No More Boring Wedding Videos! Say Hello to Marryokes!
Wedding guests can breathe a sigh of relief - no more sitting through endless wedding photos and a four-hour long video of the big day. But instead they might find themselves having to lip-sync along to romantic hits such as 'Perfect Day' and 'I've had the time of my life' while in their wedding finery.
Welcome to 'marryoke' - the latest must-have for couple planning their Big Day. It's marriage - plus karaoke.
The bride, groom and their loved ones all get to star in their very own pop video by miming along to their favourite track.
The footage is then cleverly interwoven with video of all the traditional features of the happy day, from the groom waiting at the altar for his bride, to the wedding ceremony and onto the reception afterwards.
It's supposed to be the happiest day of your life, so there's no wonder that newly-weds have always wanted to have a permanent record of the day.
But marryoke is certainly a step up from a formal photo on the steps of the church.
'There has been a real shift in wedding's recently,' says marryoke maker Billy May. 'People are constantly looking for something that's unique so there's a real competitive element going on. People search for something different at their weddings, whether it's with the flowers, or the cake, the wedding favours or the video. There's also a social media element where people want to upload photos and videos of the day on Facebook or YouTube.'
Husband and wife team Billy and Katie May set up their company Marryokes.com three years ago having made a wedding video for some friends as a present. It got 50,000 hits when they uploaded it onto YouTube and they realised that they were onto something. A few months later they made a couple of marryoke videos for music producer Paul Higgins and his wife Clodagh McGeary and, aided by the appearance of One Direction, got more than two million hits.
The couple, based in Northern Ireland and the USA, now spend their time travelling off to exotic locations such as Italy, Thailand, New York and Sri Lanka.
'There are all kinds of crazy things at weddings nowaways,' says Billy. 'We've seen elephants, magicians, helicopters, secret singers - all sorts.'
The Mays will be at a wedding from make-up and hair styling at the very beginning of the day to dancing until the early hours. As well as doing marryokes they also make traditional 40-minute wedding videos and a three-minute highlights package.
'People are becoming less bothered about recording the speeches and the vows and are more interested in putting the highlights package on Facebook,' says Billy.
As for the songs, people tend to stay away from the traditionally romantic tunes in favour of high-energy pop songs, including Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling and Queen's Don't Stop Me Now.
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