Your Wedding Doesn't Need the Algorithm

I have a confession to make.

I hate social media.

That probably sounds a little ridiculous coming from someone who has spent the last few weeks posting more on social media than I have in quite some time. A few of those videos have even taken off—at least by my relatively modest standards—and suddenly thousands of people who have never met me are watching me marry people they have never met either.

You would think that would inspire me to post more.

Instead, it has mostly reminded me how much I hate social media.

And this wasn't always the case. Back in the day, I loved it. I loved posting photos, creating graphics, coming up with ideas and finding different ways to tell a story. Believe it or not, marketing and advertising is actually something I majored in.

Audible gasp.

Somewhere along the way, though, social media changed. Or maybe I did. Probably both.

Today, it feels less like creating something and sharing it and more like trying to solve a constantly changing equation. You need the right hook in the first two seconds. The video can't be too long. Don't forget the text on the screen. Use the trending audio. Post at the right time. Get people to comment. Make sure you're talking to the camera. Apparently, somewhere inside Meta headquarters, there is an algorithm deciding whether the fifteen seconds I spent standing in front of two people getting married is worthy of being shown to another human being.

It's absurd to me.

More importantly, when it comes to Hitched! By Harper, going viral isn't supposed to be the job.

You are.

I was reminded of this recently when I decided I should try making one of those "talking head" videos after a wedding. You've seen them. Someone walks toward the camera and casually shares some profound thought while somehow looking completely natural doing it.

So there I was, still in my suit after a wedding, walking down a hallway holding my camera slightly above my head and talking to myself like I had suddenly become an influencer.

I made it a few sentences before cringing.

Tried again.

Cringed harder.

Eventually, I gave up, ripped the suit off, got in the car and drove home thinking about how ridiculous I must have looked.

I don't think the internet lost anything of value that day.

But my bigger issue with wedding social media isn't even what it expects from vendors like me. It's what it seems to expect from you.

If your social media feeds look anything like mine, you probably can't scroll very far without someone telling you how you're supposed to have your wedding.

Five things your guests secretly hate.

Three wedding traditions you need to ditch.

The one thing couples always regret.

What's "in" this year.

What's "out."

What isn't worth your money.

What you absolutely must spend money on.

What your photographer wishes you'd stop doing. What your DJ wants you to know. What your venue coordinator thinks you should change. What some person who attended three weddings last summer has apparently decided every bride in America needs to hear.

Everybody has an opinion.

And somewhere underneath all of that advice, I think we've lost one of the simplest pieces of wedding advice there is:

It's your day.

Do you.

Of course, listen to the professionals you've hired. Take advice from people you trust. Learn from the experiences of others. There are incredibly talented people in this industry who share genuinely useful information, and trends aren't inherently bad. Sometimes they're fun. Sometimes they introduce you to an idea you never would have considered otherwise.

But your wedding isn't supposed to be a collection of decisions that received the internet's approval.

The only two people whose opinions ultimately have to survive the wedding are the two people getting married.

I was reminded of that yesterday.

After officiating a wedding, someone came up to me and said, "That was the most entertaining ceremony I have ever been to."

I'll pause briefly here to toot my own horn.

Toot.

But what stuck with me wasn't really the compliment. It was why I think the ceremony felt that way to them.

I wasn't standing up there trying to entertain a room full of people. I was talking about the two people everyone had come there to celebrate.

Their story. Their personalities. Their quirks. Their families. The things they love about one another. The ridiculous little stories that could only belong to them. The moments that shaped their relationship and the ordinary pieces of their life that explain why they work.

And when you do that, something interesting happens.

The guests aren't simply watching a ceremony anymore. They're being invited further into the lives of the people they already love.

For twenty-ish minutes, everybody gets to remember why they're there.

That's something I think gets lost surprisingly easily in weddings.

The flowers can be beautiful. The photographs can look incredible. The venue can be breathtaking. The food can be on point. The music can be fantastic. You can have the perfect dress, perfect tablescape, perfect signature cocktail and whatever else Instagram has decided we're supposed to care about this week.

And I hope you have every single one of those things if they matter to you.

But at some point during that day, everybody you love is going to sit down together in one place.

They're going to stop talking.

They're going to turn around.

And they're going to watch you.

Not the centerpieces.

Not the content.

Not the trend.

You.

That's the part of a wedding I get to see from a perspective very few people ever will. I'm standing just a few feet away from you, but I'm also looking out at everyone who came to celebrate you. I get to see your parents' faces. Your grandparents. Your siblings. Your college friends trying not to cry. The person in the third row absolutely failing at trying not to cry. I get to hear a room full of people laugh because they recognize exactly the version of you I'm talking about.

For those twenty-ish minutes, all of the other stuff disappears.

Nobody cares what the algorithm thinks.

They're just celebrating two people they love.

Maybe that's also why the handful of videos I've posted lately have connected with people online. The irony isn't lost on me that I'm complaining about social media in an article inspired by people watching my social media. But I don't think those moments worked because I figured out some secret formula.

I think they worked because they felt real.

And I'll take real over viral every single time.

So my presence on the internet will probably continue to come and go with inspiration. I'll post when I have something worth sharing. I'll occasionally convince myself that this time I'll become the guy who confidently talks to a camera in a hallway. I'll probably continue trying to understand what Meta wants from me before eventually deciding I don't care.

Wedding trends will come and go too. What's considered timeless today will eventually look dated. Something we're currently calling outdated will inevitably become trendy again.

But the reason I do this doesn't change with any of it.

It's you.

It's your partner.

It's your love story.

It's your family and your friends sitting in those chairs.

It's giving everybody you love twenty minutes to laugh with you, cry with you, learn something about you and remember exactly why they showed up.

The internet doesn't need to understand your wedding.

The people in the room do.

And most importantly, when all of those people go home, the two of you should be able to look at each other and know that the day felt unmistakably, unapologetically like you.