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Two things to never use AI for in wedding copy and content -- but three instances where it's great


A woman sitting at a keyboard holding a turquoise fountain pen

A copy and content writer sharing her thoughts on AI? To quote my favourite editor*, “ground breaking.” (Said with a slightly raised eyebrow and deadpan delivery.)


But while there has been (and will continue to be) plenty of chatter about the use of AI in writing, I thought I’d put in my two penn'orth, particularly in relation to the wedding and creative industries. 


I think tools such as ChatGPT definitely have a place in the writing process – but there are definitely times when you should avoid them like the plague. I’ve listed two instances below where I would advise stepping away from the bot, and three instances where it might actually be a helpful tool.


So let’s start with the two writing tasks you absolutely shouldn’t rely on AI for.


Writing your wedding website copy

Your wedding business website is there to showcase your services, make an emotional connection with potential clients, and highlight why you’re their perfect supplier. Using AI copy to do this is just not going to work.


The first massive no-no for me in using AI copy is that you’re likely plagiarising someone else’s work. It feels like this element of AI often goes unremarked upon, but AI tools such as ChatGPT have to have been trained using copy and content that’s come from somewhere – and they’ve probably been scraped from someone else’s website. 


So that phrase you absolutely love in your AI-generated copy, and put front and centre on your site? It may well have been plagiarised from another business in the wedding or creative industry.


Secondly, AI-generated website copy lacks the personal touch that's need on a website for a wedding business. It’s your own experience, your own stories and your own personality that makes the emotional connection with potential clients, and turns someone browsing your site into something who ends up booking your services. AI can’t create that, no matter how many prompts you give it. 


Simply put, generic, bot-created copy just won’t do justice to your USP and your unique experience.


Writing blog posts for your wedding website

We all know how important writing blogs can be for your SEO, helping to position you as an authority figure and answering the questions people are turning to the internet for. But we also all know that writing blogs can be time-consuming, which is why the thought of writing one in seconds using AI is very appealing. 


But in using AI to write blogs in order to improve your SEO, you’re actually harming it. Google announced last year that they penalise websites with low quality copy and content, instead favouring sites where writing follows their EEAT structure (expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness). And while AI-generated content could be quality, let’s face it, more often than not it’s terrible. You can usually tell an AI-written post a mile away as it’s lacking in a consistent tone of voice, structure and just sounds, well, weird.


Because AI content is a mash-up of other people’s work (and as already mentioned, probably plagiarised), there’s no inherent trustworthiness to it – it’s not come from a place of true authority or knowledge that can be referenced.


So now I’ve warned you off using AI for your copy and content, here are three things that AI is really quite handy for.


Giving you writing inspiration

When the blinking cursor of doom strikes, heading over to ChatGPT and giving it a prompt can be a simple way to get your creativity flowing. Sometimes just seeing something written down can give you a push and get you thinking about what you want to say – not what the robot has come up with!


Suggesting blog posts for your wedding website

As mentioned above, please don’t use AI to write your blog posts, but do ask for suggestions on topics. It’s great for generating ideas that you may not have otherwise thought of.


Coming up with synonyms

We can all be guilty of recycling the same words, and a thesaurus is usually the go-to tool to find some synonyms. But the thesaurus function on ChatGPT is way better than any other online thesaurus I’ve found, consistently coming up with more interesting and creative synonyms.


If you've tried AI copy and content and found it lacking, I'm a human writer who'd love to help you with your wedding or creative business. Drop me an email to set up a no-obligation real or virtual coffee to chat about working together, whether it's writing or editing your website copy, creating SEO blogs or auditing your website to see where it can work harder.


*Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. Fun fact: magazine offices are absolutely nothing like TDWP, at least in the UK craft sector anyway.



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