Why You Need a Virtual Wedding and How it Works
We empathize with what you are going through right now.
Planning a wedding to unite your loved ones is a challenge in itself, and now, you may be facing a significant change of plans and guests who are unable to travel to your wedding. Or maybe, you’ve wanted an intimate wedding all along, but feel guilty leaving others out.
We feel for you and your family and understand the unsettled feelings you’re experiencing. We know how important it is for you to celebrate your marriage milestone and want you to rest easy knowing there is a new thoughtful solution with our custom virtual wedding.
You’ll be amazed by the level of customization we can create for you through this experience. In comparison to a live stream wedding, our virtual wedding service offers dynamic two-way interaction between you and your virtual guests in real time. Because we are event planning experts with over 20 years of experience, we intimately understand how to seamlessly blend the experience between your in person and virtual guests so everyone has a memorable experience.
How to Customize Your Virtual Wedding
To help showcase a few examples, here’s how your virtual wedding can be customized:
Mail guests a celebration kit with your favorite bottle of champagne or wine, local treats and a wedding day program.
Your flower girl and ring bear can walk down the aisle from their backyard in Texas.
Your Grandma can offer a reading from the comfort of her home.
Following the ceremony, guests can socialize in smaller groups, similar to how they’d be seated at your reception table.
Guests can share in your first dance, dancing in their living room with their spouse.
You can cut the cake as everyone cheers from across the country and share in this and other wedding day traditions.
Benefits of a Virtual Wedding
Turnkey, turnkey, turnkey. We’ve done the hard work of streamlining all logistics and equipment and will manage coordination with your vendors making this truly seamless for you.
Everyone can witness in the moment you said “I Do” from anywhere in the world.
You’ll have more flexibility and budget to splurge on your in-person guests.
Your entire virtual wedding will be recorded so you’ll have a video memory that lasts forever.
If you haven’t yet been to a professionally managed virtual wedding, you may still have questions. I’m including the top questions we’ve been asked to aid in your understanding.
What is a virtual wedding?
A virtual wedding is a wedding that allows your guests to witness your wedding in real time from their location anywhere in the world. Our virtual weddings are managed through the Zoom platform.
Why is a virtual wedding helpful?
Including a virtual wedding component within your wedding day ensures you and your partner can connect with all of your loved ones during this historic moment in your life. With current COVID-19 concerns, your elderly or high-risk guests who are unable to travel, can still participate.
Walk me through what the virtual wedding experience looks like.
Just as we approach our wedding planning and design business, we bring the same level of authenticity and design to your virtual wedding experience. We want the entire virtual wedding to be a reflection of you and your personal values and style. Because we are event designers by profession, we enhance your virtual wedding experience by implementing our event logistic and design best practices for the most seamless experience.
Your virtual wedding begins with custom slides showcasing photos, quotes, video, etc. as chosen by the couple. When it’s almost show time, your dedicated Zoom conductor (aka emcee) will greet guests and walk them through the experience so everyone knows what to expect. From there, we will facilitate your ceremony prelude and processional music, altering camera angles for your entrance, and transition between cameras for optimal guest viewing during your ceremony.
Following the ceremony, we have a range of options to include. Your Grand Entrance can include your first dance and welcome/thank you as newlyweds, toasts both virtual and in-person, cake cutting, a group dance and more.
How is a virtual wedding different from a live stream of my wedding?
Our virtual wedding is a custom curated experience that allows for interaction with your guests. A livestream to Facebook or other source, is simply a one-way experience where guests are able to see your ceremony, but are unable to interact with you. Their interactions are limited to view only and possibly “liking” the live stream and commenting based on the platform used.
I’m nervous because this is all so new. Should I be?
Your feelings are entirely valid! Because virtual weddings are a new and evolving concept, you may be hesitant because you don’t quite know what to expect. Feedback from past couples and their guests has shown us that they are very grateful and relieved to have this option. Without the virtual wedding integration, loved ones will simply miss out on seeing and hearing the precious moments from your wedding day - moments you can’t get back unless they’re captured on film to share. Because we focus on making this as turnkey as possible for you, couples feel a deep sense of relief that their virtual guests are taken care of.
By hiring a dedicated professional to manage this experience for you, you no longer need to feel nervous. We’ve got this!
I am familiar with Zoom. Could we implement this ourselves?
Our virtual wedding service takes the pressure off you, or the cousin you would delegate to create a virtual wedding plan. We’ve invested numerous hours into the research of proper equipment, Zoom functionality, scripting and more. With the mounting to-dos of executing your on-site wedding experience, trust us, this logistical beast is not something you want to add to your to-do list.
What equipment do we need to be successful?
Your virtual wedding will greatly benefit from quality equipment. Based on our experience, we can recommend the base level of equipment needed and suggested additions to further enhance. Note that base level equipment includes devices such as a smartphone and/or tablet (items you are likely to be able to easily access) with tripods, lights and battery packs possibly needing to be purchased. Please check in with us if you would like to rent our equipment. Our equipment is available for rent based on availability.