Last month my friend Kim from Parisian Events wrote about the latest in French fashion, the black wedding dress. Yes, black. You can read more about it out here.

Naturally, the fresh content from her post was a hit and soon after, several other bloggers were writing about it too. This isn’t a problem – blogs, especially wedding blogs, thrive on bringing you the latest in trends and styles. And a black wedding dress? Well that just goes against so much tradition that people just had to share it with the world.

The problem, however, is that several bloggers simply copied and pasted her article and failed to give her credit. Seriously, her post has been popping up all over the place, verbatim, with no link back to her. And yes, deleting one sentence is still considered plagiarism. I am not sharing which blogs plagiarized because I do not feel they deserve the extra traffic.

Here is the skinny on blogging etiquette in this arena (and this is nothing new): If someone has written about an idea that you love, some new bridal shoes that you absolutely adore, a pair of earrings that are sure to be gracing every bride’s lobes in 2008, then by all means blog about it. Just be sure to give credit to the original source.

The blogging community is a lot smaller than people think, especially in a niche market like weddings. Blog responsibly.

{photo via Max Chaoul Couture}

This was originally written by Liene because at the moment I lack the capacity to write about it as nicely as she has.  

And THAT ladies and gentleman is called a credit.

See– how hard was that?

Better yet, let me not hold back and REALLY give you my take on it.

Stop being so @*$*ing lazy. As Liene stated, the wedding blogging circles are so intertwined and close knit, that you will find a lot of people blogging about similar things or have posts that have been inspired by other bloggers.  A lot of us read each other’s blogs and have similar audiences and target markets, so it’s not that uncommon. However, there is a difference between being inspired and stealing.  We work hard at researching and writing a blog– if someone told you it was easy and quick, they lied and you should smack them in their mouth.  It irritates the buttercream out of me to see people do this– especially people who KNOW better.

A lot of us talk to each other every day, so we all take offense to this.  Don’t be the Napster of the Wedding Blogging World.