By Damien Hutchins, Flicker Stage

You are a techno-savvy groom-to-be. You planned your wedding in the cloud. You had a spreadsheet in Google Docs outlining every detail of every one of your vendors. A shared Evernote notebook so that you and your bride-to-be could stay on the same page with your guest list. You have a website that acts as the wedding hub for friends, family and even your planner.

You wouldn’t dream of an “unplugged” wedding, forcing your guests to silence their phones, and stop updating their statuses. Let us help you cover the walls with LCD displays, and make your wedding the envy of every software engineer on your guestlist!

Guest Entertainment
Interaction is key when it comes to the latest high tech entertainment offerings. A new style of guest entertainment like Flicker Stage photo booths, deliver with a twist on the traditional booth. With image quality you would expect from a fully equipped studio, and a sleek look more reminiscent of a six foot tall iPod, the images taken on the free standing photo tower will be beamed to monitors throughout your venue, or projected instantly on a wall. It doesn’t stop there, all the pictures taken can be shared from any mobile device at the wedding and posted instantly to social media networks.

Interactive Surfaces
Continuing the theme of “twists on the traditional” why not liven up the dance floor or bar counter with a little interactive projected show? Companies like GestureTek offer some amazing surface computing technology that will turn a horizontal surface into an interactive game, menu, reactive visual display, or maybe even just a slideshow of when you and your blushing bride to be were just sprouts! A quick game of Angry Birds while you wait for your eighth round of Jager Bombs? Yes please! Check out this video for some inspiration on what can be done with this tech!

Live Event Streaming
With all of your guests tweeting away about how geek-a-licious your reception is, there will no-doubt be some invitees that could not make it to your wedding. They don’t have to go ignored, nearly any place you hold your reception will have wifi, and that bandwidth can be put to work streaming the party right to your Meemaw’s laptop! There are numerous options ranging from Marry Me Live’s roaming videographer, to just setting up a webcam and using a free Ustream account. Now during your Uncle’s inappropriately slow dance with his latest girlfriend, you can know that the whole world is watching in horror right along with you!

Photo Aggregation
Remember back in the 90’s when you would go to a wedding and there would be a pile of disposable cameras at each table? Well, now most of your guests will have a camera on their smartphone that can take some very decent shots. Encourage the picture taking! Your guests just install a simple app like PictureClique or Wedding Snap and it will save each photo to a common gallery that you control!

These are just a few ideas, and with the rate of ever-improving technology, there are more ideas coming to market every day!

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Why types of gadgets will you be utilizing on your wedding day? Leave a comment below and tell us how technology will help make your wedding day great.

Going to a wedding this summer? In a wedding this summer? Maybe even it’s your wedding this summer? Well, you’re going to have to learn to dance! From grooms breaking out the Thriller dance to the classic bride and groom first dance, dancing is popular and you need to know how to join in the fun.

The popularity of some of these dances will vary depending on the crowd you hang with, but you can’t go wrong if you learn them.

Couple Dance steps/moves

The Waltz – Simple, 4 beat step, fancier than the sway in place slow dance, but not so fancy that a dancing challenged guy can’t do it. One note of warning, if you’re the groom, make sure that your first dance song is in fact a waltz (not a foxtrot or other tempo) before you try to waltz to it. It’s worth taking a few private dance lessons with your fiancée and letting the instructor teach you how to dance to your song.

The Fast Step- The refuge of bad dancers everywhere for generations – repeat after me – step touch, step touch. That’s all you need to do. Shake your hips a little bit and throw in some arms and you’re good to go for almost any faster tempo song. If you really can’t dance, throw in some stupid faces and make fun of yourself.

Cha Cha – The great thing about the Cha Cha is that it’s simpler than the tango, rumba, or salsa. If you can do two slow steps followed by three fast ones you can dance to almost any Latin-influenced beat.

Two Step – The Two Step is a good dance to learn because it works for both Country-Western dances and a lot of Ethnic dance forms such as the Polka. It can also be used for the unexplainably popular “Cotton Eye Joe” dance.

Group Dances

The Wobble The modern day version of The Electric Slide, although, the Electric Slide is still pretty darn popular.

The Dougie – If Michelle Obama can do it, so can you!

Cupid Shuffle – Some DJs and bands say this is losing popularity, but others report it being frequently requested.

The Chair Dance – No, not a lap dance. Raising the bride and groom up on a chair used to only be part of the Jewish dance, the Hora. But today, all sorts of couples are doing it. If you’re the groom, your only job is to not fall off and look like you’re having fun. If you’re a guest your job is to make sure the bride and groom do not fall.

If you’re looking for more great wedding entertainment info, check out the GigMasters Wedding Blog.

What are your go-to dance moves for wedding receptions? Do you go with proven classics or improvise as you go? Leave a comment below.

With so many people in attendance, it’s almost impossible for one or two photographers to capture all the action at the wedding. Not to mention, once the guests actually do arrive, the photographers won’t really know who is an important family member and who is the hot date of a long-lost cousin.

The guests will take lots of pictures but most of them will get scattered on many different Facebook profiles anyways! It’s a headache to see them all, let alone collecting them all in one place.

