An Editor Getting Married

Being an editor and content creator in the online media industry is one of those jobs that colors everything you do. Sometimes in social situations I find myself interviewing new acquaintances as if they are subjects, and have to pull back. I Photoshop casual snapshots and "Save for Web & Devices". I proofread tweets.

As my wedding approaches, those editorial tendencies have reached a crescendo. My fiancé recently pointed out that I have completely branded our wedding. I created a logo and slapped it on everything from our invitations to beach totes.  My most important vendor has been Vistaprint.

For a destination wedding like ours, a wedding website is a smart way to provide information to guests. Many couples go to TheKnot.com for tools to build a site—my fiancé built ours in Drupal. On that site is not only lodging and travel information, but a curated slideshow of our courtship, a video homage to my fiancé, and a press-ready account of not only how we met, but how he popped the question, supported by a high-resolution digital image.

I am Project Manager of this event, running operations on a Google docs intranet.

As I frantically turn this wedding into a brand, I'm struck by the fact that two years ago, I lacked many of these skills. Video editing, writing website code, project management—you could skate by as an editor without knowing how to do these things. But editorial roles have evolved into content creation, aggregation, and curation, and it takes far more than a press pass and an AP Stylebook to keep up these days.

Online Journalists and Editors: Remember to hone your skills and keep up with the technologies that streamline your job and help your content stand out.

Comments

[Joe Kutchera]

Great post. Congrats Naomi!!

[Naomi]

Thanks Joe! :D

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It's too early to tell if it's working yet but it's at least making me feel like I'm doing something. Even if it does not help I will feel like I'm documenting what I'm doing in a way that is meaningful and useful to the people with whom I'm working on this issue.