If you’re thinking about going ahead with a smaller wedding to comply with restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, we can help. With Patchwork you can show your guests the plan for the day, invite them to join you virtually and share ideas for activities to get everyone involved in a fun, meaningful and personal way. Here’s how to use Patchwork to make your virtual wedding stand out from the crowd.
Use our template to get started in minutes
Our new virtual wedding template gives you a base from which to start and you can have a page set up in minutes. Just add your details, change images and text to reflect your plans. Then share the URL with guests so they can start helping you have an amazing virtual wedding day. Here are our top tips for what to add to your patchwork to make organising your day simple and make everyone smile.
Add your zoom link
Your Patchwork page acts as a digital invite, letting everyone know the important stuff like the time and date of your big day. Include the zoom / live-stream link in your introduction so that everyone knows exactly how to join in the celebration. One of the big plus sides of a virtual wedding is that distance, time and financial considerations can be put aside – there are very few barriers to include everyone you love in your wedding day. Just don’t forget to specify to your international guests which time zone you’re streaming from!
Invite guests to get involved
Using Patchwork as a virtual wedding organiser is a great way to streamline your day and make sure that everyone knows what they can do to help. You can use your page as a place to give guests a little guidance on things you’d like them to join in with. Have you got a colour theme or dress code? Is there a cocktail that everyone can make together to toast you with? What about getting everyone involved in a mini bake off, or asking friends to say a few words on Zoom? You can also integrate your gift registry in to your Patchwork and make it really easy for your guests to treat you securely and easily from anywhere in the world. And after the event you can thank everyone and send them photos via your Patchwork account! Here are some ideas to get you started with your virtual wedding Patchwork:
The toast
Let your guests toast you after your ceremony by inviting them to download your wedding cocktail recipe via your Patchwork. Then everyone can prepare it in advance and cheers to you on the day! Or just ask them to bring their favourite tipple to the live-stream so they can get in to the spirit (or bubbly, or juice).
The cake
You’ll probably have a cake ready to cut on the the day, but what about getting your friends and family to join in by making or bringing one along to the livestream too? If you’ve got some bakers among your guests you could even organise a mini bake off to give everyone something fun to do in the build up to your day. Best of all there’s no stressing about menus and dietary requirements – everyone gets to eat their favourite cake!
The speeches
You can ask people to let you know via your Patchwork if they’d like to say a few words on the day. Or perhaps they can send a note of congratulations with a special photo memory of you and them together, so you can surround yourself with happy photos on the day! A virtual wedding might sound distant, but this is a lovely way to make your friends and family feel really connected to you and share in these once in a lifetime moments with you and your partner.
Dress up and decorate
This is a huge celebration and you want everyone to feel like they are attending an event, rather than just passively watching via a screen. The more you can involve your guests, the more fun they will have and the more memorable your virtual wedding day will be for everyone involved. For a bit of fun, you could suggest a simple dress code or colour scheme and ask guests to dress up, or decorate their homes to match. With so little else going on in people’s social lives right now – it’s great to give people an excuse to go that extra mile and get a bit dressed up for the occasion!
A song for the playlist
You can add a patch to your page inviting guests to nominate their favourite song to add to your wedding day playlist. Or perhaps provide a pdf download with the words to a song that everyone can sing together on zoom. There are no rules to break here – so do what feels right for you and your guests, and celebrate your virtual wedding day your way.
Wedding gifts
Despite the tough times we are living in (or perhaps because of them!) your friends and family will want to show their love by gifting you in some way. Many couples who don’t send out a gift registry find that a few weeks before the big day guests will start asking what they can buy. If you haven’t provided suggestions, they’ll just buy you what they think you’ll like, possibly resulting in too many towels and serving bowls! You can avoid the difficulty of asking guests to send physical gifts and the embarrassment of asking for cash by adding some gift ideas to your patchwork.
Perhaps you’d like to treat yourselves to a really great photographer on the day? This makes a lovely gift for your guests to contribute towards as wedding photos usually end up being couples’ most treasured possessions. Or maybe you have a garden project you’d like to start at home, or you’d like some treats on your honeymoon (however distant that may seem right now it will happen!) You can add anything at all to your patchwork, and show your guests the things that mean the most to you. All cash gifts go direct to you too so you have the security of knowing you can spend the money exactly where and when you wish. And your family and friends will thank you for making their lives super simple too.
Check out how easy it is to set up your own virtual wedding patchwork and just have a play around! It’s fun and easy to create a Patchwork page that’s unique to you and fill it with ideas to make your virtual wedding day fun, meaningful and mostly, full of love. Questions about setting up a virtual wedding Patchwork? Contact us at hello@patchworkit.com and we’d love to help.