Abstract: Virtual attendance at a life event is accomplished by inviting guests to attend the life event, providing an event hall for attendance by a first group of invited guests, and providing remote access to at least one portion of the life event for a second group of invited guests. The remote access preferably includes a bi-directional link providing real-time interaction between the first group and the second group of the invited guests. Management of such a virtual attendance system is preferably accomplished by storing a list of guests invited to remotely attend the life event, registering invited guests on the list, accepting payment from invited guests on the list, and outputting a Uniform Resource Locator (an address of a Web site preferably having at least one real-time video link to the event hall) associated with the life event to the invited guests on the list, only if payment is accepted.