From rolling out its own line of emoticons in a bid to improve your home-based communications, to poking fun at Apple, to replacing seats in movie theaters with bedroom sets, Ikea certainly knows how to have a bit of fun. There was even the time it let customers play a giant game of hide-and-seek at one of its stores, though it apparently regretted that particular stunt when it discovered that a subsequent game was being organized via Facebook involving more than 30,000 participants.
Ikea weddings
The furniture giant’s latest antic involves helping you tie the knot, via the Web. That’s right, the company has launched a new ‘Wedding Online’ service, allowing you to get hitched in the comfort of your own home (while still wearing your pajamas, if you like).
“The best sort of love is easy and effortless. And promising one another eternal devotion at a wedding should be just as simple,” Ikea says. “That’s why we’ve created a new type of wedding that’s neither expensive nor complicated. Invite your friends – as many as you like and wherever they may be – and celebrate together via a video link.”
All you do is choose from one of Ikea’s wedding themes (high society, classic, offbeat, fairy tale, beach, and so on), set a time and date, invite friends and family, and wait for the big day. Oh, and you’ll need someone to marry, too.
Once the guests fire up their webcams, their faces will appear on one of the virtual bodies that populate the wedding venue. Guests without a body, so to speak, can still enjoy the proceedings via their computer or mobile device.
The URL for the wedding’s webpage is public but not published, and takes place on Ikea’s website, so “there may be people other than your friends who look in on your wedding out of curiosity.”
So how exactly does this grand scheme benefit Ikea in its bid to draw more cash from customers, you may ask. Well, each wedding venue is kitted out with various bits and pieces that also happen to be available at Ikea, so in a couple of clicks you can find out more details about a particular product and even enter its online to store to buy it. Brilliant.
The Swedish company points out on its website that anyone can use its wedding service as a light-hearted way of enjoying some online time with loved ones. However, it adds that if you grab yourself an authorized marriage officiator, get two witnesses in the same room during the ceremony, and fill out and submit the relevant paperwork, you can have yourself a real Ikea wedding. For Swedish citizens it even supplies the relevant paperwork.
