NorCal wedding forums.
I think just about everyone getting married nowadays leans on the internet for planning advice and support. I thought I've give my thoughts about some of the popular forums and bulletin boards out there.
Wedding Channel's Nor Cal forum. Mildly active. Most folks are looking for vendor recs, particularily hair/make-up. You really need to go to topic-specific forums to get more activity and the community feel. Searching the archives is very useful if you want to past recommendations, but WC, at some point, switched their forum software, so links created in the old forum's pseudo-HTML are broken.
The Knot's Nor Cal forum. I can't comment much on content; the awkward awfulness of TheKnot's forum structure has successfully driven me away. Even more awful than the forum structure: a video stream starts automatically every time you visit the page. Search function is awful. Did I mention how awful this is? The planning tools are fabulous, but look elsewhere for advice and camaraderie.
Craigslist WedFo. There's also the secret forums: WedFitFo, WedShareFo, Secret WedFo. By far the most active, most addictive, and with the most community feel, but also has the most drama. CL, in true nerd stylee, favors an open and free internet, and thus requires minimal registration (if any) and favors a self-governing attitude. However, the trolling and frenzied reactions to trolling create a never-ending meta-conversation about the forum and legitimate posts have a defensive tone.
The ideas and suggestions are fairly run-of-the-mill; it's a good place to start if you've got no idea where to start. You could probably go in, hang around for 3 months, and get all you're ever going to get from it. Search is especially useful to see only posts with photos (use "img" as the keyword search), but I'm uncertain how long CL keeps their archives.
Kvetch at Indiebride.com Not NorCal specific, but it is my favorite. The women generally are nicer, more articulate, more resourceful. There are dedicated topics to marriage topics, not just wedding stuff. Their suggestions are more inspired than the usual poofy-dress weddings. Search is pretty good, too. Drawbacks: it has a nice community, but is fairly dead when compared to CL's WedFo. Also, there's some quirk in their forum software that requires you to register with a free account like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail, or else email the forum admin for approval.
Wedding Channel's Nor Cal forum. Mildly active. Most folks are looking for vendor recs, particularily hair/make-up. You really need to go to topic-specific forums to get more activity and the community feel. Searching the archives is very useful if you want to past recommendations, but WC, at some point, switched their forum software, so links created in the old forum's pseudo-HTML are broken.
The Knot's Nor Cal forum. I can't comment much on content; the awkward awfulness of TheKnot's forum structure has successfully driven me away. Even more awful than the forum structure: a video stream starts automatically every time you visit the page. Search function is awful. Did I mention how awful this is? The planning tools are fabulous, but look elsewhere for advice and camaraderie.
Craigslist WedFo. There's also the secret forums: WedFitFo, WedShareFo, Secret WedFo. By far the most active, most addictive, and with the most community feel, but also has the most drama. CL, in true nerd stylee, favors an open and free internet, and thus requires minimal registration (if any) and favors a self-governing attitude. However, the trolling and frenzied reactions to trolling create a never-ending meta-conversation about the forum and legitimate posts have a defensive tone.
The ideas and suggestions are fairly run-of-the-mill; it's a good place to start if you've got no idea where to start. You could probably go in, hang around for 3 months, and get all you're ever going to get from it. Search is especially useful to see only posts with photos (use "img" as the keyword search), but I'm uncertain how long CL keeps their archives.
Kvetch at Indiebride.com Not NorCal specific, but it is my favorite. The women generally are nicer, more articulate, more resourceful. There are dedicated topics to marriage topics, not just wedding stuff. Their suggestions are more inspired than the usual poofy-dress weddings. Search is pretty good, too. Drawbacks: it has a nice community, but is fairly dead when compared to CL's WedFo. Also, there's some quirk in their forum software that requires you to register with a free account like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail, or else email the forum admin for approval.
posted by Stacy J. | 10:36 AM
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