A Justice of Peace (JOP) has magical powers…they can write with yellow in the chat box. All volunteers can, as a matter of fact. This is very useful at a wedding where you want to yell at the guests to shut up because important things, such as the vows, will get lost in the flood of chat. That didn’t work this time. There were 135 people at our wedding. Each and every one of them was sitting behind their computer in Europe, in Canada, in the U.S., and in Australia…mostly because we had guests from Brazil and India as well. Right there, you can capture the beauty of a virtual world. No matter where you are, you can be there. You can be at a place with others you are fond of. Is it virtual? Are you an avatar? Doesn’t matter. What mattered (just a little bit) was that 135 people were constantly chatting…and they didn’t want to stop. I imagined that I’d get angry and frustrated, but to my biggest surprise, I actually enjoyed it. It made everything alive.
We had a fairly short ceremony…no roses or candles or ribbons around our wrists. Our vows on air would have overpowered everything anyway. According to what they wrote in chat, many people were crying or in awe. I don’t think it was because of us. It was the unique nature of the vows. They weren’t copy-pasted from an online website and weren’t filled with cliches. They were our honest and loving words…and our story. That 135 guests were all friends…close friends, not so close friends, new and old ones. S. invited people who hadn’t logged in for years, but they got the notification of the email, and they came in. It was beautiful and heartwarming.
After everyone congratulated…the boring part came next: The hug-line. Yes, among other things, you can hug each other in Utherverse. It took about half an hour. Then, oh joy, the photos. Because we needed photos of the wedding party. I told the photographer not to do it, but she insisted, and since S. didn’t mind, I was just pouting in front of my screen. That, again, took a long time…boys only, girls only, now everyone altogether, now just S. and I. Meantime, our guests were having fun at the reception site. I’m telling you, it was like at a real-life wedding.
At the end of the day, when it was just S. and I sitting and talking, I realized how many things I missed. I had to focus on my vows and what the JOP was saying. As a result, I missed out on most of the chat. What was worse is that I didn’t even remember who attended! Not everyone. Weeks later, when I looked through the photos, I kept asking S. “Who is that?” “Was XY there?” It sounds funny, but it bothered me.
The wedding video came out 3 weeks later. Based on the increasing number of views, people still click on it even after 9 months. I got a few messages from friends that said ours was the most beautiful wedding they have ever seen in Utherverse. Yes, that makes me feel good. We worked hard on everything from matching colors to unique music. I felt strange after the wedding. You know when you suddenly have to calm down after a big event, and everything seems to be slow. But it was just the virtual surface. Our relationship has gotten stronger by the day…
My Virtual Crossroads 