Some of you may have noticed I've been scarce around these parts for the past 7 days, and that despite a couple new donations to the "New to BitCoin" thread I haven't done any more writing for it, updated
bitSyndicated, been drumming up support for the
BitCoin Q&A site, moved things any further on the
BitCoin Wikipedia translation bounties, pushed to
increase usability on the forums, or generally done any of the things that I'm normally seen puttering about on here.
The reason for this is very simple--on May 28th (last Saturday) the most beautiful woman in the world agreed to marry me! In order to fit the wedding in before some family members leave the country we will be getting married on June 19th (two weeks from tomorrow). To say it's been the busiest week of my life would be the understatement of the century.
So why isn't this in
Off-topic? Well, despite all the joking about this community being so male-heavy my fiance is (if possible) even a bigger fan of BitCoin than I am. So I suspect that our wedding, with similar echoes to
PLATO's BitCoin road trip, is going to be essentially the first "BitCoin Wedding":
When we send out invitations today, we will be including a bitcoin address alongside the gift list as our preferred financial favour. Bitcoins we receive are not going to be sold for fiat currency. Instead they will either be held for our future together, invested
as bitcoins within the bitcoin economy by buying goods or services denominated in bitcoins, or donated to worthy BitCoin causes.
Given the number of friends and relatives we have who are now bitwealthy after buying on my advice, this is more practical for us than it would be for most couples at such an early stage of BitCoin adoption. Also, our friends and relatives are spread out all over the world so sending money by other means is difficult at best. The bitcoin economy isn't quite broad enough yet for all the little things (decorations, etc.) to be bought in bitcoins, but a significant part of the income that pays for them will have come from bitcoin earnings (now the majority of my income for several months running). Our sound technician has expressed interest in being paid by bitcoin, and if we receive enough we hope to pay our photographer partly in bitcoin as well. Even the minister officiating our wedding (who holds more bitcoins than I do!) would likely accept his honorarium in bitcoins.
We are still working out the details, but my fiance and I want to try and stream the wedding (for which a videographer would be paid in bitcoins) and/or record it to upload for our friends and family around the globe. If we get it all figured out, we might be able to acknowledge bitcoin donations as they come in live during our special day. This is the digital age and this is what a wedding looks like. BitCoin is at home here.
There's been some joking around in the community about
kitty activism (using BitCoin for emotionally unassailable things in order to protect it), but I think the more serious issue this idea brings to mind for me is that if bitcoins don't have uses in the everyday world where people live, they're going to at best be relegated to the dark alleyways of Silk Road and Tor. Getting married is a part of my real life, and I want to use BitCoin to make something possible that wouldn't be possible without it. It's as simple as that.
Thank you all for understanding that I might not be as active around here until after my wedding and honeymoon, especially Meni/Holy-Fire. After your
verbal and financial support I wanted to pump out one or two more threads right away but now those probably won't happen until the end of June. Just know I didn't forget about you
. Here's to a beautiful technological future for my kids to grow up in!
