As I started to explore The Knot, I remembered how as a very young teenager I would actually say to myself that I was never going to get married. I was going to move out on my own when I was old enough and didn’t fantasize about wearing a big puffy princess white dress. As I got older, that mentality changed. Thinking about what I used to think, makes me believe that the fact that my dad passed away when I was four-years-old and my mom decided to never remarried, lead me to believe that marriage was not something to fantasize about. I also think that growing up seeing a hardworking widowed mother perhaps encouraged me to say that I was never going to get married. So while I didn’t dream my entire life about the day I would get married, my mentality has changed since my very young teenage years and I now cannot wait until the day I say “I do”. Exploring the bridal digital world and particularly The Knot was definitely a fun, exciting and interesting adventure for me.
In the initial stage of signing up to the website I found that it was pretty easy to get your information on there. When I joined The Knot, they did not ask me for any other questions other than:
- “Your name”
- “Fiancé’s name”
- “Address and phone number”
- “Wedding date and location”
- “Budget amount”
(For the purpose of this project, I entered fictional information for most of the data shown on these particular screenshots)
As I explored both the app and the website, I noticed that a to-do checklist gets generated based on your wedding date and it can be seen in both the app and the website. The checklist includes things you should be getting done for your wedding and it’s broken down by month all the way up until a few months after you say I do. Each month contains items that should get done that month so that everything runs smoothly throughout the wedding planning. In my experience, I found that the app was easier to use when it came to going through all the to-dos whereas the website was easier to use when exploring all kinds of vendors and seeing countless of pictures for everything that has to do with weddings. Within the to-dos checklist in the app, I had the option to sort my to-dos by “Essential”, “Completed To-Dos”, and “Deleted To-Dos”. I found this beneficial because in case I deleted a to-do by mistake, I could always go back and add it again. As I explored the sorting options, I noticed that it was helpful to have to option to delete items in the to-do list rather than only being able to check them off when you complete the item because there are things on the to-do list that not every bride will be doing for their wedding. Some of the items in the to-do list showed cultural aspects as well. For instance, items like: “Create Your Wedding Website” which was marked as “Essential”, “Send Engagement Announcements”, “Plan an Engagement Party”, and “Search for Rehearsal Dinner Venues” are items I deleted immediately because I knew these were things that we were not going to be doing. They didn’t go with our personally or with our culture. Surprisingly, I do have to say that I personally did find most of the items in the never-ending to-do list helpful. Below are screenshots of what the to-do checklist looks like on the app – you can see how everything breaks down by month.
“Change Your Name”, as you can see on the screenshot in the second screenshot above, is marked as “Essential” yet more and more women nowadays are keeping their last names. I have a friend that nearly felt insulted when she would be asked when was she going to change her name after she got married. So, yes, The Knot allows you to easily delete this item from your to-do list if that is something you are not going to be doing. However, seeing this as an “Essential” item made me wonder what are people saying about this topic. So I went online and researched a bit about it and here are the links of some of the articles I found interesting. Click here and here for the articles. I also think that although The Knot tries to keep it neutral in the initial sign up stage where it asks for you to enter your name and fiancé’s name without assuming that the bride is the one opening the account, this “Change Your Name” item assumes the bride is the one checking items off the list and assumes that it is “Essential” for her to change her name.
As I explored both the app and the website, I noticed that a to-do checklist gets generated based on your wedding date and it can be seen in both the app and the website. The checklist includes things you should be getting done for your wedding and it’s broken down by month all the way up until a few months after you say I do. Each month contains items that should get done that month so that everything runs smoothly throughout the wedding planning. In my experience, I found that the app was easier to use when it came to going through all the to-dos whereas the website was easier to use when exploring all kinds of vendors and seeing countless of pictures for everything that has to do with weddings. Within the to-dos checklist in the app, I had the option to sort my to-dos by “Essential”, “Completed To-Dos”, and “Deleted To-Dos”. I found this beneficial because in case I deleted a to-do by mistake, I could always go back and add it again. As I explored the sorting options, I noticed that it was helpful to have to option to delete items in the to-do list rather than only being able to check them off when you complete the item because there are things on the to-do list that not every bride will be doing for their wedding. Some of the items in the to-do list showed cultural aspects as well. For instance, items like: “Create Your Wedding Website” which was marked as “Essential”, “Send Engagement Announcements”, “Plan an Engagement Party”, and “Search for Rehearsal Dinner Venues” are items I deleted immediately because I knew these were things that we were not going to be doing. They didn’t go with our personally or with our culture. Surprisingly, I do have to say that I personally did find most of the items in the never-ending to-do list helpful. Below are screenshots of what the to-do checklist looks like on the app – you can see how everything breaks down by month.
