Virtual Guest

by Zoe Pollock

Are live video feeds the wave of the future for weddings? Miriam Kotzin of the Smart Set watches happily from the sidelines:

I watched friends and relatives greet the jovial groom, who looked not one whit nervous, and now the wedding procession was starting. And then the procession was over, and the ceremony began. The groom was beaming, the bride radiant.

Each close-up of the bride and groom as well as the soundtrack’s fading out during the address mimicked the shifting attention I would have experienced had I been sitting in the garden with the other guests. 

The effect of watching the wedding on the computer was much closer to the experience of actually being present than watching a typical wedding video, which is a formulaic highlighted treatment of a ritual.