Hey family, Isabella Akinseye here!

I am so excited to be sharing with you and being a part of the BellaNaija Weddings Contributors. Some time ago I shared a few tips on choosing your wedding MC, this time I’ll be sharing some helpful tips for choosing a unique wedding hashtag.

With the advent of social media, a wedding hashtag is becoming part and parcel of your big day(s). It is used in the branding of the décor, souvenirs, props and guest “phoneographers” can tag their images with it, making it easy for you to get all the juice all in one place. By the way, major side-eye to those e-vendors that jump on a wedding hashtag to sell their wares, do better please. This can really be annoying but should not deter you from going with a wedding hashtag.

In choosing ours, we went with a play of words – #LoveLocDown – way before the lockdown. Loc represents our hair as we both have locs and we loved the alliteration of LoveLoc. It only felt natural to hold it down, excuse the pun. We are still deciding if we will keep the hashtag free of any year so that we can use it beyond the wedding.

So if you are not sure where to begin, here are 6 ways to get you started in choosing your wedding hashtag. I’m pretty sure you’ll find them useful and helpful. So let’s get into it and let your creative juices flow.

Names/Date

This is by far the most common approach and tends to work except of course you both have very common names. So you can switch things up by playing with middle names, nicknames and shortened versions of your names. Put both names together with the year, it can either be 4 or 2 numbers and you’re good to go.

Song Lyric

Take inspiration from a multitude of love and inspirational songs. Borrow a lyric that speaks to your journey into matrimony. Plus, it doesn’t have to be a song in English. If you both have a favourite couple love song, that’s a good start. Really just get creative with your choices and see how beautiful it turns out.

Place/Date

Are you having a destination wedding? Perhaps, your exotic location and the date of the ceremony can be a winner. It’s possible that you and your partner both have a place that is symbolic or significant in your life and journey together, so why not incorporate that into your hashtag. You also might want to celebrate your birthplace and time of your love with your wedding hashtag, whichever you choose, it totally adds to the uniqueness of your hashtag.

Native Tongue

Do it for the culture; ditch the English language and go back to your roots. Not sure where to start? A proverb or idiom about love? A short definition of love? Your names translated into another language? You can see, the possibilities are endless. An example should be #Àṣéwẹ́rẹ́niṣẹ́Olúwa, the native tongue brings a totally different vibe to the hashtag.

Prayer

For many, including me, love is spiritual. God represents love and this can get you thinking creatively. What prayer do you have for your marriage? Where do you see your union in the future? How has God answered your prayer? Answer these questions and you might be on to something.

Symbol

When you think of your love, weddings and marriage, what comes to mind? Hearts, flowers, rings? Or is there something that is symbolic to you? In our case, our hair was. It could be anything really so far as it means a lot to the both of you. So get thinking, get creative.

Whatever approach you take, make sure to write it down. Just let your creative juice flow and don’t forget to check it out online to make sure it isn’t already taken. Good luck!