No matter how much time you give yourself for your wedding planning–or any large event planning, for that matter–it often seems like it’s never quite enough. Small details build up to a last minute crescendo, unexpected events occur, and–let’s face it–procrastination is always there to undermine your schedule. At least, it is for me. So it’s essential to find resources to make the best, most efficient use of your time…and if it’s effortless and procrastination-friendly, so much the better.
Today’s timesaving tip: leverage on passive research! Sound like cheating? Nope, just good old fashioned multi-tasking, the kind that doesn’t refer to dozens of windows opened up on a computer screen. Research your wedding planning while at the gym or on your morning jog, while sitting in commute traffic, or whenever you can pop on the headphones. The best part? All you have to do is listen.
Wedding planning podcasts are like on-demand talk radio segments, covering all things wedding. Divided into short episodes and organized by topic, they’re one-click research tools that you can listen to–and learn from–any time you like. It’s pretty effortless to synch your iPod or MP3 player to the podcasts in iTunes for on-the-go research, or just listen right on your computer.
Two of the larger online wedding podcast providers are The Wedding Planning Audiocast and Wedding Podcast Network, both excellent resources.
The Wedding Planning Audiocast
The Wedding Planning Audiocast is organized into planning categories: Photographers, Cakes, Favors, Beauty, and so forth. You can select from their home page highlights or use the topical menu on the left to drive into individual categories, where you’ll find the actual podcasts:
Podcast selections in the Beauty section of The Wedding Planning Audiocast
Podcasts can be played directly on your browser, but as I mentioned the real timesaving advantage comes when you load these goodies on your portable media player such as an iPod, and take your passive research to go.
Wedding Podcast Network
Wedding Podcast Network is organized by channels or shows, such as: “Travel Talk”, which highlights destination weddings and honeymoons, “Nearlywedcast”, featuring soon-to-be-weds and their own advice, or “Grooms with a View”, topics from his perspective. “Meet the Masters” is a show with episodes of various wedding professionals sharing their expertise, similar to the episodes featured on The Wedding Planning Audiocast. Podcasts are arranged here more by date (in the archive menu) than topic and listed in individual entries similar to blog posts. There’s even the feature to read and post comments.
Part of a podcast entry on Wedding Podcast Network's "Meet the Masters"
Some of Wedding Podcast Network’s podcasts include video as well. As with episodes from The Wedding Planning Audiocast, all Wedding Podcast Network’s episodes can be found in iTunes and loaded onto your MP3 player.
All podcast episodes can be found and downloaded from iTunes...free, of course
Photo credits: Screenshots from The Wedding Planning Audiocast by WPA, Wedding Podcast Network by WPN, Inc., and Apple iTunes by Apple, Inc.
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