Chapter 1: Introduction

John Johnson and Sally Smith¹ have decided to get married. John is to oversee the formalities, leaving Sally free to look after the guest list and celebrations. A phone call to the local authorities quickly reveals that organizing a wedding is much more complicated than John and Sally feared: if things are to be done properly, a host of people need to be notified, not least because Sally has decided to take her husband surname. The civil registration and road traffic offices have to be informed, as do the post office, the railroad company (season tickets), hometown municipalities and the tax office to name but a few. Sally’s task is not simple either. She needs to contact bus companies, party hosts, gardeners, church parishes, photographers, a priest, catering companies and goodness knows who else in order to prepare for the occasion itself. Of course, all of this wedding organization may have a romantic, nostalgic element to it, but it would certainly be easier if it could all be done over the Internet. A couple in Hong Kong who, like John and Sally, are getting married, simply visit a wedding homepage on the Internet and take care of everything—from administrative affairs to guest list and organization of the evening meal—directly from this one website. Marriage is a so-called “life event,” a typical experience in the lives of many people that could be organized over the Internet. Anyone who enters one of these portals does not need any specialist knowledge at all; he or she will be guided through all the necessary formalities in the easiest way possible, and can arrange the festivities according to his or her own personal desires.