Hurray for the digital age! No matter the reason, plan and stream your wedding easily with our Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide.

With your laptop, smartphone, video chat & all kinds of other tools, you plan your wedding—at home—on your couch.

What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide: Location Options

Traditional event space

Many wedding venues are now offering FaceTime & Skype personal site tours. With a virtual venue tour, you can talk through everything with the venue on-site coordinator & ask any question as they come up—in real time.

Tip: This is a terrific option to use if you’re planning your wedding ahead of time & want to guarantee a great date & time.

Church or Synagogue

Set a time to talk with your clergyman or woman to see what options they can offer. If a staff member is willing, you might also be able to arrange a virtual tour using that person’s smart phone for planning ideas like flowers, a wedding canopy, bride’s room if they have one & any other details.

Park, Beach or Outdoor Location

Check with local officials to see what they’ll allow. Then get permission to drive to the location & take a video or the site. You can use the video with a formal wedding planner to help make detail decisions.

Home or Backyard Celebration

You don’t need a large home or a big crowd to have a lovely wedding. You can create a beautiful setting with just be the two of you with a virtual clergyman & guests livestreamed.

If you can have a few guests, then plan your ceremony & reception in a space that has room for everyone. Rearrange furniture in the house to create an intimate setting in the living room, dining room or rec room (garages, basements & storage units are perfect to stash large and small items).

Or throw a pretty outdoor wedding either in your backyard or that of a relative or friend.

Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide: Vendor Consultations

You can’t do on-screen menu tasting or makeup & hair tryouts. But you can plan ahead & book all the professionals you’ll need:

• Wedding coordinators
• Photographer (ask if they will send you digital samples)
• Videography (also ask for samples)
• Florist (they might be able to do a virtual showroom tour to give you ideas for flowers & arrangements in addition to those in the catalog)
• Musicians (for sure they’ll have recordings of their past work)
• Caterer (you can set the basics & arrange a taste test closer to the date)

 Tip: Arrange a Zoom meeting with you & all your vendors so they can meet each other.

Arrange Pre-Wedding Events

Source: Allison Carter Celebrates

• If you’re planning your wedding in advance, use the same method as you would for vendor video consultations.
• If you’re having a smaller wedding now, live stream your bridal shower, bachelor & bachelorette parties, even a cocktail happy hour.

 Tip: Instead of gifts that need to be shipped & opened, ask your guests to share their memories of your, a favorite recipe for your new home, or their personal ideas for your new life together.

Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide: Tips on Live Streaming Your Ceremony and/or Reception

If you want to tie the knot now, never mind the rest of the world, live streaming your wedding if the perfect option. All you need is a good internet connection & basic streaming technology. Here’s how to do it:

Basic free streaming services:

• Zoom
• Facebook Live
• YouTube Live

Can’t decide on one? Then stream to multiple sites. This also lets your guests choose their preferred option.

Private options

WebWed Mobile

• Private live stream wedding
• Option to get marriage license online
• Officiant available through the app.

Wedfuly

• This app will facilitate your Zoom ceremony—for free!

How to Coordinate Vendors

• Officiant – Find someone to perform the ceremony online only.

Tip: To make your marriage legal, be sure to get your signed marriage license mailed in as soon as possible.

• Photos & Video – E-invite your vendors. They can document everything digitally using a streaming platform for a truly unique commemoration of your wedding ceremony.

Important note: Double check if your state requires an in-person officiant & maybe even a physically present witness or two to make your marriage legally binding.

Option: If you’re comfortable with it, go ahead & have the ceremony now—with the online officiant to make it feel like the real thing—then make it legal later in a courthouse or church/synagogue.

Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide: Invitations

Go digital route with wedding invitations. Here are two companies that can produce elegant totally electronic invites that feel like opening a traditional printed wedding invitation:

• Paperless Post
• Greenvelope

Virtual Invitation shown above is available here: Etsy Virtual Rustic Wedding Invitation

How to Set Up Your Ceremony Space

Source: Tanner Burge Photo

• Use a tripod for your phone or tablet.
• For natural light, open the windows.
• For an evening setting, use flameless candles & mini lights.
• Frame the space with things like potted plants, candleabra, pictures or posters on the wall.
• Set the mood with music.
• If you wish, have a champagne toast & pop the bottle after your first kiss or, in a Jewish wedding, after you smash the glass.

Tip: Ask your guests to mute audio in their end until after your vows & kiss.

What to Wear: Bride

• If you have The Dress, wear it!
• If you’ll have your big celebration later, find something pretty but elegant.

Fun Idea: If you choose a less formal dress for now, you can change into that for your reception when you have your big day down the road!

What to Wear: Groom

• If you have The Dress, your guy can wear a formal tux or a classy suit with trimmings like cuff links, shiny dress shoes & a pocket square.
• Crisp jeans & a sport coat—with or without a tie—look great if you’re going for a more casual look.

Option: This is your unique day so if you want to dress out of the box—a little or a lot—go for it!

Virtually Plan & Livestream Your Wedding How-to Guide: Throw a Virtual Reception

Use Google Hangouts or another platform

• Ask your guests to dress up & party along with you.

Include any traditional wedding traditions you want 

Source: Tanner Burge Photo

• Walk down the “aisle”
• First dance
• Cut a homemade cake
• Open the mic so your guests can make a toast
• Create a signature cocktail

Fun cocktail idea: Give your guests the recipe in advance so they can join in 100%.

Have the Best of Both Worlds!

• Stream a digital ceremony now
• Have your Dream Wedding later with a vow renewal & awesome reception later

Bonus #1: By the time your new wedding day rolls around, all the pressure is off!

• You’re already married so …
• You get to marry your best friend twice.

 Bonus #2:

• You get two “anniversaries!”

What more could you ask?!