Weddings on Skype Are Quickly Becoming a Common Practice [NYT]

Skype is definitely a pretty helpful platform, not only for video chatting with your friends or family, but also for a number of other purposes, but who would have thought that couples could use it to get married over the Internet?

A report by New York Times indicates that the number of Skype users who wish to say “I do” in front of the computer screen is skyrocketing these days, mostly in immigrant communities.

The idea of a wedding via Skype is pretty simple, actually: both the bride and the groom get in front of the computer monitor surrounded by friends and family ready to start a new video call over the Internet.

The practice is called proxy marriage and is apparently on the rise in certain parts of the world, especially for couples who struggle to cope with a long-distance relationship.

According to Proxy Marriage Now, a company that performs weddings via Skype for a small fee, there are more than 400 or 500 online weddings each year, which represents a boost of up to 15 percent in the past seven years. Unsurprisingly, the increase reaches 40 percent in case the online wedding involves someone in the military.