You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t already acutely aware that weddings, as well as everything else in life, are changing at a rapid pace. Your in-person guestlist has been cut down to include only your closest family and friends, and even though you are making plans today, there’s no assurance that everything will be able to go exactly as planned. Being a couple who got married on October 3rd, 2020, we have lived through your current situation, and we would like to share our experience with you.

A lot of couples are finding that they have 2 (or more) guestlists. There’s an in-person guestlist, which is close family and friends who will likely be able to attend the wedding, and if you are having a livestream there’s also a remote guestlist, which is everyone that would have been invited to the in-person wedding if circumstances were different. It is up to each individual couple to decide who belongs on each list, we can only offer insight and ideas from people who have been there too.

Let’s start with your in-person guestlist. It likely includes the people who are closest to you. Long time friends and family are generally on this list, and some couples lists include friends and family members who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. Although some of these people may be able to make it to your wedding, in all likeliness you will not have 100% of these people in attendance. Including on your wedding invitation the fact that you will be having a livestream and sharing the link to your personalized livestream webpage will help put your guests at ease knowing that they can still be a part of your big day even though they cannot be there in person. We have seen couples include the livestream link directly on their invitation, and others have included a separate insert with their invitation detailing how to access the livestream.

Now let’s look at your second guest list, or as we like to call it, your remote guestlist. These are people who you planned on celebrating your wedding day with, and everyone who is on this list is there because they are important people in your lives. The only reason they could not be on your in-person list is because of current restrictions on large gatherings. Sharing your wedding day with all of your loved ones is of the utmost importance, and having a livestream is the closest thing to having everyone there in person.

Once you know who is on your remote guestlist, it is important to reach out to each person and tell them that they are an important part of your lives and you would be honored if they would remotely join you on your wedding day via your livestream. Some couples send out a second set of paper invitations to their remote guestlist, but instead of including the physical location of their wedding they include the link to the livestream on these invites. They also include other details that might be important to their remote guest list. Other couples might decide that sending an email or direct message with their livestream info is the way to go.

Pre-pandemic, some couples already had to cut their guestlist down so that their guests could all fit in their chosen venue. Now that guestlists have become even more restrictive there is an opportunity to invite all of those additional people as guests to your wedding livestream. We have also worked with couples who actually invited less people than they had on their initial pre-pandemic in-person guest list because they decided they wanted their wedding to be a more intimate gathering.

One of the many great things about Dove’s Eye View is that you get to choose exactly who you want to invite to your wedding livestream and how you want to do it. There’s all sorts of creative ways you can share your livestream details, whether you want to send out a round of livestream invitations through the mail, or perhaps an evite sent to your guests via email will better suit your needs. Maybe you are a couple who wants to post their livestream link to social media so everyone can celebrate your big day together! Whatever your wedding livestream needs are, Dove’s Eye View has you covered. Reach out to us here to start planning your wedding livestream today.