It's a small world, isn't it?

This morning, my Google Alerts showed me an article in which I *appeared* to be quoted about a wedding between two dogs in Delaware. They even have a prenuptial agreement (and no, the reporter refrained from calling it a 'pre-PUPtial agreement'). Now what's really wild is that one of the owners is named 'Sharon Naylor,' listed as part of Mr. and Mrs. Craig Naylor. Which is not me. And in further coincidence, I went to college in Delaware. And I am a wedding expert. But this is not my dog's story. I'm just mentioning it to you here as an example of how Google Alerts can be a great thing for you. Here's how:

1. For your wedding research, Google Alerts will search out and report any designer trunk sales or shows that have been planned at the last minute. You'll get news on your caterer or your banquet hall, your honeymoon locale, even the tulip crop in the Netherlands ("the tulip crop has frozen! Tulips won't be available for weeks!", etc). Since so much of wedding preparation is research, Google Alerts can be your own little investigative reporter.

2. Google Alert-ing yourself will deliver any articles or blogs in which your name is mentioned. So you could find out about stories in which your company is mentioned, blogs where you're mentioned, or get that fun FYI about people with the same name as you doing whatever they're doing. I already knew about some other Sharon Naylors out there -- a poet, a photographer, a volunteer for medical experiments...now I know there's a mother of the (dog) groom with the same name that I will have for only a few more months now.