Friends and relatives from across the world can now be ‘virtually’ part of your wedding ceremony with the UK’s first four video-stream hotel wedding. The revolutionary new service launched on 18th August at Hand Picked Hotels’ luxury country house hotel, Buxted Park Hotel in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, enabling absent guests to enjoy a live 360¡ view of the service.

The WedCam service - a first for a hotel wedding venue - uses four or more separate streams to give a fly on the wall view of the wedding from a variety of camera angles. Virtual guests can watch the bride walk down the aisle, see the couple exchange vows, share the emotions of the congregation and even see the confetti being thrown as the happy couple leave the venue.

To complete the virtual wedding experience, the couple will also have their own password protected website* featuring a wedding list, photo gallery - in which guests can upload their own images - and even a wedding blog. Archives of the wedding footage will be available through their website after the wedding ends. A virtual guestbook, in which friends and family can pass on their best wishes from all around the world, will also be added to the site in the near future.

Nick Read, Marketing Director, of Hand Picked Hotels, comments: ‘Couples are increasingly marrying away from home at exclusive venues such as our 14 luxury country hotels but for various reasons not everyone can attend. The benefits of the WedCam service is that it allows the couple to share their special day with everyone they would want there in person from all around the world.’

David Berry at WedCam, the suppliers of the service, comments: ‘The idea came about when the venue in which my wife and I wanted to marry could only hold 50 people. With the average Briton spending 11 hours a week online[1] and 99.9% of UK premises now connected to broadband-enabled exchanges[2], this technology extends your special day to a more global audience.’

Buxted Park Hotel is a magnificent Georgian Palladian mansion set in 312 acres of parkland and provides the perfect setting for a traditional English wedding for a virtual congregation from across the World.

The UK’s first hotel WedCam was streamed online from the Hand Picked Hotels website www.handpicked.co.uk
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