Company brings nuptials to the Net

Sitting on your couch, staring at a computer. It's not quite Hawaii, but it's the next best thing.

That's the sales pitch for Live Internet Weddings — a videography company founded by father and son Hoosiers and run from the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
The company, as its name implies, specializes in Webcasts of weddings. Larry Fair, 55, and Joshua Fair, 27, film couples tying the knot in Hawaii and stream the footage live over the Internet so friends and relatives anywhere in the world can watch.
They might be jealous of the sun and surf, but they can watch.

"It's a place that everybody dreams about getting married, but a lot of times, they don't (do it)," said Joshua Fair, who grew up in Fountaintown. "They think, 'I'd love to go to Hawaii, but Grandma and Grandpa couldn't make it.' "
This is just the latest example of technology's role in life's major moments. Whether it's filming a child's birth or putting a video screen on a headstone, experts say people have always used technology to extend the range of their experiences and capture memories.

Webcasting a wedding is no different. That could be one reason this relatively new concept has caught on.

In 21/2 years, Live Internet Weddings has become the preferred videography company for the Starwood Hotels and Resorts chain in Hawaii. That means Starwood refers all couples who book weddings or receptions to the company for photographs, video slideshows and Webcasts.

That's how Julie and Rich Moore learned of Live Internet Weddings.
The couple, from Burnsville, Minn., got married last month at a Sheraton brand Starwood hotel. They decided to exchange vows in Hawaii out of convenience — Julie had to travel there for business and Rich had decided to go along to make it a vacation.

Most of their relatives live in Minnesota, Louisville, Ky., and Detroit, and couldn't attend on such short notice. So the Moores decided to fork over an extra $395 for a Webcast.
"I felt like it was a gift for the people who couldn't come," Julie Moore said. "They loved it. They really were so excited about it. My dad just called again and said, 'I loved it.' "
Other brides are telling Starwood the same thing, said Christopher Wieners, manager of online marketing for Starwood's 11 hotels in Hawaii.
"This is something we put out there, not knowing whether we were going to get any brides or not," he said.

But now, of the 20 to 30 people per day who request information about weddings on Starwood's Web site, 75 percent want to know about Webcasting.

"The destination weddings, they love it," Wieners said.

Live Internet Weddings is trying to negotiate a similar deal with the Prince Resorts Hawaii chain, Larry Fair said.
To handle all this, Live Internet Weddings recently hired 20 videographers, who will start work in the next few months. The goal is to film, photograph or Webcast 20 weddings a day on the islands.

"In the last three to six months business has been really good," Joshua Fair said.

It wasn't always that way.
Larry Fair, who used to work for Indianapolis Power & Light Co., dreamed up Live Internet Weddings as strictly a Webcasting company. But once he persuaded Joshua to move to Oahu and actually start the company, they realized they had to branch out into other forms of videography. Webcasting — at least in 2004 — was too narrow a niche.

Problem was, neither Fair had any experience with cameras or video equipment.

"I shot video of my kids when they were young, and that was it," Larry Fair said.

They taught themselves and made mistakes. But today the process is rather streamlined.

The Fairs film every wedding with multiple cameras. The footage is used for a professionally produced wedding video and for the Webcast. They carry a device that lets the Fairs get online from anywhere, so Webcasting nuptials from the mountains or the beach is no problem.

Family and friends can access the Webcast — both live and archived — from a Web address that the couple receives a week ahead of the wedding. That way they can e-mail it to everyone.
All those watching need is a computer with a high-speed Internet connection.
"Even my 96-year-old grandmother and her slightly younger neighbor said it worked for them," Moore said.

It remains to be seen whether wedding Webcasts will become as common as wedding DVDs or wedding photos. But there's a good chance, said Michael Holmes, associate director of insight and research at Ball State University's Center for Media Design.

"This is just another example of something that's been going on for a long time," he said. "It's because it's simultaneous. That's what the Internet has brought us in the pattern of extending our reach in time and space."
Now, all the way to Hawaii.