6 Dos and Don'ts of Coming Up With a Wedding Hashtag, According to a Pro

Today, picking the perfect wedding hashtag is almost as paramount as saying "yes" to the dress. Marielle Wakim, founder of HappilyEverHashtagged.com, knows this more than anyone. She combines her love of "weddings and wordplay" to come up with wedding hashtags for a living, and she's giving her best tips to coming up with yours. Find out how to formulate the phrase you'll cherish forever below (and if you still can't find the inspiration after reading this, at least you know you can go to the pros).

1. Do think outside the box.

You're not restricted to just your names. There are endless other options that can serve as inspiration, like nicknames, hometowns and common interests. Do you both love Disney? Do you enjoy listening to Chance the Rapper together? Find a way to incorporate those things to make it your own. There's an endless bank of material to work with, and it doesn't have to be traditional.

2. Don't worry if you have to shorten or abbreviate a name.

If a name's particularly difficult to work with (and literally doesn't rhyme with anything), take the liberty to shorten or abbreviate it to make it flow better. Don't stray away from switching it up.

3. Do personalize it.

According to Wakim, your wedding hashtag is a reflection of your personality. You should think about it the same way you think about your wedding flowers, dress or invitations. It's an extension of you as a couple, and if you pride yourself on your crazy creativity, you might be remiss to choose something simple or cliché.

4. Don't shy away from a long one.

Worried your hashtag is too lengthy? Don't. According to Wakim, no one will care, and the Instagram app autopopulates it after one use anyway, so you won't have to worry about your guests having to type the whole thing out every time they use it. Plaster it on social media! Put it on a chalkboard! They'll use whatever you give them.

5. Do write it out first.

While a hashtag might sound great out loud, Wakim advises you to write it out and see how it looks. Sometimes it doesn't look quite right, or the words combine to spell out an inappropriate word. Moral of the story: Before putting it on your save-the-dates, confirm it looks okay on paper.

6. Don't use something that's been done before.

It seems like a no-brainer. The point of a hashtag is to have your own personal wedding album living online, and you don't want one populated by hundreds of other people's images, or the wedding album of another couple who got to #JohnsonWedding2017 first. Of course you can't predict the future or keep tabs on the entire internet, and the reality is, you might decide on an available hashtag that's taken by the time your nuptials roll around. But if you make it unique enough, or switch around the words in a particular way, you should be able to pick a hashtag that's totally yours.