And They Have A Wedding Plan

Got a bit of an unexpected sci-fi surprise this afternoon when I went to a friend's wedding: a Cylon. Or, at least, a Cylon on a street banner in one of the wedding pictures.

After the ceremony a bunch of us were walking through the venue's foyer to the reception hall, and along the way we had to pass one of the wedding pictures (shot way ahead of time last winter, I believe) blown up, printed out to look like a painting, and mounted for everyone to look at as they went by. At first we murmured the usual "oh, that's nice" comments, and wondered which building and street were featured, etc. But on closer inspection, one of my friends said "Hey, there's a Cylon on that sign!" We couldn't believe it at first, but leaning in and peering at it for a second, we realized he was right.

Problem is that neither the bride nor groom are big SF fans, and there's no indication that they followed Battlestar Galactica when it was on. So what's a Cylon banner doing in one of their wedding pictures, and one that they liked enough to pay to have painting-ized to show off for generations to come? And what would a Cylon banner be doing up in Metro Vancouver (where the bride lives and the wedding was held), especially when it's been a couple of years since the series came to a close?

Well, to make a long story short, last winter when they'd arranged to bring in some hotshot celebrity photographer from Hong Kong he'd been denied entry to Canada and sent back to Seattle where his connecting flight had originated. Not wanting to lose him, they'd changed plans, packed up all the wedding garb and driven south of the 49th to do the shoot in the Emerald City. They went to a lot of locations downtown and around the market, so we figure this street must be in the vicinity of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Can't be entirely sure since I haven't made a pilgrimage there myself yet, but there wouldn't be any reason for the city to have a Cylon banner displayed anywhere else. Our bet is that they didn't even pay attention to what was on the banner when they took the shot - it was probably done for artsy-fartsy reasons like lighting and the shape of the building, etc. Our young newlyweds probably picked the photo for similar reasons, not even realizing they were inadvertently flying a pretty obvious freak flag.

No point in explaining it to them, since not being fans and not following Western culture much, they wouldn't really get it.

Still, as a science fiction fan - and a BSG fan in particular - I'm fairly pleased at this accidental geek-0ut. You just never know when SF will quietly insinuate itself into the every day activities of the mainstream.