We wanted to get married in space – or as close to space as possible – or under space-like conditions, so Noah and I had discussed having an astronaut officiate our wedding. Sea captains can marry people, right? So why not astronauts? Buzz Aldrin was way too expensive, so Zero G suggested Richard Garriott.
Noah flipped out. “You mean Lord British?!” Noah played Ultima back in the day.
Richard Garriott was the sixth private space explorer – apparently NASA carefully guards who can be called an “astronaut.” Garriott’s father was an astronaut, and growing up his family lived in a suburb where everyone’s dad was an astronaut. Garriott’s eyesight wasn’t perfect, so he was summarily disqualified from NASA at a young age. Many years later he used his Ultima fortune to hitch a ride to space with the Russians. There’s a good Wired article about it here.
We’re excited to have Garriott as our officiant because we hear he loves Dungeons and Dragons. (Noah is upset that our wedding is interfering with our Tuesday night gaming sessions.) We’ve also heard some wild rumors about Garriott from our Texan friends. For example, we heard Garriott built a hobbit village for his friends as a kid, and that he has a guest house that’s only opened at Halloween as a haunted house. The Wired article linked to above mentions that Garriott’s mansion has secret passages. Awesome.
In all seriousness, Noah and I are throwing a lot of money at our crazy wedding because private space travel is a cause we really believe in. We really think the future is space, and that private citizens ought to be able to travel there. We want to promote space travel as a positive thing. Basically we agree with this organization’s vision.
Garriott is scheduled to be a guest speaker at the Space Business Forum next week in New York City.
Noah and I will be hosting a launch party, press conference and blogger meet-up* at 7:00pm on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at the Kush Lounge:
The Kush
191 Chrystie St. (@ Stanton St.)
New York, NY 10002
Lower East Side
7:00pm – 10:00pm
It’s one small step for man, one potentially nausea-inducing leap for matrimony. A couple of space enthusiasts are getting married in zero gravity, so they’re throwing a party for what promises to be a history-making event. Drop in to get the how’s and why’s behind their wedding, which will take place aboard something called the “Vomit Comet.” There’ll be space-themed music, free Space Food Sticks to munch on, and a custom-made zero gravity wedding gown will even be on display.
*The press conference will run from 7:30-8:00 followed by a question and answer session. This will be an opportunity to meet us, get a press pack and take pictures of the dress.
Tell your friends!
http://www.zerogravitywedding.com/?page_id=109
I had only heard of “Space Food Sticks” on Simpsons episode 3F31, “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular” – one of my favorite episodes of all time.
Troy: [voiceover] Earlier this year, Homer's long-lost mother
returned. And so did a long-lost care package.
[shot of Homer eating food from old care packages]
Homer: Mmm.
Mother: Homer, please: you don't have to wolf down that 25- year-old
candy just to make me happy.
Homer: [pause] But it won't make you unhappy, right? [bites]
Hey! Space food sticks! Oh, I wish I had _these_ on my space
adventure. Did you know I was blasted into space two years ago,
Mom?
Mother: Well, sure. I read all about it. It _was_ national news.
[fearfully] Do you _still_ work for NASA?
Homer: No, I work at the nuclear power plant.
Mother: Oh, Homer.
Homer: Well, you'll be happy to know I don't work very hard. [quietly]
Actually, I'm bringing the plant down from the inside
[taps nose secretively]
Noah and I found out about Space Food Sticks in a quest to find Astronaut Ice Cream for our wedding. Astronaut Ice Cream was the space snack of the 1980’s, but Space Food Sticks were popular before Noah and I were born. They went off the market in the 1970’s.
The Funky Food Shop is run by Eric Lefcowitz of the Retro Future blog. Lefcowitz is kindly sending us some Space Food Sticks and supplying the Astronaut Ice Cream for our wedding!
I’m excited about trying Space Food Sticks. I bet they taste like Power Bars or CalorieMate.
Because I work in animation, I know the power of storyboarding!
Please note: I’m not applying for any storyboard jobs anytime soon. I’m more of a production person. A production coordinator, to be exact. If anyone would care to re-draw my thumbnail board above, I can offer one free brunch in New York City at a restaurant of your choosing.
Our guests are not shown in this storyboard, but they will be featured in the final video – particularly if they happen to be wearing flight suits with our sponsors’ logos. I don’t mean that we have sponsors yet, I mean potential sponsors. Email us at noahanderin(at)gmail.com for sponsorship opportunities.
We will reveal our “secret celebrity officiant” at our press conference on May 27th (more details coming soon).
