Theme and variations

I've been to a lot of weddings. A lot. Dozens and dozens, mostly those of people I don't know. Playing in a band that performs at weddings gives you plenty of exposure to a variety of marriage ceremonies, plus associated parties and receptions.

While there are only a few things required to get legally married—a license, a recognized officiant, certain declarations, signatures from the bride and groom (or brides or grooms here in Canada now), witnesses—there are of course many traditions, some religious, some derived from religions, some secular. What I remember about any particular wedding are the ways, small and large, that it differs from a "stock" wedding.

Our friend Tanya married Barry yesterday here in Vancouver, before they both move to Calgary. Air and I were pleased to be invited. Here are some pictures I took:

What was different about this one? If you take the full-on traditional Canadian wedding as a template, then first of all, it wasn't in a church and there was a marriage commissioner rather than a minister or priest. And it was on a boat. But none of those is unusual in Vancouver.

(Incidentally, by total coincidence, the commissioner was a retired former teaching colleague of my wife's, whom the two of us also bumped into, in San Luis Obispo back in 1995, during our own honeymoon.)

Let's see. The groom was in a tuxedo, and the bride did wear a big flowy dress, but he wore a necktie rather than a bow tie, and her gown was a spectacular black and silver-grey. They didn't have a big wedding cake to cut, or to smush into each other's faces. They dispensed with the garter-and-bouquet bit.

Oh, and it was video-streamed live on the Internet, as well as live-blogged. There was an official tag for Flickr, Twitter, and so on: netchickweds.

If you know Tanya, none of that should be a surprise. She's called "Netchick" for a reason: she started blogging earlier than anyone else in Vancouver, back in 1997 (!), three years before me. She's on the first page of results when you Search for "Tanya" on Google. She's as plugged-in as can be, and Barry (no slouch online himself) seems fine with that.

Looking around the dinner seating on the boat, I realized that being online is definitely not a nerds-only thing anymore. It's what people do, for trivial things like our latest lunches, or important things like our weddings. And I think it's good.