A Wedding e-RSVP?

My brother was invited to two weddings last week and guess what? Both invitations asked him to RSVP by e-mail (or phone in one case) only.

Weird, eh?

At first, all I could think was that the bride and groom must be on a real cheap budget. I mean, paying for postage isn't exactly going to make or break your wedding day costs.

Then I started thinking, maybe it has something to do with the recession?

When my husband and I got married in 2007, we loved getting wedding replies back in the mail. Every day we'd come home looking forward to seeing who else we'd hear back from.

I also favour tradition, which is probably why it never occurred to me to ask guests to RSVP by e-mail or phone. And my parents are more the old-fashioned type so I know they wouldn't have approved my asking guests to RSVP any other way than by mail.

Really other than for our wedding, I seriously cannot recall the last time I used Canada Post to send someone a letter, card or other. With the popularity of e-mails, hand-delivered mail has become almost second-fiddle to the Internet for communicating. I mean, people aren't even sending birthday cards by mail anymore - they send e-cards instead!

Going back to my brother and the whole wedding "please RSVPs by e-mail only" instructions he received, I now find myself wishing that I had at least considered this option for my own wedding. 

Although it's not fair to assume all people have access to the Internet, practically everyone I know has at least one e-mail address these days, if not two or three others. So why not take advantage of that in the context of a wedding RSVP? (It kind of makes more sense financially too.) 

I imagine it's only a matter of time before couples nix the whole wedding invitation altogether in favour of a Facebook invite ... now wouldn't that be something?

I am ... me?

Apparently branding yourself is not as easy as you'd think.

Try describing yourself in say, um, 20 words or less. I'll give you a second ...

Difficult right? But don't worry, you aren't the only one struggling to figure out what you are all about.

For an assignment due in career management this past week, fellow students and I had to prepare a one page "Brand Me" snapshot of ourselves, including a SWOT analysis on what we felt were our biggest strengths and weaknesses.

I set out to start the assignment Saturday but didn't end up doing it until Sunday. I just didn't know where to begin.

Several questions were running through my head: How do I define me? What skills do I offer? What should my personal brand focus on?

As it turns out, Google is a great resource when it comes to finding the answers. Within seconds, I had hundreds of valuable articles addressing personal branding at my fingertips. One of particular use was Fast Company's The Brand Called You. It was great because it helped me put things into perspective and identify what makes me, as a brand, different from the rest.

After spending more minutes than I'd like to admit developing my one sentence brand, I feel satisfied - almost liberated - that I could sum myself up in oh so few words.

So what did I write you ask?

"I work like I run marathons: I set the course, commit to the plan and put all energy into finishing ahead of the pack, every time."

It may still need some tweaking but hey, at least it's a good start.