Social Media Mania Hits Weddings

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. You could spend countless hours online, mixing and mingling with old buddies and new friends alike. Both Twitter and Facebook report having more than 1 billion unique visitors per month. Facebook alone reports having more than 50 million active pages. Everyone’s doing it from home computers, tablets and smart phones. For celebrities (think about the whole Aston and Demi drama) to regular Joes like us, the trend for interacting via social media just keeps growing exponentially. At Groomstand.com, we even have several groomsmen gifts that would be apropos for the guy who doesn’t like to be far from his virtual friends. A popular choice in gifts for groomsmen who tweet and Facebook from their cells is a monogramed iPhone case. If you want to splurge on your Best Man, consider our city-style urban briefcase crafted from genuine leather, the perfect parking spot for his laptop when not in use!

You know that social media has gone too far when a groom breaks out his cell phone at the wedding altar to update is Facebook status. Well, that’s exactly what a man from Maryland did after exchanging vows with his newly anointed wife. Apparently he wrote “Standing at the altar with (bride’s name) where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride!” Even the preacher got in on the joke by saying “It’s now official on Facebook. It’s official in my book. You may kiss your bride.” We’re not sure, but we suspect he might have had on a pair of our personalized cufflinks that resemble miniature iPhones – yes, iPhone cufflinks!

You could hear the laughter and chatter from the guests sitting in the pews as the preacher announces what the groom is doing. But, is this one of those things that you just politely laugh along to, or is it really funny? Something seems odd about making everyone wait (including the preacher, although he didn’t seem to mind) while you thumb-type in a message meant to be sent out across the Internet. For goodness sakes, they were at the altar in a church! A house of God! We hope that he didn’t also use Twitter to mention every little detail of the honeymoon.

Unfortunately, Facebook can also be a way to break up with a spouse. Can you believe a woman actually found out her marriage was over via a message her husband posted on the social networking site? Well, actually the wife didn’t see it first, her friends did. A concerned friend called by a friend to “see if she was alright” and when she seemed to not know what she was talking about, the friend advised her to check online. Upon logging into Facebook, she found out her obviously-now-estranged husband had posted “that he had ended his marriage.” When the man was questioned, he added that he’d “had enough of her.” So, what do you think of this use of Facebook? It reminds us of when Big from “Sex in the City” broke up with Carrie Bradshaw on a Post-it note.

Another wedding Facebook story with a happier ending involves two people with same exact name. Kelly Hildebrant, a guy from Texas, met a girl from Florida named Kelly Hildebrant and now the two are happily married. The whole coincidence happened when the girl decided to look up her own name of Facebook and the male Kelly was the only other face that popped up. She friended him, he friended back and now the lovebirds are hitched happily ever after.