There’s no denying the value of a professional wedding photographer, but that’s not to say that guests don’t sometimes snap some gems of their own. Aiming to give newlyweds a place to gather all those amateur treasures, Olapic is a Columbia Business School startup that allows users to easily gather, share and print guests’ pictures from their special day.

Couples begin by creating a profile on Olapic and uploading the email addresses of their guests; Olapic then reminds everyone to bring their cameras to the wedding. After the big event, the site will stay in touch with guests via emails and cards to remind them to upload their pictures. Once they do, the pictures remain private until the happy couple decides to make them public, whether on Olapic or on their Facebook, Flickr or Picasa accounts. Unlike most social networking sites, Olapic allows not just those strict privacy controls but also bulk downloads of high-quality pictures; it also offers printing services to generate albums and prints. Couples can try Olapic for free for up to 100 photos. After that, a flat fee of USD 99 includes unlimited photo storage for a year (annual renewals are USD 25) along with 100 high-quality reminder cards to give to guests. Olapic also gives professional photographers the opportunity to offer additional services by incorporating guests’ photos into their own offerings.

At weddings—as virtually everywhere else in life these days—user-generated content is an increasingly valuable complement to what the professionals create. Help make sure it gets captured and enjoyed, and you’ll soon be smiling for the cameras yourself! (Related: Email a photo to send prints to friends & family — Easy photo sales, direct from anyone’s blog.)

Website: www.olapic.com
Contact: info@olapic.com

Spotted by: Marta Plana

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We’ve seen a couple of Canadian businesses that aim to improve the gift-giving process: DreamBank, which lets people collect donations towards their dream purchases, and ECHOage, which does much the same thing for kids’ birthday parties. Now bringing the concept over to the world of matrimony is UponOurStar, a startup also out of Canada that aims to be a “wedding registry for wishes.”

Couples about to be married typically provide a list of all the physical goods they’d like to receive, but on UponOurStar, they register instead their wishes and dreams. Once they sign up with the site, couples get a customizable web page to share with their wedding guests. There they can describe the wishes they’d love to have granted–”our first home,” for example, or “a college fund for our future family.” UponOurStar provides tasteful e-invitations to the site for guests, and when contributions come in, it notifies the happy couple by email. When the wedding date has passed, couples can log in and collect their funds via bank transfer. It’s free for couples to create a registry and send e-invitations to guests. A fee of 2.5 percent of donations is withheld for credit card processing, while a one-time amount of USD 15 is paid to the couple’s bank for the direct deposit. Guests, meanwhile, are charged a transaction fee of 6 percent.

As the growing ranks of transumers increasingly seek experiences rather than things, it stands to reason that traditional services like the wedding registry will need to be updated. One to emulate for all the happy—but stuff-averse—couples in your neck of the matrimonial woods…?

Website: www.uponourstar.com
Contact: www.uponourstar.com/wedding-gift-registry-ContactUs.aspx#contact

Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski

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