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By Manuel P. Nappo, Head of Studies CAS Social Media Management at the HWZ, Chief Networking Officer at Centralway. www.about.me/mpn

It should be the most beautiful day of your life: your wedding. As it is well known that sharing makes you happy, more and more couples are showing their wedding in real time on the Internet. The civil registry office of the city of Zurich has reacted and has recently made an iPad with Skype available. At the beginning of May, the Zurich registry office broadcast a wedding ceremony live abroad for the first time. This will not remain an isolated case. In future, the iPad with Skype will be a permanent fixture in the registry office. The "eZürich" project group wants to provide more services via the Internet and mobile devices. A successful idea!

It is actually surprising that wedding couples did not express their desire for a Skype transmission earlier. Of the 2382 marriages that took place in the city of Zurich in 2011, at least one of the two partners had a foreign passport in 75 percent of the weddings. It remains to be seen how often the service will actually be used in the future.

The fact that weddings can be watched online is nothing new. In the USA, there have long been providers that specialize in this. Companies such as "Marry Me Live", "I Do Stream" or "Live Vows" broadcast the wedding ceremony professionally on the internet. Access is password-protected so that only relatives and friends can watch.

If you want to take the broadcast into your own hands, Skype or Ustream are a good choice. According to Ustream, the channel was used by over 10,000 weddings last year. So there really does seem to be a great need to share the special moment with others in real time. Eye-Fi, a Wi-Fi memory card for the camera, is now available for uploading photos in real time. Thanks to integrated Wi-Fi, the images are made available directly on the desired page. You can easily present the pictures on Facebook, Flickr or other platforms immediately after taking them.

In principle, there is nothing wrong with social media at a wedding. Apps and online tools can be very useful for organizing and planning, especially in the run-up to the event. Live broadcasting of the ceremony also seems to be gaining in importance. But can it go too far?

There are videos on YouTube showing couples at the altar adjusting their "relationship status" live on Facebook. Some wedding parties appoint a "Chief Tweeter" so that the couple can enjoy the wedding and not be constantly glued to their smartphones. This person is officially tasked with documenting the day and maintaining the social media channels.

The US series "Happy Endings" even went so far as to have a "Skype table" at the wedding. There were eight laptops on it and the guests who had stayed at home were connected via Skype. So is this the best day of your life?
 

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