I have “looked in” on the wedding photos of many high school friends and such. I didn’t feel bad that I wasn’t invited, we aren’t that close. Most people know where they stand in your life and will accept it gracefully if you don’t include them with an invite.
We didn’t avoid facebook but we didn’t make it a big deal either. We did change status. After the wedding we posted pictures because people were asking us about them.
We didn’t have any problems with people on facebook. I did have problems with people in real life…co-workers and the like hinting pretty blatently that they assumed they were invited. Which they might have been if we were having a big, in-town wedding, but we were having a tiny, out-of-state wedding…and they all knew this.
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments! Good to know FB didn’t cause problems for most of you. I imagine pictures will be posted once we do get married, so it really is inevitable that people find out. I hope, as many of you have commented, the ones invited won’t be flaming mad but happy for us.
Mo’s most recent blog post: Poetic License Shoes
whoops, typo. I meant to say “the ones not invited” :)
My brothers found I was engaged on Facebook when I changed my relationship status. Whoops! I guess my parents didn’t call them like I thought…
