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| Marriage & Wedding Information |
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Wedding Planning: Tips for Choosing Online Wedding Vendors
If you're looking to the internet for help with your wedding plans, you're sure to benefit from the wealth of organizational and comprehensive wedding tips, ideas, tools and resources available right at your fingertips! The internet is packed with useful websites, as well as online stores offering every wedding product and service imaginable. You'll find everything from wedding invitations, wedding keepsakes and wedding favors to online bridal gift registries, travel agencies for destination weddings and honeymoons, wedding consulting services and much more. To ensure that you can recognize and hire or purchase from qualified wedding vendors, the key is to be aware of a few general guidelines. First, it's important to understand the two basic kinds of online wedding vendors with whom you may choose to do business with. Wedding Vendor Type 1) An actual, physical storefront who opts to have a website to further broaden their customer base and supplement their offline business. + Possible benefits of this type of wedding vendor: This is a wonderful opportunity for you, as you may familiarize yourself with the wedding vendor's offerings via their website and then choose to drop by their store to have a look around and complete your purchase in person. Or you may do this vice-versa - have a look around their store and then go online to make your purchase. This is a very flexible consumer environment for you, as there can be multiple sources of contact and convenient ways to browse! You can also get a personal feel for the type and level of service you may expect from the wedding vendor and their staff. - Possible drawbacks to this type of wedding vendor: Though not true or hard to measure in many cases, the wedding vendor with a physical storefront does have the potential to be more expensive. And though the storefront exists, it may not be within reasonable driving distance for you to visit in person and explore. Wedding Vendor Type 2) A virtual store who deals exclusively online. + Possible benefits of this type of wedding vendor: You'll often find a reasonable value for your dollar here, as in many cases, online wedding vendors tend to have lower overhead. As well, take advantage of shopping anytime you feel like it...even if it's the middle of the night! - Possible drawbacks to this type of wedding vendor: In general, you will never actually meet the wedding vendor with whom you are entrusting a certain aspect of your wedding to. To some brides and grooms, this may be worry-some, for others, not a big deal. Do what feels right for you, as this issue may be dependant upon what item or area of your wedding you are shopping for. What to Look for in an Online Wedding Vendor: If applicable, browse through photographs, screenshots, detailed spec lists, virtual tours and any other information provided. When dealing with products specifically, many websites display close-up versions of product pictures, which accurately showcase items from several different angles or viewing points. Take it a step further and type the appropriate business name or web address into your search engine of choice to spend at least a few minutes paging through the search results on a particular wedding vendor before buying. You may find articles and press releases about the wedding vendor. Even more helpful: you may come across forums or other valuable feedback from brides and grooms who have personally dealt with the wedding vendor. Keep these general guidelines in mind while shopping online for your wedding, and you'll be ready to make smart, conscientious decisions. When you choose to be informed and aware, you possess savvy online shopper skills that enable you to make the best wedding product or service purchases for you and your dream wedding! About the Author Jennifer Benson is Vice President and cofounder of WedQuarters.com Wedding Websites, a leading online wedding service provider. WedQuarters offers complete personal wedding websites, enhanced with dozens of useful and fun features.
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