Planning on sharing your big day with the world? One man ponders the rise of the web wedding. Being one for hard-nosed research, I've just put the word 'wedding' into Youtube. Almost 650,000 results came back, including the now-legendary footage of a bride and groom's friends dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown's Forever. Over on Flickr I get a massive 18 million results, including one of a 'wedding cake' that's just a large three-tier cake stand smothered in cupcakes (an idea which I've noted, if by noted you mean 'stolen').



One more? Okay. On November 21, a Maryland man created a viral storm by posting the following on Twitter: "Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday". There's even video of him updating his status in front of the surprisingly tolerant minister.

It may put the wind up traditionalists, but none of this is necessarily bad. Your wedding, your business – if you want to expose it to thousands of 16-year-old American kids and a curious journalist, why not?

The word 'want' is tricky, though. Who decides? And might there be a bit of a gender gap here? Both of our Maryland couple are on Twitter, but it's the groom who posts from the altar. A few days later, his new wife tweets, “Can't sleep, very anxious about this new fame. What will become of it?” Let's make no bones about it: if what your wife takes away from the day is anxiety, you've not done a great job.

So I can't be alone in considering a social media policy. It might sound faddish, but it's a reassuringly old-fashioned principle: if you care enough about the public record of your day to brief a traditional photographer, you care enough to lay down a few ground rules for incorrigible lifecasters. Especially if you are one yourself.

The good news is that I am, so I've thought about this extensively. Feel free to copy and paste this onto the back of your invitations:
“Facebook galleries must be friends-only; Youtube videos and Flickr sets are subject to approval (contact bride). All wedding content to be licensed under Creative Commons Sharealike 2.0. ABSOLUTELY NO GEOTAGGING. And if I spot you uploading a one-handed mobile photo to Twitpic while I'm still at the altar, I will chase you out of the church and make you eat confetti.”

Just think of it as internet-speak for 'I want everything to be perfect'.

words Nathan Midgley

Copyright WED Magazine 2010