Respect the Net

This past weekend I was part of a spectacular wedding. What made it spectacular was not the dollar amount expended (it was actually done on a shoestring, comparatively), nor was it the stunning beauty of the bride (though in fact she was just that) nor the swarthy handsomeness of the groom (ditto). What made it spectacular was that it involved family and friends in a very unique and special way.

The bride is a Brazilian from a small coastal town an hour’s flight north of Rio called Aracaju. Aside from the fact that she speaks little English and communicates with her new husband through their mutual Spanish and the expressions of her always sparkling eyes, she had come to our area to get married here first so that her citizenship might be made easier; leaving the formal hometown wedding to take place in November. That meant that all of her family who could not make the trip were still back home and would miss the event.

Not if we could help it. So the internet jockeys among our friends who were putting together all the arrangements, arranged for the friends and family to be in one room with a computer hook-up via Skype. We, at the other end had a series of digital cameras and webcams trained on the entire ceremony, and bingo, the world got smaller! The most special part was about three-quarters of the way through the ceremony, they turned up the volume in the Brazilian room and the family spoke to their daughter, granddaughter, and sister. Though most of us present spoke no Portuguese, the international language of joy and pride and tears was more than enough to know what was meant.

Lately I have been ragging on the Twitter-hyped world of obsessed technology. But I lay that all down today because somewhere in Brazil, a grandmother is boasting to her friends about how beautiful her child was walking in the sunlit path toward her new life; how tender the kiss was and how radiant she looked on her first dance – because she was there and saw it all. That was spectacular!