Congratulations, We Have Achieved E-Wedding
Well, obviously. In a time of many weddings and a time of much Internet, there would be a time when a wedding ceased to require one to be in a physical location and could instead be conveniently experienced online. After all, the best proposals (which must go viral) are online, too, right? So, why travel to Jamaica when you can see your BFF get hitched via FaceTime? Why put on a dress and high-heeled shoes when you can see your friend marry while wearing comfortable pajama-jeans in your own home?
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Congratulations, and so it was. E-weddings (that's what I'm calling them) are here.
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As Seunghee Suh reports in The Wall Street Journal, watching a wedding online—instead of, you know, having to show up it in person—can make things so much easier. You don't have to worry about doing your hair, or putting on pants. You don't have to buy a plane ticket or rent a hotel room. No fears about being late, or doing anything embarrassing that anyone else can see. If you're laid up in bed with a leg cast, you can still be a maid of honor, virtually. If you drink too much, well, you've never left your own home! "When Courtney Goodings watched her old friend Jaclyn Lusk get married, she didn't have to worry about what to wear or getting to the venue on time," Suh writes. "She viewed a live-streaming of the ceremony at her Austin, Texas, home while sharing a slushie with her 2-year-old son, Callum." And it was just as emotionally moving as if she'd been there! "'I cried as if I was actually at the wedding,' says Ms. Goodings, 33."
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The "just watch us on your laptop" offer used to be a sort of gift to your far, far away friends or elderly relatives, a kind way to let them see you do this important thing anyway, because you understand the difficulties of travel. But the online-only ask is reaching critical mass, now, as "more guests are being invited to witness nuptials virtually" because "increasingly, couples just want to share their big day with a larger audience." If all of your Facebook friends saw the ring and heard the status-update engagement story, it would be cruel to leave them in the dark on the big day. Fortunately, the e-wedding is helped along by a range of new professional wedding live-stream services, because everything having to do with a wedding gets its own (usually pricier) wedding-version of whatever commodity is required.
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Yes, the Internet has finally solved the problem of how to have a "small and intimate" wedding that's also live-streamed to everyone who you might have met since kindergarten. Whether those guests want to watch or not, you're giving them the option of being a part of your big day, the chance to see your e-dos, and that's what matters. And who could begrudge a live-stream invite? It's so easy! "On the big day, guests simply go to a website and enter the login to watch the ceremony."
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On the down side, guests don't get surf and turf and there's no unlimited Chardonnay (until the bride's dad cuts off the open bar) but those are the prices of progress, perhaps. FYI: "Jamie Miles, online editor at TheKnot.com, says the etiquette of online interactions is still being worked out, but it is a 'nice gesture' to send a gift because the couple still is sharing their day with you."
Kind of makes you wonder why we do anything in person.
Image via Shutterstock by Ilya Andriyanov.
