Google Docs & Weddings

Picture this – you invited 300 guests to your wedding and you have 4 hardworking helpers manning the registration counter for you. Each helper has his/her own identical guest list and each list is divided into different categories i.e. groom’s relatives, bride’s relatives, groom’s friends, bride’s brides etc. Let’s complicate things further. You now have 500 guests and to make things a wee bit more difficult, your “relatives category” (of you guests list) is now further sub-divided into more categories – relatives from Penang, relatives from Hong Kong and relatives from Neverland. As if it’s not complicated enough, let’s add another twist. Relative A seated in Table X wanna swap seats with Relative B seated in Table Y and this change is reflected only on Helper 1’s list and Helper 2,3 & 4 have absolutely no idea what’s going on. And at end of the day, you’ll need to consolidate all the lists into one. Annoyingly familiar? You bet.

But fret not. The wedding party at this wedding I attended had a novel yet simple solution. Welcome to the world of Google Docs! All you need is internet connection, laptops and of course a valid Gmail account. You only need to update a single guestlist on Google Docs and all 4 laptops will access the same document and the update is real-time. No more separate guest list. No more consolidation. And you know exactly who came for your wedding and who “skipped class”…..minus all the hassle.









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