Without sci-fi, my husband and I probably would have never met. We overlapped for four years at the same college, were enrolled in the same degree program, and even played trivia at the same pub every Sunday night without managing to run into each other once. But thanks to the beauty of the internet, we did have a fateful encounter years later, where we struck up a conversation and instantly bonded over our obsessions with the TV show Lost, the writer , and well, Radiohead (who arguably have shown plenty of love for sci-fi concepts in their music).
Our earliest, giddiest, getting-to-know you conversations were fueled by this mutual love for all things sci-fi. He took me through the entirety of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and finally got me to listen to , and I introduced him to 's , and Connie Willis's . John Scalzi's was one of the first titles I bonded over with my now father-in-law, a voracious lifelong fan of the genre. My now-husband and I watched and re-watched our favorite movies and TV series, and made plans to check out the latest releases together. And just like that, we began planning a very nerdy future.
And so when we got engaged, we knew we had to find some way to represent that oh-so-integral part of our relationship in our wedding. Never ones for the traditional, we chose one reading from and another from a poem "Variations on the Word Love." But still, it felt like we had to do something more...overt.
Finally, we settled on our tables: each would bear the name of a spacecraft from one of our favorite sci-fi novels, TV series, or films, along with a quote from that series. We had a fun time deciding who would sit at which table based on their interests, and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing our DJ announcing each of them when it was that table's turn to head up to the buffet. My best friend (a fellow sci-fi nerd, and my original Lost theorizing buddy) designed each table marker with a very sci-fi font, and my husband and I picked out a quote to represent each. We didn't know how many of our guests would "get it," but that was okay with us. We hoped this personal, admittedly geeky touch would spark some fun conversations amongst our guests, much like the ones that have punctuated our relationship throughout the years.
I think many of my fellow sci-fi and fantasy fans will agree that being part of a fandom sparks an overwhelming urge to connect with others in that group--to share our wildest theories about where our favorite series are heading; to analyze the motivations of characters; and, most of all, just to connect with someone who gets you, who requires no explanation when it comes to your deepest obsessions, who is happy to just nerd out with you. I'm lucky enough to have married the person with whom I most like to nerd out.
