The changes in social behavior that COVID brought up resulted in a modern alternative for couples to host their events: host a virtual wedding.
While many people have opted for eloping, the vast majority of couples still dream of filling a wedding venue and sharing their great moments with several friends and relatives.
That is why live streaming has become a relevant choice: couples can still plan and share an entire event preserving many conventional features of a classic wedding.
Why Throw a Virtual Wedding?
As a safety measure to respect people’s lives and the authorities’ recommendations, maintaining social distance is still crucial. Many countries are still facing millions of new cases, and people aren’t feeling safe to attend all kinds of events yet.
For this sake, hosting an event with only parents and vendors, and streaming it on online platforms is a way to live a wonderful moment – even though it’s been a difficult decade – and share it with your virtual guests.
To be honest, even in a scenario when everything will be resolved, virtual weddings may become a modern trend among new couples for real. For example:
Eloping: It’s common to see couples who want to enjoy intimate moments alone and choose to get married without sharing with their friends and relatives. However, that doesn’t mean they want their wedding to be completely unknown; they just want to spend together just the two of them. So, streaming some relevant parts, such as a walk through a heavenly landscape, or the wedding speech to thank friends that will send gifts or have somehow helped the event to take place, is a way to show their gratitude and still enjoy their private moment as a couple.
Out-of-towners: A virtual wedding doesn’t need to be 100% virtual. Livestreaming the event for those who cannot attend due to distance is a way to stay connected, and it will be really useful for weddings abroad.
Online work opens opportunities to have jobs abroad and live far away from our friends and family, and it has already become a normal practice in the whole world.
In short, live streaming a wedding is a way to connect to people and share experience: 2 tasks the digital era is requesting a lot from us.
How to live stream?
Live streaming was popular among young people who loved to play games. However, as sharing what you’re doing online is a global need, it has reached every single area, including marriage ceremonies.
As a result, several conference platforms have simplified their menus to become easily accessible and reach a broader audience. In addition to the classic streaming tools, many virtual wedding platforms were launched. Check below.
Platforms to live stream your wedding
The free alternatives are the most popular as it’s not realistic to expect your guests will sign a plan just to enjoy your event.
Also, the best apps are those that offer an easy experience to the user. They make it easier for older guests to understand the interfaces and connect to the event easily.
You definitely don’t need to get lots of calls during the ceremony from guests complaining they can’t watch it or connect to the room, right?!
It would be a nightmare before matrimony!
Facebook and Instagram Live Streaming
Social Media are clearly great options for practicality and accessibility. After all, almost every person in the world is present on at least one of them and has their profiles active.
Facebook and Instagram the most popular social media at the moment, so consider using them. If you use one of them, everyone will most probably know how to watch your stream and follow you.
The only problem is that you might not be able to keep your event any “private” and your audience may be larger than you expect.
Google Hangouts
Being a zero-cost option, Google Hangouts is a great way to host an event for specific guests.
On this platform, on a free plan, only 9 people can be watching the broadcast in the conference room. However, you can set the app to connect the stream to YouTube and make it possible for more people to watch.
9 people will be able to interact with you by the conference chat (so only invite the VIP guests to watch it from there). In order not to exclude the other guests, you can send them a private link so they can follow it on YouTube and communicate by the YouTube chat as well.
One of the best parts is: those without a link will not be able to access your stream if you make it private.
Wedding Streaming Platforms
“Joy”, “LoveStream”, “Simply Eloped”, and “LoveCast” are some of the most popular names for a virtual wedding platform.
Each of them has its specificity and some will even require a premium plan from you to broadcast an event. Anyway, your guests won’t need to pay for anything, so analyze these platforms’ premium advantages and consider signing if they offer real benefits and differentials.
Remember to contact support to find out who provides the best client support service as well.