Wedding Snap has created a very easy and high value solution. You sign up, create an album code (e.g. Ashley25), and share that album code among your guests through 250 personalized information cards that Wedding Snap sends you. Your guests will download the FREE Wedding Snap app to their iPhones or Androids. Every picture that your guests take through the app, a copy of it will be automatically uploaded directly to your album. The guests that don’t have smartphones can still upload their digital camera photos directly to your album after the wedding. This way, all your wedding memories are preserved in place without begging your guests for months or spending countless hours on Facebook to see all your guests’ photos.

With Wedding Snap, you can:
•    Upload wedding photos before, during, and after the event
•    Store unlimited photos of your wedding for a full year
•    Create additional albums for your bachelor/bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, etc.
•    Download all your pictures to your personal computer at once
•    Have a LIVE slideshow of all the guests’ photos at your wedding
•    Have 150 personalized info cards for your guests.

If you care about preserving your wedding memories, you should take advantage of this opportunity now. The first 10 people can get 50% off the Original or Premium Wedding Snap package with the code: Groom50

This is a video slideshow of the photos from one of Wedding Snap’s weddings:

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Will you and your bride be using an iPhone or Android app to capture your guests wedding photos? What do you like most about the Wedding Snap app? Let us know in the comment section below.

The personal aspect of Storymix Media gives it a unique touch. Instead of a standard videographer, your wedding footage is captured by your friends and family.  Since last year’s contest, we’re happy to report that many of our readers have used Storymix’s WeddingMix service to capture the fun, goofy, and crazy moments from their wedding.  The fact that couples get to use an online storyboard to decide what goes into the final product means your brother’s embarrassing attempt to hit on a bridesmaid during the toasts won’t get left out.

Now Storymix has upped the ante and has come out with with a new iPhone app to capture the before, during and after moments of the wedding.  That means that those last moments as a bachelor can be remembered forever on video.  Plus, even more people can contribute to your video. Anyone with an iPhone or iPad can capture the great stories, memories and laughs from your big day.

To celebrate the release of the app, Storymix is giving away a FREE WeddingMix package worth $400. The goal of the contest is to capture the memorable, unique pre-wedding experiences that feature the groom and his buddies having a good time before the big day, whether it’s having beers during the bachelor party, trying on retro tuxes or playing a pre-wedding round of golf.

THREE WAYS TO ENTER:

1. Each video sent to the Storymix Facebook wall will get you 10 entries into the contest. All you need to do is download the app for free (search WeddingMix on the App Store) and use The Man Registry “wedding” in the list with code 5P6X8.  You can upload the videos directly from the app to Storymix and your Facebook wall.  Then tag the video in FB (@Storymix in the description so we know who the video is from).  Feel free to also add videos from other devices as well.

2. Receive one additional entry each time you tweet this: #GroomsGoneWild over free wedding video package from @Storymix & @TheManRegistry http://goo.gl/HMven

3. Finally, receive one additional entry for each time you write a comment on the Facebook Timeline of The Man Registry or Storymix Media. Comments should state why you want to win the Storymix video package.

Don’t delay, the contest runs through May 6 and then we’ll draw a winner.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few unique clips grooms have taken with Storymix over the last year.

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Videos deemed inappropriate will be removed. Contest will end at 11:59pm PST on Sunday May 6, 2012. Winner will be contacted via email or Facebook. Family members of Storymix Media or The Man Registry, LLC employees are ineligible to win.

In the mobile world, where no one does anything without a smartphone, it’s about time someone came up with a really useful service that makes keeping everyone informed about the wedding easy, practical, and beautiful.

Enter Appy Couple, the hottest new wedding planning iPhone/iPad app.

Face it, a mobile app for your wedding is so much cooler than a website—although they give you one of those too, just in case you need it.

It’s easy to use the app. Simply go online to appycouple.com, choose a design, and create an account. After that, it’s just a matter of adding info in their really well thought-out interface, uploading photos and filling in event details. It’s all real-time, so you can check out how your app looks every step of the way.

Appy Couple incorporates cutting edge technology throughout their whole system. Simple things, like being able to drag and drop Facebook contacts into your wedding party circles without posting anything to Facebook, have been integrated in the process by their team of master engineers.

Even more importantly, the Appy Couple team has taken great pains to get into the heads of couples in the midst of wedding planning purgatory… and done everything they can to smooth the way.

For instance: there’s plenty of scope for your fiancée to exercise her creativity and make sure even the app coordinates with her theme. She can choose color swatches, add music selections linked to iTunes, create an unlimited number of guest polls to ask anything from “What should we eat?” to “Who will catch the garter?” There are scores of designs to suit every wedding style. And of course, you might want to get in on the action too…

Appy Couple makes communicating with guests easier and more fun as well. You can shoot out a save-the-date to everyone as you add them to the guest list, and send an email about how to join your wedding on the Appy Couple app. The system is built to handle it, so you don’t have to bcc hundreds of people.

Guests can upload pictures to the app in real-time during events. That means no headaches trying to get all the photos together after the fact. They can shop the registry with a tap, add events to their calendars, RSVP without using a stamp and map their way while on-the-go.

The app is always free for guests. And although there will soon be a one-time setup fee for couples, right now, Appy Couple is in invitation-only mode… and they’re offering GroomsAdvice readers the chance to get it free using this code: GASP1.

The only catch is that they really want your honest feedback about the service. So head over to appycouple.com, use your GroomsAdvice code & let them know what you think.

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appy couple is a sponsor of the man registry’s groomsadvice blog

Do you know anyone who’s used a mobile app to help plan their wedding? What function of Appy Couple would you find most useful? Let us know in the comment section below.