Wedding Planning Advice: 3 Ways to Incorporate Family & Friends That Can’t Be at Your Wedding

Image: Mathy Shoots People

A quick note on this post … I wrote this post originally on Wednesday, but the blog server crashed and I lost the original. So this is my best attempt to re-create what I wrote! I hope it does the original post justice ….

Sometimes your family & friends cannot attend your wedding. Whether it’s due to illness, weather, military service, or just bad timing, it’s an unfortunate thing but thanks to modern technology and a few other ideas, there are some ways you can incorporate them into your wedding to make it feel as though they are there! We’re breaking down 3 ways you can incorporate your family & friends into your wedding, even when they cannot be there in person.

3 Ways to Incorporate Family & Friends That Cannot Attend Your Wedding in Person

#1. Technology

One of the easiest ways these days to incorporate friends/family that cannot attend your wedding in person, is using technology to stream the event, or video chat (or hell even the old fashioned telephone) to talk with the person unable to make it. The image above shows recent Bride, Kara, Facetiming with her Grandma who was unable to make the trip to DC for Kara’s actual wedding. Kara shares, “[my grandma] had a stroke a few years ago and my mom has been taking care of her. A couple weeks before the wedding my family decided it would be too difficult to bring grandma out to DC for the wedding. It was disappointing, but I know it made the weekend a lot less stressful for my family. So we had her caregiver get her all dolled up and we Facetimed with her when i was getting ready. it was a nice way to include her in the day since she couldn’t physically be there.”

Another recent bride, Chelsey, used Livestream to stream their wedding ceremony online, LIVE, so friends/family could watch via their computer. The image above is a screenshot of Chelsey’s friend watching their wedding ceremony from South Korea! Chelsey shares some tips on using Livestream for your wedding ceremony:

Make sure your venue has wifi (you can’t live stream without it)
Create your event/ link at least one week in advance so your not-so-computer-saavy friends/family can create an account and figure it out before the “big day”
Set up your iPad on a tripod (make sure people can see/hear what is happening but also make sure it’s not in the way of your photographer/videographer)
The LiveStream is only available for a limited time after your event (unless you pay) – we figured put how to upload to YouTube so we could have access after the actual Live Stream was deleted!

Finally, photographer Karen Rainier shares this pre-recorded video from a wedding she shot. The bride’s best friend couldn’t attend the wedding because she was super pregnant, so she filmed a video that was projected at the reception. The Bride (right) was SO surprised!

#2. Tangible Tributes

Another way to include family & friends unable to attend your wedding is through visual homages at your wedding. Lots of brides like to keep pictures on their bouquets of family/friends that have passed away. Karen Rainier shares another example from one of her weddings where the groom put out a picture of his mom and Little Debbie Snacks. Karen shares, “One groom’s mom passed away before the wedding. Her name was Debbie and she always packed him little Debbie snacks in his lunch so they had a tray of Little Debbie snacks at the reception with a photo and tribute!”