TL;DR – Jump to How to Participate
Since even the concept of getting married online is so very new to the world, it is important to demonstrate that it is not only real, but can work for couples around the world.
Everyone who is getting married online now is part of an important historic change that may well end up influencing how marriages are treated worldwide in the future.
It is critical to track how these marriages are being handled by the governments and bureaucracies involved, and to understand where the challenges are arising.
Think of it in terms of how research is able to impact everything from personal decision making to forming the basis of policy for everything from corporations to insurance to governments.
So, I’m not exactly a scientist, but I am a data nerd with a professional background in research and applying data gathering to help form opinions. It’s what I do for a living and I’m very interested in trends and researching how people think. And I also want to make things easier for the people ahead of you by finding out what obstacles you face now and what you had to do, if anything, to overcome them. I hope to build a good amount of research about it and make that available to everyone.
What is involved?
Right now, not much – beyond taking part in some surveys, and allowing me to publish a short blog post about you and your ceremony and follow-up research. I can use pseudonyms if you don’t want to be identified personally. If you’re ok with me taking screenshots from your video to post along with the story, that helps people see the real faces behind the history of of online weddings. And if you agree to it, I would publish a short version of your wedding video to youTube so that folks can see how happy, heartfelt and joyous online weddings can be!
For surveys, you would take an initial short survey to enter the program, and then most likely I would send you additional short surveys in the years following your ceremony.
I will also ask if you would like to participate in longer interviews (video or written).
Survey results, interviews, videos and more will be freely shared on my blog for everyone to access. Survey data as a whole will be completely anonymized with the exception of country-level demographics. That means I’ll use the different countries identified to come up with trends for the weddings I do, such as the percentage of total persons in a specific country, like 54% in the US, 17% in the Philippines and so on. Data nerd much? Yes. (Those statistics were made up because I haven’t done any research yet.)
The Fine Print
I say fine print, but I’m writing it in big letters to be sure everyone can see it. I will never sell or trade your data or information to any third party, give your email address to spammers, or use it for other shady or nefarious purposes. I promise!
You can ALWAYS choose to opt out of any part of the project and I will always let you know what I am doing with the data I collect. Mostly, I am interested in tracking how people are navigating those labyrinthine corridors of government and then using that info to help others. So even if you change your mind after agreeing to be involved, I will respect your wishes and delete your data.
How to Participate
- Book a new Online Wedding with me and pay as normal.
- Fill out the participation form and initial survey and submit it.
- I’ll write your blog post, and will include any photos, videos or other items you choose to share, such as your marriage certificate (which will be anonymized for your privacy). I’ll send it to you for final approval prior to publication.
- Once your blog post has been published, I will refund $25 of your wedding fee to the account used to book your wedding.
Not interested in being part of the Featured Couples project, and just want to be informed about results or other data? Cool – get yourself on my mailing list just for that purpose.
How to Opt-Out
As mentioned above, even if you change your mind about participating, you may always opt out of any part of the project. Check out using this form to do so.