COURTESY OF YOURWEBCAST.COM
Warren and Jen Wilderman had video of their wedding on Maui available on a Web site hours after the ceremony.
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Maui firm brings weddings to the world via Internet video
WAILUKU » The bride's sister was a soldier in Iraq and couldn't be in the reception line.
But she was able to view the ceremony by going online thanks to the Web, one of the latest additions to marriage ceremonies.
In Las Vegas and Maui, two popular wedding locations in the United States, a growing number of couples are adding a Web-cast of their vows on the Internet for those unable to attend the ceremonies.
For Warren and Jen Wilderman of Calgary, Alberta, the Web-cast wedding was a way for the newlyweds to share their marriage ceremony on Maui with their family and relatives in Canada.
"It was a wonderful experience," said Jen Wilderman, who held a wedding reception in Canada Friday night.
"I would recommend it highly. Everyone who viewed the video was just blown away."
Wilderman said the Web-cast was a way for their family to view the wedding as quickly as possible. Viewing it is free for online guests.
The Web-cast wedding keeps friends close without the expense of a crowded ceremony, its fans said.
At the Maui-based YourWeb-cast.com, the weddings can be played and repeated through the Web-cast for a month.
"It uses the trendiest cutting-edge technology to share with their friends," said Glenn Brugman, a partner in YourWeb-cast.com. "It's popular, especially when someone's out of the country."
He said the price for shooting and editing a wedding, then putting it on a Web-cast is about $825, including a DVD of the marriage ceremony for the couple.
Brugman said hundreds of people sometimes view the Web-cast in a few hours.
Before the Web-cast airs, e-mail invitations are sent out to notify friends and family members about the online wedding site and when to view the ceremonies.
Brugman said online guests are able to sign the guest book and leave their comments on the Web-cast site.
He said his business gets a lot of clients from the U.S. mainland, including New York, Dallas, North Carolina, California, and Washington state.
YourWeb-cast.com also has clients from Japan, the Philippines and Canada.
Brugman, whose business was founded five years ago, said the enterprise grew by about 400 percent last year and he has done eight to nine Web-cast weddings in the past three weeks.
The number of visitors with weddings in the state grew by more than 23 percent from 2000-2005. Maui was the state leader in 2005, attracting 8,835 couples, followed by Honolulu with 5,913, Kauai with 3,298 and the Big Island with 1,868, according to the state.
Brugman said because of current limitations in technology, the quality of a live Web-cast isn't as good as downloading the wedding from the YourWeb-cast.com site.
He said before releasing a Web-cast wedding, his business puts together an edited version of the marriage ceremony and has it on the Web site in five hours.
"We put all the magic together in post production and add really nice music," he said.
Brugman said his business has caught some interesting bloopers on camera. A few days ago, a bride standing on a rocky coastline was taking a photograph of the wedding party when a wave swept over her, gown and all, and dragged her into the ocean.
"It was funny, and she was OK," Brugman said. "She had a good attitude. She wanted it included in the package. She didn't want to delete it out."