Well, the Beta List has been quiet for about a week and I’ve been working on some themed articles for your pleasure. Weddings are the first theme to start off the Beta List. With my sisters wedding fastly approaching in less than six months, I figured I should delve into this niche Industry. There are somewhere around 2.5 million weddings every year in the United States. The average budget for a wedding is estimated to be $20,000. This niche industry represents a $40 – $70 Billion dollar industry every year in the U.S.

Weddinic just launched in beta the other day. It’s a wedding planner site which provides that central location for Bride, Groom and Guest to keep communication and track of the wedding. It’s got some good features similar to your traditional social networks like: photos, video, files, blog, and links. Right now while still in beta it is not fully flushed out and is almost no different then Basecamp or a Backpack page. The big difference is that this site looks more wedding like and requires a bride and groom in order to use the features.

It would be great to integrate this with any registry so you could buy online gifts.  They have a tab for vendors but this feature isn’t completed yet. Once a vendors feature is added it may become more like the WeddingWire.

WeddingWire, which received investment from Martha Stewart’s media company, now live and out of beta. Is a wedding planning site which revolves around venros in the location of the wedding. It has a lot more style and probably a lot more money than Weddinic, so the technology and site is pretty solid. There is plenty of content and vendors so you will definitely find that perfect photographer or cake. The planning tools are pretty nice looking, I didn’t get to try them out.

The Knot for those not familiar is the premier wedding portal. It has so much content, ideas, and even a planning feature. So, if a wedding is in your future you may want to start with The Knot by reading some articles then work your way over to one of the other sites to make your plans.