Remember the times when a wedding was more of a private and intimate affair where few close relatives and family friends were involved?And the best part about a wedding was having a developed copy of wedding pictures? Today with the development of technology and the wave of new media, weddings have become like a news event with real-time updates.

Earlier, reputed magazines, newspapers and news channels were invited to capture the celebrity weddings, and those pictures would be exclusively available to the public there. But thanks to social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat we’re all now a part of a big fat celebrity wedding. Be it #SonamKiShaadi or #TheRoyalWedding and not to forget the Ambani heirs’ weddings and engagements, social media gave us real-time updates.

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The trend of ‘social media weddings’ started when the wedding pictures of Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli flooded social media and turned it into their wedding album. While the wedding pictures of Virat and Anushka came in a week after their private affair wedding, Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor had a hand above them and gave us real-time updates of her wedding, from her outfits to her pre-wedding Mehendi function, to her wedding reception, we knew all the walk in and walk out of the guests who physically attended the wedding.

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Every wedding took the social media bar a step above. While we could be a part of Sonam’s wedding in bits and pieces, the royal wedding of Megan Markle and Prince Harry had a complete live coverage from the arrival of the guests, the vows they took, till the final drive away of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Although live-streaming Royal Weddings is a centuries’ old tradition, you can now view them on social media too, either through dedicated pages or hashtags.

Now it would be really interesting to see what Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone’s wedding has in store for us, since their wedding dates have been the talk of the town for months now. Afterall, who wouldn’t love being a part of a big fat royal wedding from the comfort of their homes!

The post Have 21st century weddings become a not-so-private affair? appeared first on Youth Incorporated Magazine.