The American wedding’s rapid explosion into a twisted, expensive and myopic consumerist bonanza, thanks in no small part to the Internet, is nothing new. But this paying position certainly is.
The job is called “social media wedding concierge” and it occupies a spot in the pointless event planning pantheon somewhere near “personal flower coordinator” and “prom consultant.”
What does a social media wedding concierge (a SMWC, if you will, because we don’t have all day) actually do? According to a screengrab captured by Huffington Post editor Bianca Bosker, here’s what:
• Live tweeting of the ceremony and reception
• Instagram photos and videos and Vine videos
• Curating a unique wedding #hashtag (ed. note: yes, they really typed it like that)
• Encouraging guests to utilize hashtag and handles as they post to social media
• Set up and maintenance of Wedding Blog before and after the big day
• Curating registry wish list and dream honeymoon Pinterest boards to inspire couple
• Wedding social media recap for the couple — a Shutterfly book complete with social media highlights from the planning process and a collage of the best tweets and instagrams sent during the wedding.
In other words, a SMWC does everything that every single one of your guests under 40 will probably already be doing out of their own free will — but the SMWC charges $3,000 to do it. They also throw in a nice book that you could probably make for free, and come up with a hashtag for you because trending topics like #smithjoneswedding don’t just come out of thin air, guys.
Another elephant in the room here: seeing all of the photos under your “curated” and “unique” wedding hashtag is as simple as clicking on the damn hashtag. If you’re paying someone to do it for you, then you’re simply being fleeced. The best thing about social media is that, as long as you’ve got a phone with service, it’s free to participate. Why taint that by turning your family’s casual Instagram posts into a product?
Of course, such a waste of money would only be possible in New York. The service is available at W New York, W Union Square, W Times Square and W Downtown until the end of December.
Frankly, if Betabeat were having such an obscenely overpriced NYC wedding, we’d rather spend that $3k sending each guest home with a wedding cake made of cronuts. But now for the burning question on every millennial’s mind: how the hell do we get this job???
(h/t The Cut)