My second daughter, Brittany, got married this weekend here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and it was a cultural experience, to say the least. The mother and grandmother of the bride were late to the rehearsal dinner Friday night, and the situation was made worse, because her mother had accidentally left her Blackberry at the Country Club, where we were all waiting.

I stood outside on the front steps with the pastor who would turn my beautiful daughter into a married lady the next day, and we were talking about the situation. “What did we ever do,” he asked, “before cell phones?” Indeed. This event was one of continuous SMS and MMS messaging between all parties, even though one might be in the next room.

We are so connected, aren’t we? What DID we do before these devices changed everything? Well, planning was more important. You couldn’t fly by the seat of your pants the way you can with a portable connection device. Things took longer, too, I think. You just had to allow time for human error, but now it’s possible for people gang up on a problem and resolve it quickly.

The pastor had to ask people to turn their devices off prior to the wedding. There are times when the physical connection beats the electronic connection, and a private ceremony like a wedding is one of them.

I suppose we should have put the event on a Web camera for the whole world to see. It wouldn’t have been a ratings winner, but that’s not the objective anymore.

Despite all the technology, weddings are still bound in tradition. The most memorable for me was my dance with Brittany during the reception. She bawled like a baby, but it was really wonderful, and I think such things will always be so.

After all, nothing could ever take the place of a father holding his little girl.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Personal, Passages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.