As I continued exploring the to-do checklist, I found that one of the downfalls of the checklist is that I was not able to add my own to-dos to the checklist. So if there are certain traditions that are not listed in the checklist then you are not able to add them to the checklist The Knot provides. I was not able to think of traditions within my own culture that I needed to add on there – although I’m sure my mom will let me know of some or many, I don’t know, as I move along in my own wedding planning – but I thought about other weddings such as Indian weddings and the app didn’t seem to list some of their traditions in the to-dos checklist. For instance, thinking of Indian weddings, things like booking a vendor for their Mehndi, and a vendor to arrange their Dupatta or Sari, is not listed on the checklist. While the checklist seems to be an extensive one with nearly 200 items in it, it seems to leave out traditions for brides of other cultures. Another downfall is that you can’t add to your to-do list the data that pertains to the item you are checking off as complete. For instance, the option for “Estimating Your Guest Count” was listed but you are not able to actually enter the number on there. So while The Knot sells itself as a lifesaver for wedding planning, you still need other tools to record the data that relates to each checklist item. The checklist feature of The Knot works great for you to remember all you need to do, but you still need other tools outside what The Knot provides for ultimate results.
As I spent more time surfing through The Knot’s website, I found that, as I mentioned, this website serves more for looking for vendors and pictures of ideas for your wedding -- so it’s more visual than the app. You can search for venues around your area, you can see pictures of wedding dresses and vendors where to find them, and they even have a tab that says “Real Weddings” where you can see hairstyles from real brides. Now, this section really caught my eye mainly because I’ve been interested in looking to wear my hair down on my wedding day rather than doing the traditional updo hairstyle. So I thought this section would be helpful for me to look at non-traditional ideas. What I found surprising was that when I searched on their default listings (without filtering in any way) most of the hair styles shown on their list were from brides with blonde highlights or completely blonde hair. It didn’t matter whether they had their hair up or down, most of the pictures were from blonde brides. As I reflected on what I was seeing, I thought that all those pictures of brides with blonde hair were targeted to a particular demographic rather than providing a more diverse listing of hairstyles. Below are pictures of default hairstyles shown on The Knot’s website.
As I spent more time surfing through The Knot’s website, I found that, as I mentioned, this website serves more for looking for vendors and pictures of ideas for your wedding -- so it’s more visual than the app. You can search for venues around your area, you can see pictures of wedding dresses and vendors where to find them, and they even have a tab that says “Real Weddings” where you can see hairstyles from real brides. Now, this section really caught my eye mainly because I’ve been interested in looking to wear my hair down on my wedding day rather than doing the traditional updo hairstyle. So I thought this section would be helpful for me to look at non-traditional ideas. What I found surprising was that when I searched on their default listings (without filtering in any way) most of the hair styles shown on their list were from brides with blonde highlights or completely blonde hair. It didn’t matter whether they had their hair up or down, most of the pictures were from blonde brides. As I reflected on what I was seeing, I thought that all those pictures of brides with blonde hair were targeted to a particular demographic rather than providing a more diverse listing of hairstyles. Below are pictures of default hairstyles shown on The Knot’s website.
I don’t particularly have anything against dying my hair or against brides wanting to rock out their natural blonde hair or waiting to go blonde for their wedding day. However, it was stunning for me to see that majority of what The Knot was displaying was not diverse. As a teenager, I dyed my hair light brown and also red. I later had blonde highlights and then finally, when I became exhausted of constantly having to hide my roots, I dyed my hair black and allowed my natural dark brown hair to grow out. Since then, I never dyed my hair again. And I don’t foresee me changing my mind until perhaps when I start getting gray hair. So seeing that The Knot has a great amount of hairstyle ideas with blonde hair is a bit of a bummer because I can’t really picture my natural dark brown hair in most of those hairstyles. As I reflected on this, I also wondered if unintentionally or intentionally there is a cultural filter making you believe that to fit the traditional bride picture you must look like a blonde Barbie. Recently, right when I began this project, I was looking at pictures hairstyles online with my mom and she bluntly asked me if I was going to get highlights for my wedding day. I was stunned by her question since I had started this project and had noticed The Knot’s default pictures. I also realized that my sister, who has a very bold personality, went blonde for her wedding day and then just went back to her natural black hair. Many other brides I’ve seen have done the same thing so I really wonder if we are perhaps being culturally influenced to change our appearance for such an important day.
After seeing how The Knot seemed to be focusing on showing brides with blonde hair, I was curious to see what people were posting on Twitter with the hashtag #TheKnot. I noticed that while there weren’t as many pictures on there, there was definitely more diversity and less blonde brides.
After exploring The Knot, I thought that The Knot was a great tool to start you up with your wedding planning but it is, in a way, limited to a diversity of cultures. I would recommend any bride to try it out and see if it works for them. Throughout the wedding planning process, brides and grooms can always add other tools that can help them in their process to make sure they take care of everything that they want for their special day. So while any bride can find limitations while using The Knot as a tool, they can easily use other sources to assist them in their process.
No comments:
Post a Comment