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The Big Day Part 2 (The IRC Wedding) The second part of the story of our big day, in Lisa's words. This part describes the IRC wedding, and all the excitement that was involved. Note: You make want to print this out to read it as well. The story continues... The Bride and Groom arrived fashionably late at 6:45pm instead of the original 6:00pm that was originally planned. The newly married couple was whisked up the stairs to the Cyber Cafe and posed for all of the cameras to include the Wellington Weekly News, Mid-Devon Gazette, Somerset County Gazette, South West News Service, and the Western Daily Press. The television cameras from BBC, HTV and Westcountry Television were also there. The favourite picture pose seemed to be one where the Bride was on one side of her specially designed computer wedding cake with a picture of the couples homepage on it, and the Groom on the other side. The now famous cake (designed by ^Starr_) was destined to adorn many a newspaper! Thanks again Doreen and everyone from Janets Hobby in Wellington. Before ^Cloud9 and ^Starr_ had a chance to catch their breath David Garmston of the BBC told them that they would be going 'live' on the evening news! Gulp! The computer wedding cake was quickly moved to another table and ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 were 'hooked up' with microphones. The time was now 7:10 pm. Ready, set, go........we are now appearing 'live' on BBC television while being interviewed by David Garmston. Again, ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 appear extremely cool, calm and collected (how is that humanly possible?) throughout the entire interview. The guests, both IRL (in real life) and on line were now arriving thick and fast. The bar, courtesy of Gary Grinstead and the Sanford Arms as well as a fabulous spread of food prepared primarily by Richard Chivers (with a little help from ^Starr_ and ^Lissy^ the previous day) were both very well received by all of the IRL (in real life) guests. The_Usher was a god-send to the day, as he worked feverishly to keep the cyber aspect of things going as smoothly as possible. This is not to say that the Taunton Cyber Cafe, along with Phil Ikin (philski), his bride Tracey (Snobabe), Alisdair and his girlfriend, shouldn't be commended and given a special knighthood in cyberspace or something, because when the technical problems, and there were some, (you didn't think that the whole day was going to come off without at least one problem, did you?) came upon us they didn't stop until they could get us back online. Now, about the technical problems.......(you did want to hear about the technical problems, didn't you?) the undernet IRC (internet relay chat) was initially selected to hold the cyber ceremonies on because they historically didn't suffer from the same sort of problems that the Efnet IRC does (splits, lags, etc.) The members of the Undernet Public Relations Committee were Brenda (extrared), Dorothy (kolo), Jonathan (Ferrago), Michael (Mike), TJ (Walla), (Dono), (Aarn), (drow), (can) and David (David-R) were logged on from various locations around the world to make sure that everything went as smoothly as possible. They were terrific! "Then why were there technical problems if all of these people were there?" you might be saying to yourself at this very moment. The answer to that is.........just keep reading! The Church
of England Online Blessing, performed by the Revrend Peter Murphy,
while at his parish in Lyndhurst, Hampshire England, with further
commentary by the Revrend Mike Bugal of the Universal Life Church,
from his parish in Seattle, Washington, USA, was scheduled to
begin at 8:00pm. After many, many frantic phone calls to BT (British Telecom) by a very sweaty Philski, Dave Simpson (IRC friend WaSTeR) got on his cellular phone and made a call to a friend of his in Nottingham. WaSTeR asked his friend to log on to IRC (internet relay chat) and join #cyberwedding (the 'channel' where the blessing was taking place) and advise everyone there what was happening and that we had not changed our minds! Thank goodness for technology! The time was passing and the IRL (in real life) guests who were not familiar with IRC (internet relay chat) looked a bit bored and confused. ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 did not panic (amazing!) and began explaining to the IRL (in real life) guests what some of the problems could be. Although, at the time, they didn't have a clue! When the first hour had passed and nothing seemed to be happening The_Usher, Mush, P1NWHEEL and Philski decided to do a bit of checking for themselves. The four of them ran out into the streets of Taunton City Centre at 9:45 pm on a MISSION! Upon their return to the Cyber Cafe at 10:15pm they knew what the problem was but, were unsure as how to solve it. It seems that a BT (British Telecom) crew was working about 250 yards down the main road. When the 'fantastic four' came upon them they found several workmen standing in a very large hole in the road holding separate ends of a main telephone cable. To quote Mush, "They said that there were over 3000 phone connections in the cable and that they weren't quite sure how to connect them back." To keep the IRL (in real life) guests entertained, the karaoke was hooked up to the two television sets and the music began. Even ^Cloud9 sang a duo with his friend David Derrick. It seemed at this point that the world's first online blessing and wedding were not going to be, but Philski was determined to make things work. So, it was at 10:45 pm, yes 10:45 pm - two hours and fifteen minutes later, we were back online using dial-up connections (too involved to explain). Not only were ^Starr_ and ^Cloud relieved and ready to continue with the blessing, but when they saw that virtually 'everyone' from around the world that had logged on at 8:00pm were still there!! It was truly unbelieveable. There were people logged on from all over - England, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Israel, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Norway (boy, were there people from Norway!!) Singapore, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and from coast to coast in America. The Church of England blessing was started over again, with P1NWHEEL reading aloud all of the text from ^Starr_'s screen (remember, the television sets were hooked up to the karaoke!) and when we got to the part where ^Cloud9 typed 'I will', the Revrend Peter Murphy exclaimed "Hooray!". When ^Starr_ typed her 'I will', the Revrend Peter Murphy again exclaimed "Hooray!". The blessing was completed at 10:50pm, just in time for the online wedding! All those online agreed to take a short break and then commence with the Universal Life Church Marriage Ceremony performed by Revrend Mike Bugal from his church in Seattle, Washington USA. Relief was about the only word we could use at this point to describe the feelings of many of the IRL (in real life) guests and the staff at the Taunton Cyber Cafe. While elation filled both ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9's hearts. The time now was 11:10 pm and the trans-atlantic Universal Life Church wedding ceremony is about to begin. Everyone assembles again to see history in the making. When the ceremony is over ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 look at each other and simultaneously exclaim "We did it!!!!!!!" The online congratulations start to roll in.........it truly is a sight to behold. The people that had never even met either ^Starr_ or ^Cloud9 and not only attended the celebrations, but stuck online throughout the whole BT (British Telecom) ordeal, were typing in text laced with keyboard graphics resembling confetti, hearts, teddy bears and more was probably one of the most beautiful sights that the Bride and Groom could have wished for. Well, it's not really the end, only of the wedding bit. The rest of the story is that the party continued for a bit and ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 got back to the Heatherton Grange Inn at about 1:30 am. Upon walking into the Inn they came into a lobby filled with - you'll never guess in a million years - the BT (British Telecom) crew that was 'trying' to repair the telephone cable that caused the technical problem earlier!!! Not only were they drunk, but they were just more than a little impressed with themselves as well. Not to worry, ^Starr_ and ^Cloud9 only had eyes and ears for each other and went straight up to their honeymoon suite with the much photographed four poster bed. |
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