PayPal Wedding Invite Irks Some Guests

For bride-to-be Vanessa Caldwell, nothing about her upcoming November wedding is traditional, especially in these hard economic times.

She is, after all, requesting monetary donations in lieu of gifts from those attending her wedding. There’s even a link to PayPal on the couple’s site to accommodate credit cards.

“We don’t need pots and pans or a registry, we need a wedding,” Caldwell, 28, told ABCNews.com.

And so Caldwell and her fiance, 36-year-old Cole Parker, developed a Web site, Dollarforawedding.com, advertised it to family and friends through Facebook, and saw the donations pour in.

So far, Caldwell has received approximately $750 toward her $2,000 goal but said she’s likely far outdone her original estimate with several sponsorships she’s received, from a photographer offering her services in return for free advertising at the wedding to a florist proposing a similar deal.

“We weren’t trying to have a lavish wedding; this wasn’t a get rich plan,” said Caldwell. “This was just to help us with a small intimate wedding with no more than 75 people.”

Full ABCNews.com Article

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Extreme steel ‘Velcro’ takes a 35-tonne load

For all its usefulness, Velcro hardly inspires excitement. But German engineers have taken inspiration from the mild-mannered fastener to create a version of the hook-and-loop concept with enough steely strength for extreme loads and environments.

A square metre of the new fastener, called Metaklett, is capable of supporting 35 tonnes at temperatures up to 800 ÂșC, claim Josef Mair and colleagues at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. And just like everyday Velcro it can be opened up without specialised tools and used again.

Full Article

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