She’s a vector girl. I’m a bitmap guy.
Photo by Guy AmbrosinoI don’t really write much about my personal life on this site, but I’m going to make a big exception to announce that I recently got married to graphic designer Ellen Butters. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with an album of wedding photos, but I do think there are a few aspects of our wedding that readers might find interesting.
Back in December, when we started planning the wedding, we were interviewed for an episode of Wallstrip, the daily video podcast about stocks which are at an all-time high. This episode was about TheKnot.com, a website that helps couples plan their weddings. CBS purchased Wallstrip last month (congrats to them!), and I have a strong suspicion that our participation in that episode helped seal the deal. Here’s the video:
The wedding took place at the Society of Illustrators in New York City, an old carriage house turned gallery that doubles as a sort of clubhouse for illustrators. “Illustration” was the theme of the wedding. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before the wedding where we exchanged rings and vows before our family and friends, we were legally married at City Hall, accompanied by fellow photographer Brian Berman. Brian’s portraits don’t always capture people in their most flattering light, but it’s his photos of people in their awkward moments that are always the most interesting. Here’s his favorite photo of us at City Hall:
Don’t worry. He took photos showing how happy we were, too.
The wedding at the Society of Illustrators took place in their third floor gallery, which featured an exhibit of illustrations from the seven women’s magazines that dominated the market in the 1950s. Paintings by artists including J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, James Montgomery Flagg and others provided the perfect setting for the event.
Photo by Tim GriffinFor dinner, each table featured a lantern centerpiece (made by Ellen and her mom) featuring a biography of an illustrator plus examples of their work. Instead of being assigned a table number, guests were assigned an illustrator, and they had to look at the lanterns to figure out where to sit. To make it even more interesting for the guests, each illustrator had at least one painting hanging somewhere in the room, to encourage people to walk around and look at the artwork.
Music plays as important a part in our lives as does art, and we were honored to have great talent on hand. Guests arrived to the music of pianist and arts critic Vivien Schweitzer. The procession was accompanied by cellist Yves Dharamraj, and Ellen’s father provided a Piano interlude. At the reception, pianist Kayo Hiraki led a jazz trio in setting the musical tone for the celebration. The whole event went as smoothly as could be imagined, and a great time was had by all.
In a few weeks, we’ll be off to the Galapagos Islands for our honeymoon (with me sporting a fancy You Say You Want An Evolution T-shirt). So I hope everyone is itching to read a post about giant tortoises, because I suspect there will be one coming.
As I was wading through this week’s issue, I realized that whoever writes the headlines (the copy editor, I think) has an interesting sense of humor and a penchant for puns and cultural references. Some of the headlines are better than others. I went through the stack of unread issues that’s been piling up in the living room and picked out some of the best and the worst headline puns and references from recent weeks. Whether you think they are the best or the worst probably depends on whether you like puns. Here are some examples: