You could call it "My Big Fat Computer Geek Wedding".
When Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley married at the weekend, they didn't stand before a grey haired minister holding a Bible. Instead, they were before a 76.2 centimetre monitor.
On one half of the screen there was a virtual minister with an animated, square face with blue eyes and thin, oval glasses. His voice was heard over a sound system while the text of what he was saying showed up on the other half of the screen.
Hanson, a Houston web developer and IT consultant, created the minister software program when the couple couldn't get a friend to serve as the minister at their wedding.
"I was like, you know I'm going to write my own minister," Hanson said before the wedding.
Wesley, a high school sign language teacher, said she's aware of the nerd jokes that might come the couple's way once more people hear about the wedding. But the couple says being married by a computer fits who they are. They met through a website called "Sweet on Geeks" and love science fiction and fantasy.
"That's kind of our thing," Wesley said before the wedding. "In fact, my maid of honour, she's making my cake and she's making it with Nerds as the topping and not icing. That's kind of the theme, the geeked out wedding."
The ceremony took place in Hanson's parents' backyard in Houston. Wesley, 30, said she wanted a small wedding, and the couple started planning it after Hanson, 33, proposed in May.
The computer was to greet the couple's 30 or so guests in a mechanical, robotic voice, give a little history about how they met and then go through the ceremony. The virtual minister, nicknamed "Rev. Bit", was to also crack a joke or two.
"If anyone here has anything to say that might change their minds or has any objections, they do not want to hear it and I will not recognise your objections since Miguel has programmed me to only recognise his commands," said the program during a preview that Hanson played on his home computer.
It's HAL 9000 meets "Here Comes the Bride".
. 
)
