Wedding webcasts let loved ones watch from the comfort of home
12:13 PM CDT on Monday, September 11, 2006
By KATHY A. GOOLSBY / The Dallas Morning News
The bride wore a floor-length gown, the groom a dark suit. But at least one wedding guest was clad in a bathing suit, and the bride’s brother wore shorts and a T-shirt. Etiquette experts might have frowned, but newlyweds Stephanie and Eric Nicks of The Colony didn’t mind at all. Most of their friends and family watched the couple’s Aug. 5 ceremony via the Internet from the comfort of their own homes.
Although wedding webcasts have been around a few years, wedding planners say they are on the rise as couples try to include as many friends and relatives as possible, even those who may not be able to attend the ceremony in person.
But despite the growing popularity, Eric and Stephanie had not heard of such webcasts until they began searching for a location for their nuptials.
“We went online looking for Las Vegas chapels and saw that several offered Internet viewing. After we decided to do it, we started having a lot of fun with it and invited more and more people,” said Ms. Nicks, 36, an executive administrator with Dallas Semiconductor. Mr. Nicks, 40, owns Aquatic Surfaces, a swimming pool renovation and repair company.
The invitation they sent – via e-mail, of course – wasn’t to attend the ceremony, but to log on and watch.
Becky Griffith of Southlake witnessed the Nickses’ nuptials on her laptop while vacationing in San Diego with her family – except for her husband, Charles, a longtime friend of the groom. He attended the actual ceremony before joining the family in California.
“We watched it several times, and it was so clear, we could even see the folds in Stephanie’s dress,” Ms. Griffith said. “It really was just like being there, and I didn’t have to depend on my husband, a man of few words, to tell me how the wedding went.”
The Little Chapel of the Flowers, where the Nickses were wed, began offering live Internet viewing about four years ago.
“In this day and age you have to stay ahead of the game,” said Holly Myers, the chapel’s general manager. “We invented an online wedding planner, where couples can go online and book everything, and the idea for the cyberweddings just evolved from there.”
Dallas-based www.webcastmy wedding.com guards against virtual wedding crashers by requiring guests to enter a code to view a ceremony. Owner Ariel J. Andres, a Web media consultant, began offering the Internet service to wedding videographers about 14 months ago.
“Our first client was a guy in Los Angeles whose parents live in Egypt, and they were not able to get here for his wedding,” Mr. Andres said. “He had people from all over the world watching his wedding.”
Mr. Andres broadcasts three or four weddings a month through his server and archives the ceremony for 10 days. Couples pay $395 for the service, which Mr. Andres splits with the wedding videographer.
That’s a bargain, said Summer Hutchens, a professional wedding consultant with For Your Memories in Houston and a member of the Association of Bridal Consultants, a national organization. More and more of her brides ask about webcasting their wedding, but she said none have opted to do it because of the expense.
“We’re told anywhere from $800 to $1,500 for a live feed,” Ms. Hutchens said. “But live wedding broadcast is becoming more and more prevalent in conversation, so it’s definitely coming to the forefront.”
She attributes the trend in part to the average age of couples, which has risen in recent years. That means grandparents also are older, and many are not able to travel.
“The couples want podcasts and live Internet feeds because they want their friends and families to be able to witness the ceremony even if they can’t attend,” Ms. Hutchens said.
Sir and Shawnee Mayes of Dallas initially planned to wed in Dallas this month. But after she became pregnant, the couple combined his April birthday trip to Las Vegas with a webcast wedding at the Little Chapel of the Flowers.
“It was a big plus,” Mr. Mayes said. “We sent out about 50 invitations, and I think almost everybody watched.”
Although the couple paid the expenses of five friends and relatives who accompanied them, Mr. Mayes said the Internet ceremony saved them several thousand dollars in extra costs such as a reception.
Guests save money, too, said Robin Banks of Plano. She and her husband, Scott Banks – the shorts-clad brother of bride Stephanie Nicks – watched the wedding in their home’s media room on a 13-foot-diagonal screen.
Alice Banks, who attended her daughter’s wedding in Las Vegas, was initially skeptical about an Internet ceremony. She said she wasn’t sure how her friends would react.
“At first they were asking, ‘We can do what?’ But they all do have the Internet and were very receptive to it,” said Mrs. Banks, a McKinney resident. “It’s just a neat way of doing a wedding.”
