Teresa Valdez Klein and Noah Iliinsky are veteran speakers of Ignite Seattle, the fun-filled, geeky talks that last just five minutes.
But Valdez Klein and Iliinsky — who actually got engaged after meeting through Ignite — had something else entirely planned for their talk last night.
In a surprise to the audience, they got married on stage. In typical Ignite-style, they did it in five minutes.
“The Ignite organizers said that we should give a talk about how we met at Ignite, and got engaged,” said Valdez Klein, a singer and former T-Mobile product manager.
“But, I said, there’s nothing there. If you are going to do it right, you get married on stage at Ignite in five minutes, so we are,” added Iliinsky, a visualization expert who has worked at IBM and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
At that point, the wedding party ran on stage, with the rabbi noting that “this is real, and this is now.” He later went on to offer vows such as — “will you keep having fun together” — and — “will you strive to remember to turn off your cell phones when times are hard.”
GeekWire columnist Monica Guzman, who emceed the event last night, said she saw members of the audience gasp once they realized what was going on. Some started crying.
“It brought down the house,” she said.
Any single guys at #is24 that wanna get married on stage in 2 years? Cus @noahi & @TaePhoenix kinda just set the bar for coolest thing ever
— Britney Corbett (@Bcorbs6) May 23, 2014
The entire talk — including the ceremonial glass smashing — went just over the allotted five minutes. Thankfully, no one at Ignite cut them off before the rings were exchanged.
