Coronavirus: Online weddings the latest trend? Couple in India gets married over video call

A couple in India who decided to get married on a video call has proven that love prevails even when the world is dealing with a pandemic.

A merchant navy officer from Mumbai, Preet Singh, and Delhi-based Neet Kaur met online a year ago and built a friendship. Little did they know, they would get married over the internet too.

India is currently under a three-week lockdown and many couples are either calling off wedding plans or postponing their dates, but Singh and Kaur decided to go ahead with their wedding.

According to a report by India-based television news channel, NDTV, when the couple found out that they could not get married at a Gurudwara (place of assembly and worship for Sikhs) as per Sikh tradition, they decided to have their wedding over online video-calling platform Zoom instead.

They conducted a small ceremony in the presence of 50 family and friends, all of whom joined the web ‘meeting’.

"The wedding we had been dreaming of was with our family in India and abroad and with all Punjabi pre-wedding ceremonies of mehendi, sangeet, etc, followed by the wedding at a Gurudwara and then a reception. Of course we never imagined getting married on Zoom,” Singh was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Singh said that he proposed the idea of a virtual wedding as getting married in person did not seem like an option for the duo in the near future.

"I do not have the privilege of working from home. In a few months, once things start to improve, I will have to return to work, which ruled out the possibility of postponing the wedding. We wanted to stick to our date of April 4. So we decided to just go ahead with the plan and also, I wanted to set an example of social distancing in times of a lockdown,” Singh was quoted as saying.

The newlywed also told Indian news outlets that the families of the bride and groom were supportive of their decision and “thrilled” to know that they would be able to attend the celebration from the comfort of their homes.

However, the merchant navy officer said that a wedding reception will take place at a Gurudwara according to Sikh traditions, as soon as it is possible to do so in India, according to NDTV’s report.

Couples opt for virtual weddings

This is not the only case of a couple choosing to get married over a video call amidst the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

Recently, school sweethearts Ben Jackson and Sophie Austin from London, got married over a Zoom call in front of family and friends while self-isolating.

The couple got engaged in August 2018 and 200 people were due to watch them tie the knot in person on March 28, but they had to change their plans after the COVID-19 outbreak occurred.

Seemingly, virtual weddings are getting popular as many netizens shared posts about being invited to one.

Tweep @colindross wrote: “I attended my first zoom wedding today, WBU [what about you]?”

Twitter user @tdub909 posted: “I attended an online wedding today. And it was special and beautiful, and I was grateful and heartbroken.”

Whereas, user @MissPatchesMD jokingly tweeted: “Got invited to my first zoom wedding! What to wear?”