How To Have The Perfect Hybrid Wedding Ceremony 2022
Planning a wedding is hard! Here’s how I hosted an intimate, modern-day destination hybrid wedding with both in-person and Zoom guests. Get my tips and templates.
In this blog post, I’ll recap how I had a small destination hybrid wedding in Mexico for both IRL and Zoom guests. So, if you’re thinking of hosting one yourself, this may give you some inspo.
When my husband proposed, I wasn’t convinced I wanted a large, expensive traditional wedding. Keeping costs minimal was a priority, so we briefly considered eloping to take the stress off.
After some thought, we decided to have an intimate beach ceremony that we’d stream live for our extended fam and friends.
I’ve included links to a few items and templates I used to plan some of the details. If you find them helpful, feel free to use them to plan your own hybrid wedding ceremony.
Beach Wedding – Theme, Colors, & Details
I always knew I wanted a beach wedding but I equally love desert-style weddings.
Luckily for me, I was able to host my wedding on a private beach in Mexico, and the resort was landscaped with beautiful desert and cacti landscaping.
At that point, choosing a desert beach wedding theme was a no-brainer.
I’m a graphic designer by trade, and visual branding is my jam. One of the first things I do when I’m working on a brand design is to think about the colors.
So when it was time to think about the theme and colors for my wedding, I was of course excited.
I settled on the perfect combination of desert beach-inspired colors: soft pinks, sandy neutrals, blue-green ocean hues, and rusty desert tones. And, like the design nerd I am, I obviously named each one.
From there I knew I wanted subtle hints of succulents in my bouquet and wedding florals and pulled the following images as inspo.
I was set on a modern angular arch adorned with florals overlooking the ocean for our ceremony. I created my moodboard and fell in love.
Bride & Groom Wedding Attire
Since we decided against unnecessarily spending exorbitant amounts of money on one day, that kept me in check when I started looking for our wedding attire.
I wasn’t at all interested in driving all over town to try on dresses. I wanted to avoid getting stuck in a situation where I fell in love with a dress that was way over my budget.
So instead, I did what any normal person would do and shopped online for it.
Honestly, this was a gamble for me because I didn’t start shopping for my dress until about 2-3 months before my wedding, and inevitably, I had a slight moment of panic.
The wedding industry wants you to believe that you must buy your dress a year in advance and get it altered 3-4 months in advance. But turns out you don’t need that much time at all.
Bridal Attire
I wanted a pretty lace dress that would work well for a beach wedding and I found really beautiful wedding dress options online at both Lulus and Asos.
My first option was Lulus Love of Details White Lace Maxi Dress . I absolutely loved its fitted bodice, sheer lace maxi skirt, and thigh-high slit.
However, when I tried it on for my family, they didn’t love it quite as much. The dress skirt is see-through, and the bodice is like a flesh-toned bathing suit. They asked me who I thought I was, Nicki Minaj or something?
My husband, on the other hand, loved it and I almost thought I found the one.
My second option was this pretty wedding gown from Asos. I loved the lace, cap sleeves, and the way it was cut in the back.
This dress also had a high slit but felt a lot more bridal than the Lulus Maxi dress, and when I put it on, I definitely felt like a bride.
It was a great combination of everything I wanted for my beach wedding.
I ordered both dresses online and had enough time to try them on and return everything I didn’t want to keep.
When it was time to alter my dress, I went to a small hole-in-the-wall tailor in downtown Los Angeles who altered my dress and added a bustle for less than $40, saving me hundreds of dollars.
I also bought this veil from Lulus, and this robe, white fuzzy house slippers, hair clip, clutch, and sandals (for walking on the sand) from Amazon.
A few must-have purchases I can’t forget to mention were the Crest White Strips that saved me from spending money on Teeth Whitening at my Dentist, the Spanx high waisted shorts that helped me fit into my dress perfectly, and this portable mini steamer that was a lifesaver when we needed to take the wrinkles out of our wedding attire.
Bridal Makeup
There has only been one time in my life when I had my makeup done by someone else and actually liked how I looked. I’ve paid makeup professionals in the past and have hated it more times than not, so I decided early on that I’d do my own bridal makeup.
Even though I am not a makeup professional, I felt confident doing this on my own because I know what works best for my face and skin and what makes me feel and look the prettiest.
