I Now Pronounce You

Today we attended the beautiful wedding of Lisa Henson and Dave Pressler in Telluride, Colorado. To protect the privacy of the bride and groom, I won't be linking to their actual wedding website from this page, but as someone who studies digital rhetoric, I did notice a number of interesting aspects of their site at WeddingWindow.com.

The website included photos of the bridal party, information about travel and accommodations, a few modest suggestions in the link to what was normally a full-blown gift registry for other most acquisitively oriented nuptials, and a moving tribute to the groom's father who died before the ceremony took place. The site also included a "Poll/Quiz" in which guests could speculate about the origins of the cartoony bride and groom monsters who served as mascots for the event and the design of the bridal gown by Carolina Herrera. It is interesting that the site is devoted only to preparation rather than to commemoration, since there is no area of its virtual real estate where photos or video of the ceremony and celebration could be displayed for posterity.

Ubiquitous digital technologies were certainly also an important part of the staging of the event, since cellular telephone numbers of the bride, groom, wedding planner, and other hosts of the event were disseminated in a paper handout.