Nerdy Nuptials

A while back, the Newscripts gang asked readers whether they had found love in the lab and then infused their wedding ceremonies and receptions with a little nerdiness (C&EN, July 30, page 96). As always, dear readers, you did not disappoint.

Among the responses we received, periodic-table-inspired seating was one popular theme. Sara and Alberto Minassi, who met as students of pharmaceutical chemistry, used such a strategy at their September 2011 wedding.

Chemically themed wedding cakes were popular too. Some chemists topped their cakes with glassware filled with fuming liquid. But the groom’s gâteau from Cheryl and Roger Frech’s 1985 wedding really takes the, um, cake as far as the Newscripts gang is concerned.

“The woman who did our wedding cakes, Pat Dupertius, was married to a chemist,” Cheryl writes. “We came up with the idea of decorating the groom’s cake as an issue of Chemical & Engineering News. The cake is modeled after a real November 1985 C&EN issue that featured spectroscopy.” Roger Frech is a spectroscopist.

Chemistry-themed cakes and seating charts are certainly Newscripts-worthy, but a few readers brought their nuptial nerdiness to a new level. “My husband and I are both organic chemists, and we met while we were in our graduate labs,” writes Jamie Wang. “When we got married last spring, we had a very petite ceremony—with only seven guests—and did not hold a reception. We decided to put our creative efforts into our unity ceremony to showcase our nerdiness. What we ended up choosing was the Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction, which not only is fun to watch but also symbolizes our never-a-dull-moment life together.

“It was a fun project for us,” Wang continues. “We spent a few evenings in the lab test-running the reaction and figuring out the best reaction conditions. To be chemically responsible, we also prepared a quenching solution to protect our precious guests. On our big day, it was absolutely rewarding to watch all the curious eyes wandering around our test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks, and wowing over the changing colors!”

Philip Wilk and Sarah Nelson, both nuclear chemistry doctorates from the University of California, Berkeley, performed the iodine clock demonstration after saying their vows to symbolize their bonding. “Yes, my bride was wearing a lab coat over her wedding dress for the demo,” Wilk notes.

And then there was this tale of wedded bliss from Jennifer Polley: “I’m a polymer chemist, and my wife is a molecular biologist. We got married on Mole Day, Oct. 23, 2010, and scheduled our reception to begin at 6:02 PM. We made great use of mole pictures from the ACS website for our ‘Save the Date’ postcards and aprons for the cake cutting, as well as the stuffed mole toys for head-table decorations and nanomoles as takeaway gifts. And we convinced our pastor to pronounce us ‘covalently bound.’ ”

You can read about even more nuptial nerdiness at the Newscripts blog (http://cenm.ag/ea). Thanks to all who wrote in to share their special day with us. You folks bring new meaning to the phrase “coupling chemistry.”