A digital wedding

I was born in a time when the phone was still on a wire, standing on a little table in the hall. The only screen in the house was our big, bulky television that needed a minute to warm up before the image appeared. I was thrilled when we got our first home computer with a grand total of 64Kb internal memory and since then I’ve never stopped using them and to be honest, do feel a little bit lost without them.

We’re so used to their presence that even an ever-listening device that talks back to us doesn’t scare us, even though I do not let one into my home. My wife already knows everything that I’m doing and even what I’m thinking so I don’t need another assistant, thank you very much!

So many aspects of our lives are now digitized, online banking, shopping, emails and even our social life and entertainment are experienced mostly through a screen in front of us. These are modern times and our contact with robots will increase even further. We hear their voices, watch their art work and often can’t hardly distinguish between a picture or a video that is from real life and one that is computer generated.

Now imagine a wedding where the celebrant who holds the ceremony is a robot. Crazy right? No, it isn’t and it is a reality that is closer than you think. I know of couples who used ChatGPT to write their vows and quite a few celebrants use it to write the script and then just read out the computer generated words during the ceremony. Once we get used to digital cashiers, news readers and TV actors, the step to digitize a wedding is relatively small.

Me and my wife Claudia on our blessing ceremony on the beach in Corralejo in 2010

I wish to keep my social life as real as possible and speak my own words in my messages, mistakes included, free of charge. I want to laugh with eye contact, feel the body language and know that the love around me is real, uncontaminated by algorithms.

When I write a wedding script I take my time, as I’m loving the process of writing about love, and go over it time and time again. It is a privilege and a pleasure to officiate this milestone of a couple’s love affair. I am sure this energy comes through, in the same way as you can taste in a meal when the cook loves his food!

Music is the food of love and I have spent my entire life to make it as inspired as possible. This is my goal in life, both as a musician and a celebrant; to be true to myself and believe with all my heart that the energy I give out is real, honest and original.

So when it comes to Love, I don’t use CheatGPT.