Although a life long gamer who turned my obsession into a career, it was only when I joined Frag Dolls in 2005 that I really became a part of the gaming community. It was then that I met Dan Bendon. As we ran around shooting terrorists, flanking Nazis and destroying monsters we grew to know each other well. Time spent together in real life let our relationship become real and rounded as we found we had more in common than just our hobby. It took patience, great effort, big changes to our lives and some years but we built a life together.
We’ve never forgotten what brought us together and we’d like to be able to always have that special place in the virtual world for friendships to form and for gamers to spend a little time together. With Ready Up we can do that.
A few weekends ago Dan and I tied the knot and we are very happy. We were joined on the day by our families, our oldest and dearest friends and by our gamer friends, the Ready Up staff. Anthony was Dan’s best man, Simes helped me with flower garlands and fairy lights on the eve of the wedding and James drew by hand all the illustrations on our table nameplates (which of course featured cities and lands from our favourite games). Eleanor pinned me into my dress, Walter did a reading during the service and Scott made a speech during the meal. Tony, Jake, John, Darach, Zoey, Duncan, Fran, Susan, all joined us with many distinguishing themselves with awesome karaoke performances. Martin sang the last song of the night, with the entire wedding party on the dance floor breaking out some crazy moves.
It was a wonderful day and being with all of our loved ones made it very special. Being joined by our other family, that live together in this little home on the internet was really more than we could have ever hoped all those years ago when we first met in the virtual rain, on a virtual harbour.
Scott presented us with this fantastic illustration which has pride of place in our home
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August 9th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Massive congratulations to both of you. Sounds like it was an amazing day. I’m getting married in March so I can relate to the stresses and joys of making things work :)
Dave
August 9th, 2010 at 11:19 am
A pleasure to be part of your big day :) honoured to close the day with some of my finest karaoke singing ever!
August 9th, 2010 at 11:36 am
A Jane Eyre quote on Ready Up? Never thought I’d see the day.
Really enjoyed the wedding, and had a lot of fun. Congratulations again to you both!
August 9th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Hearty congratulations to you both, truly happy for you!
August 9th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Congratulations, you two. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I met the two of you over XBox Live many FDUK gaming sessions ago. Still miss them and miss gaming with you. May you have a blessed and wonderful marriage.
August 9th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
So much love for this post, from its title to its subject… just everything <3
August 9th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
It’s the sweetest thing I’ve seen today…and I was looking at the cakes in Tesco for ages this evening too!
Super-Massive Congratulations to you both (My research indicates that is the biggest level of congratulations a human can safely receive.)
All the best for the years ahead…hell I’m finishing with a kiss x
August 10th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
You show them that not all gamers are loners sitting in the dark on their own. Best achievement yet.
September 3rd, 2010 at 12:59 am
Congratulations. Possibly a little late, but it’s nice to see what started out as “shooting Nazis and destroying monsters” evolved into something that felt right for the both of you. Many happy years ahead to the both of you!