The hardest part was doing my eye makeup, so I followed this Bridal Makeup tutorial on YouTube and loved how my eye makeup came out.
I ended up helping my mom and sis with their hair and makeup as well, which made getting ready with them special.
Groom Attire
I’m sure there will be no surprise when I say that shopping for my husband’s wedding attire was a piece of cake. He bought a nice pair of slacks and top from Zara, and I paired it with this beautiful printed coat from Asos that perfectly matched our color scheme.
I really wanted him to stand out and not wear anything that would be forgettable, and this became his signature piece for the wedding. He paired it with a really nice white shirt and crisp white tennis shoes.
It was the perfect look for our beach wedding, and he got lots of compliments.
Our Final Look!
I couldn’t have been happier with our final wedding look!
Virtual Invitations – Text Campaign
Once we decided on having a small, intimate minimony, with 10 of our closest family members, having a virtual component where our extended family and friends could join us via Zoom was a no-brainer.
When I first started my graphic design career, I designed and printed custom wedding invitations for clients, and always thought I’d one day make my own. Instead, I decided to lean into the technology theme and forego a lot of the traditional wedding details, including printed wedding invitations.
I kept everything digital and sent my invitations via a custom text campaign and used the Simple Texting platform to set up my custom wedding number and added all my guests to the list.
I’m a WordPress website designer and developer, so after building my custom wedding website using WordPress and the Beaver Builder page builder plugin, I set up my text campaign and sent out my text invites.
Using a text campaign to communicate with my guests was great because I could automate all of my follow-up messages. They were able to RSVP with a simple text response, and I kept them updated about all the wedding details along the way.
Virtual Wedding – Wedfuly
Hosting the virtual wedding component of my IRL ceremony was something I had no idea how I’d pull off. After a quick Google search, I found Wedfuly, a company that hosts the best livestreamed weddings, and I booked them almost immediately (use my code sarahluna to get $50 off if you book Wedfuly to host your virtual wedding).
They made having a hybrid wedding a reality for me and took care of all the Zoom wedding details so that I could focus on the actual in-person wedding ceremony.
We had a few tech rehearsals, and they mailed me all the gear I needed, like the tripods, speaker, and lapel mics. There were a few tasks I had to complete beforehand as well, like creating a Spotify playlist and a slideshow to play while my Zoom guests arrived.
Afterward, Wedfuly sent us a link to download our wedding footage, chat transcripts, and a group photo of our guests as a keepsake.
Wedding Slideshow
For our Zoom guests, I created an animated wedding slideshow in Canva to play during the live stream, and it’s honestly become one of my favorite wedding mementos.
Watch it below if you want an idea of how to create your own.
At first, the thought of having to create a 5-10 minute slideshow gave me a tiny bit of anxiety because I wasn’t sure where to start. But, designing it all in Canva made it easy. I didn’t have to worry about figuring out how to add transitions and animation effects because you can do it all in Canva.
If you want to use my exact template, download it below.
Hybrid Wedding Ceremony
My actual, real-life ceremony was beautiful. It was on a private beach in Mexico with no one around but 10 of my closest family and friends.
My Dad officiated our wedding which was the best decision. He not only made it super special, but he was funny in all the right ways for us.
Since we had a small minimony, we opted to forego having bridesmaids or groomsmen altogether but had a few family members participate by reading a poem, saying a prayer, and handing us our rings.
Ceremony Script
The hardest part for me was writing out the ceremony script.
I hit up Google for lots of wedding ceremony script ideas and wrote one out that felt right for us. We did not want it to be religious, so we went with a modern theme, but I did add in a wedding prayer for my parents, who are religious and that meant a lot to them.
Read my wedding script here.
If you’re looking for a wedding ceremony script to use as inspo, download my Google Doc template below.
Ceremony Music
When it came to picking our ceremony music, my hubby and I had a hard time deciding. After a lot of back and forth, we chose the Allen Stone cover of “This Is Love” by Bob Marley for our wedding processional.
It was the perfect love song for us because we are both of Caribbean Belizean descent and Reggae music is in our blood.
For our recessional, we chose “Just the Two of Us” by Grover Washington for its perfect blend of celebration and love.
Our Wedding Photo Gallery
Now we get to the good part! Here’s a peek into our special day:
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