How to organize a virtual wedding in the Covid era
Are most of your guests changing their plans due to the pandemic? Arrange a virtual wedding for them!
2020 will be remembered all over the world as one of the most uncertain year, with so many repercussions on the wedding industry too. Due to the sanitary emergency and limits in gatherings, hundreds of couples had to postpone or cancel their weddings, or alternatively change their plans shrinking the guest lists to arrange only intimate events with the close family.
As we have been forced to stay at home working, shopping and making a lot of activities above all online, we learnt to use several apps and this helped us in different aspects of our life.
More than ever before, technology has come to assist us now letting love being celebrated with a small gathering in person and a good number of guests via a remote connection…thinking out of the box could give you an amazing wedding anyway!
But how can a virtual wedding be hosted?
So let’s dive in and discover what to do step by step.
First of all you need to get the technical equipment: a laptop, a tablet or a mobile phone are enough. You could eventually provide a tripod for small devices in order to head the camera towards you steadily.
Do not take for granted that everything will works perfectly so, please, test the wi-fi connection and the devices a couple of days before the wedding, putting the batteries on charge and checking the correct angle for the camera. On the wedding day you can ask one of your guest onsite to help with this stuff.
There are two popular platforms that can be used to livestream your wedding, and they can do it for free. Let’s focus on their main features to choose the best for you.
- ZOOM: it is the most used videoconference software, easy to be configured by all the attendee. They should set up the device in the “Speaker View” to be able to watch the entire ceremony. Encourage them to mute themselves to avoid any distraction during it; they can switch the microphone on after the ritual and participate in several ways we are going to describe below.
#weddingplannertip: arrange the device by the wedding venue setting it up in the “Gallery View” so that you can see all the virtual guests too and feel like they are onsite.
- Facebook Live: this option is good too, but it doesn’t allow anyone to interact. To make it work, you should of course ask your guest to create a Facebook account, if they haven’t one yet, and invite them to join a private group where the wedding will be live streamed.
Send invitations and instructions to your guests
At this stage, you should inform the guests that cannot attend in person about the virtual wedding possibility. Sending them a digital invitation with all instructions is the easiest way to do it.
To recap and give you a short checklist to tick off, here’s what to write in the email:
- how to participate: if you chose Zoom, send them the link to the app and the ID meeting and the Passcode to access the videoconference; in case of a Facebook live, tell them how to join the group.
- how to turn on the video and mute their microphones: explaining them why previously will make things running smoothly on the wedding day.
- dress code: since it would be nice to take screenshots of the zoom stream, gently encourage your family and friends to take care of their attire even if they are on the other side of the screen.
- give them a short timeline of the event so that they can raise their glasses at the right moment!
How can people interact during a virtual event?
I cannot deny this kind of participation is very different from the typical one, but there are several ways to let people feel part of the wedding anyway.
As said just few lines above, a toast after the ceremony is mandatory: this is the perfect moment to turn on microphones and cheers!
The virtual wedding can also give you the chance to have a virtual guestbook: the chat of the platform, whatever it is, is the place for the guests to leave you written greetings and the screenshot of the zoom is an alternative group photo. I love this idea!
Last but not least, with an interactive streaming the timeline can include speeches, like in a traditional reception: so ask who’s going to have one to prepare himself/herself according to the timeline.
Of course having a wedding planner onsite will help a lot to coordinate all the people involved and proceed with the planning of the virtual wedding: have you taken into consideration this modern way to share your event?
