Thank You for Attending Our Wedding, Which Has Not Yet Gone Viral

Hey everybody, Jon and Chloe here! Just taking a break from our Alaskan/Tibetan/Caribbean honeymoon to send a quick “Tujay-chay!” for everything you all did to make our wedding so special. All those moments of elegance, emotion, and just a bit of mayhem — it would be hard for any wedding to top.

Which makes it so unusual that, so far, not a single video from the day has gone viral.

Now, no need to point fingers. We’re all responsible here. So let’s look at what’s been done, and what we can all do better. Okay? Awesome!

First, the surprise song during the processional. We knew Best Man Bob had something planned, but getting you all to sing “Hello from the Groom’s Side/Hello from the Bride’s Side” while we walked down the aisle? Amazing!

So why are we sitting at 154 views?

True, Adele parodies have been way overdone. But don’t beat yourself up about that, Bob. There’s still enough throttle potential here that, if we were all doing our part, we’d be trending at least #3 on CrowdTangle.

“But Jon and Chloe,” you say, “I hit the little Like button.” (We heard this from you verbatim, Grandma Stevens.) That’s nice, but likes are a weak engagement factor in the algorithms. What did we make you all say at the reception, before we’d kiss for a glass clink? “A like is alright, but a share means you care.” So let’s get sharing!

And what about our rap-battle vows? Don’t tell me Buzzfeed’s 200 million unique monthly visitors don’t want to see the way we paired “For better or worse” with “I dropped bombs in this verse.” Or how we made the priest declare “love” the winner? That moment alone should have every UGC licensing broker chasing us for an exclusive (fingers crossed for Viralhog!).

We also need to pay attention to where we’re posting. Aunt Stephanie, you were right to push the groomsmen’s rendition of “Milkshake” — their ridiculous moves should surely bring 90% click-to-play rates to “the yard”. But why would you put it on Snapchat? Unless you’re Kylie Jenner, you’re not going viral on Snapchat. Get that up on IG where Mindy Weiss might see it. (Alex, remember to ping your friend who knows Mindy’s dogwalker.)

Now it hasn’t all been bad news. Yesterday, the video of Rachel’s dress flying up during the dove release got 700 views in 24 hours. We were getting overperformance alerts on all our dashboards! Which was exciting, until we checked the analytics and saw every view was from Granville, Ohio. (Really, Uncle Fred?) But there’s a lesson: Give lonely people a bit of happiness, and you can go from nothing to Holderness-level in days.

Now, it’s not just funny videos that go viral, heartwarming is a big sell. So, let’s talk about the cake.

Remember what we all thought when they rolled that big cake out on the dance floor? “Oh no, Roy got strippers.”

But instead, Chloe’s biological father burst out? And then Cousin Timmy, back from Afghanistan? There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. And there won’t be one in America, once they see it shared by every monetized influencer in their feed.

Look, we know it was devastating what happened the day after Timmy got back to Kabul. But don’t you think he would want us to spread joy, instead of wallow in misery? The Timmy we knew would have.

Really though, it doesn’t matter which video goes viral. It could be the puppy parade, the flower girl in the chocolate fountain, or the photobomb by Scottie Pippen (which wasn’t cheap to arrange). What matters is that we all put a lot of time into this wedding. Do we really want it to just be over?

I mean, now what, we all go back to work? Have a kid or two? Check off milestones, until one day there aren’t any left? And we’re left to wonder whether any of it mattered? If we might as well have just been lost, cruelly, in a desert years ago, with no way to quantify what impact we left on the world?

Or, do we want this day to live forever in the hearts of 12–25 million unique viewers? I think you know the answer.

Ok, well we’re off to swim with manatees! We’ll be home soon, can’t wait to see you all, and to see where we’re trending by then!

Love,

Jon and Chloe

P.S. Whoever posted the video of us crying at dinner because the potatoes were mashed instead of puréed, I’m sure it was an accident, but please take it down. It has 20,000 views already, and Chrissy Teigen just tweeted it. We don’t want people to get the wrong idea before the viral videos hit.

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