A webcasted wedding

"I think a lot of people get so obsessed with the wedding and the expense of the wedding that they miss out on what the real purpose is. It's not about a production number, it's about a meaningful moment between two people that's witnessed by people that they actually really know and care about." ~Jane Seymour

In this age of technology, the idea of webcasting a wedding might not seem that strange to people.

I’m not sure I know those people, but I’m sure they exist.

For us, it makes sense — myself probably more so than my groom, but I’m the techie out of the two of us — for a few different reasons. First off, cutting a guest list is hard work. When we started, Jim and I kept saying no more than 50 people.

Well, 50 came and 50 went and by the time we got to 100, I started panicking. This was not the small wedding ceremony we wanted. For Jim, it was easy — groomsmen and immediate family. It put him right at 24.

For me, it wasn’t so easy. I had my bridesmaids. I had my immediate family. And then I had a few more people. And then I asked my mom and she had a few *cough* ton more people. And it kept growing.

When we settled on a general location, it made it easier to start cutting down. No less painful, but a bit easier. When we chose the spot, it was obvious we needed to take the scissors to the list.

my dad is a goof.

But it was still painful.

It’s hard to tell people, people you’ve known your whole life or who have been with you through tough stuff or.. whatever… it’s hard to tell them that they can’t attend one of those big moments in your life. I’ve got friends across the country and the globe, many of whom are like family to me.

And as far as family, well, my family doesn’t fall into a traditional role, I think. I’ve got cousins as close as siblings, but closer blood relations who I barely talk to.

Above all, you don’t want to offend or upset anyone.

Eventually, though, you know you are going to. There’s no two ways around it — people who don’t make the cut and think they should are liable to get their feelings hurt.

How do you tell someone, “you can’t come,” when they seem so sure they are on the list?

It’s sad that you have to be a mean person about your own wedding, but you do and hope your loved ones understand.

I had joked early on that I was just going to live stream my wedding and be done with it. Then I started looking into it. The idea is still a relatively novel concept — I don’t know anyone personally who has done so — but it seems like it should be an easy and inexpensive one.

Is it that surprising it would be done? We document everything online these days, which is a privacy nightmare, but that’s a different blog for a different day.

On a whim, after cutting the list again — we just don’t have room, people! Plus, I hate big gatherings! — I decided to message a techie friend — I think he’s really a wizard, shhhh — to see if he thought it would be feasible. So many sites were popping up with costs, rental fees, etc. Definitely not what we wanted.

And he had the answer. He always has the answer — he is a wizard, after all. He even sent me a great how-to from Offbeat Bride.

So, I set it up and we’re doing it — we are live streaming our wedding. Crazy, I guess, but exciting for the dork in me!

Thanks to Google Hangouts, you can live stream events and even set privacies on those. That, in turn, streams to YouTube, which airs and simultaneously records your event. It remains an unlisted event until you list it — meaning it doesn’t show up unless someone looks REALLY hard or uses the link.

The trouble is, I was so excited, I set it up. Now I want to skip ahead and go for the “I do,” but I’m trying really hard not to elope.

the "kissy picture"

Anyway, I just think it’s the coolest thing. I’ve kept it quiet long enough, so I had to share the idea!

We will have to do a test of the video before the big day, to (hopefully!) alleviate any technical difficulties. I’m going to see if I can also record it to the computer, to make sure there’s a backup just in case.

It is a little scary, I guess, to stream our wedding, but that’s the chance you take anytime you post anything online. You can’t hide from it, but you can learn to protect yourself in the best possible ways and trust from there.

Have a little faith and a good privacy setting :)

I hope that everyone we love will forgive us the small guest list and, instead, watch the part that matters, our union before God and everyone.

176 days!