Also, the first three parabolas are performed at different velocities; one at martian gravity and two at lunar gravity. The Zero G Corporation advised us not to do part of the ceremony during the first three parabolas, but instead to let everyone get accustomed to the experience.
I’ve talked to a lot of people about our wedding, and I’ve noticed the same questions come up over and over again. To that end, I have created a page of Frequently Asked Questions:
My space wedding dress was designed, in part, for a company offering low-earth orbit weddings on a rocketplane. It’s a Japanese company, but the first flights in 2011 will fly out of Oklahoma, and starting in 2012, out of Hawaii. Japan is totally obsessed with Hawaii.
We were at a whiskey tasting event in New Jersey with friends when we got to talking to some random gentlemen about our Zero Gravity wedding. It turned out one of our new acquaintances dresses men for a living! Noah and I explained how we had come across the wedding dress, but we really had no idea what Noah was going to wear.
Sadly, Noah was born without a sense of fashion:
Neil Machlovitz offered to help! Two weeks ago, Noah went to J. Lucas Clothiers to get fitted for a custom tuxedo.
It is not hyperbole when I say that Noah is “fashion blind”. Once, a girl walked by us wearing a tube top, with sparkles, and Noah did not notice her at all:
“Did you see that?!” I asked.
“What?” Noah said.
“That girl was wearing a tube top! I hope those things aren’t coming back into style. Were they ever really in style?”
“What’s a tube top?”
“What that girl was just wearing!”
“What girl?”
Given the option of various buttons, pocket angles and pocket depth, Noah was a bit overwhelmed. “I’ve never thought about any of that stuff,” Noah says, “I don’t have time for that flibberty flabberty floo.”
We are talking about a man who nothing but blue dress shirts and khaki pants to work for an entire year. One of his coworkers swore she would die if he came in with a different color shirt, so I got him a red shirt for Christmas. After New Years that coworker didn’t live up to her promise and instead complimented Noah.
I hope that J. Lucas Clothiers can make my hardcore nerd of a husband look cool!
In this 22 minute video, you get to see the guys on the Norton Antivirus-sponsored flight. A lot of the camera angle is up a guy’s nose, which is unfortunate, and for the first parabola things go a bit weird, but then it picks up.
Note that this video has been viewed 17,401 times since September 2008. That’s not quite as many as the 9,123,974 views of the original Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance at a wedding, but it is some serious eyeshare.
An old coworker told me last week that he thinks the Zero G flight is a perfect metaphor for marriage: Sometimes you feel like you’re floating, and it’s wonderful, and other times you’re slammed to the ground and 1.8 times Earth’s gravity.
I haven’t had to make a lot of hard choices for this wedding so far – after all, there is only one wedding dress in the world appropriate for space travel, and I have it. These rings are clearly appropriate for our space wedding, so we only had to narrow our choices down from Ploof’s designs.
It’s worth noting that for Noah’s 30th birthday my friends pooled their money to get Noah meteorite dice.
Long before we decided to get married in zero gravity, I knew I wanted to have two receptions – one small informal party in New York City for my friends here, and one more traditional reception for my family in Michigan. I have a lot of elderly relatives for whom it would be very expensive and troublesome to travel to New York, and I don’t really want to make my New York friends travel a lot, either.
When we decided on the zero gravity flight, we never wanted to have a reception right after the flight. The idea is that we go on the flight, and then we have time to edit the video of the ceremony, and then the two receptions take place, where we screen the video for our guests.
I never thought we would have to buy twelve tickets or have quite so many guests on the plane. After the plane ride we should all eat out somewhere nice, but I would like to avoid the cost of a formal reception in Florida. I don’t need a third wedding reception!
After some discussion, Noah and I decided that the Florida ceremony after-party is only for our parents, our siblings, and our friends who are going on the plane. We don’t know who our videographer or photographer will be yet, but they’re invited to the after party.
So, even though we don’t have any reception dates yet, here’s the break down:
1. Ceremony in Florida – Immediate family and zero-g guests only
2. Party in New York City this summer – For friends in the area
3. Reception in Michigan – For family and friends in the area, probably after Labor Day
High school friends are certainly welcome to go to either reception (or both!), but I’ll need to know which one in advance.
Our friend E— was helping us lay out a budget spreadsheet which was rather terrifying. I need some flowers for each event, and a venue for each, and so forth – and hair and make-up?! Arrgg…
Lord British is Marrying Us in Space(like Conditions)
We wanted to get married in space – or as close to space as possible – or under space-like conditions, so Noah and I had discussed having an astronaut officiate our wedding. Sea captains can marry people, right? So why not astronauts? Buzz Aldrin was way too expensive, so Zero G suggested Richard Garriott.
