The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Wedsites are the latest rage!

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Wedsites are the latest rage!

Yogendra Kalavalapalli

New fad: One of the customised wedding websites.

HYDERABAD: When Sree Sudha, a software engineer first glanced at the computer screen, she was thrilled. Her “creatively-oriented” fiancée Subbu Peteti had a surprise in store for her. Donning his imagination cap, Mr. Subbu, CEO of Satya Media hit upon a novel idea to impress his lady-love: design a wedding invite website.

The catch: he didn’t have to dabble with the technical hurdles of designing a website.

Web pages, internal links and domain names were all pre-configured and he just had to pen romantic prose. As he keyed in his e-mail address, friends were invited in no time.

Welcome to the era of free, customised wedding websites popularly referred to as ‘Wedsites’.

A wedsite is one stop shop to reveal all about one’s wedding. Though a rage in the West, they are relatively a new concept in our country, says Vikas Sabnani, CEO of Virtual Life Style Pvt. Ltd. that manages FirstPhera.com, a wedsite. “I first introduced my wife to my friends through our wedsite, a cooler and convenient way to introduce her that also saved me the trouble of repeating the same things,” says Vikram, another user.

Wedding announcement apart, couples can also write down how they met, courtship days, engagement, snippets about their wedding or anything related to their connubial beginning – honeymoon plans included!

It doesn’t end there. Videos and pictures can be posted, background music played, and conversation on wedding preparations, wedding dresses, sangeet/mehendi ceremonies and the likes be initiated. The discussion board of FirstPhera.com, for example, contains some chirpy questions like ‘who is luckier’ (bride or groom), duet song suggestions or little secrets of the couple from their past. An application even conveys a couple’s gift wish list to their friends.

Another wedsite ‘ourwedding.in’, apart from the routine features, also offers services such as task reminders, details of wedding venues in major cities, information on wedding customs and traditions and budget planner to keep track of expenses.

“Although there are many matrimonial websites, very few offer directories exclusively for weddings and wedding planning services free. We aim to be the one-stop solution for tech-savvy couples and help them utilise technology to make their wedding celebrations more enjoyable,” says Natesh Babu CEO of ourwedding.in.

The wedsite trend has already caught up in tier-I cities. While FirstPhera.com boasts 200 wedsite registrations a day, ourwedding.in has page views in excess of 6,000 any given day. Well, with even social lives going online, will the “most-treasured-moment-of-my-life” be far behind?

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