Today I attended a wedding about an hour away in the Ahwatukee Foothills here in Arizona. That’s about an hour away from my office, but I was able to attend in only a couple minutes and I didn’t even get out of my chair.

Love On Twitter

It all started about two years ago when Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis, a couple tweetering geeks in love, made waves with their Twitter marriage proposal and acceptance. He asked her in front of the world and she said yes. Some said it was unromantic, but for a couple who embraces technology with such passion in their careers, it’s not a stretch to imagine such a proposal being even more meaningful than what we’re used to.

The Twitter Wedding

A couple years, and some good press later, on a Thursday evening, Greg and Stephanie had a small ceremony in a back yard as the sun set with about 10 family members and friends in attendance.

Unlike most intimate back yard weddings, though, this one had a hash tag: #tweetwed, vows tweeted as they were being said aloud, and live streaming video of the occasion for anyone interested in joining in on their special day. With about 100 of us watching the video stream on Ustream, and countless others reading tweets and retweets about it, vows were recited and tweeted, geeky web-related jokes were made both by those physically there and remote viewers, leading up to the exchange of rings and the kiss. The whole thing was quick and fun.

What’s Next?

Live-tweeting the event is OK, but the video turned out to be the cooler part. It was just more interactive for a live event and I know we’ll see more and more live-streamed weddings taking place in the future. In fact, my wife will be watching the wedding of a co-worker tomorrow afternoon, streamed live from Las Vegas. There will always be big traditional weddings involving flights and catering, but the future will hold lots of streaming weddings, too and the lowering cost of HD video and bandwidth is only going to make it better.

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