Big in Brazil

November 16th, 2008

Daniel Carmona, from Sao Paulo - Brazil wrote an article on planeta terra about our engagement and wedding. Unfortunately it was written in Portuguese and we aren’t fluent. Fortunately, the fabulous Rodrigo Lode is Brazilian, and is fluent and translated it for us.

Here it is for you English readers out there:

“Will you marry me?”, Sean Bonner asked Tara Brown through a public message in Twitter in the beginning of October. The “yes” came only 18 minutes later after the bold question through another public message in the mini-blog.

In two messages with less than 140 characters, the couple formalized the engagement and changed an little known and personal Internet relationship to one of the most prominent couples of the web. Within hours, messages were coming from all four parts of world where web surfers didn’t seem to believe in the couple’s west coast story. On Oct 31, Sean and Tara formally got hitched in one of the most curious stories of the 21st century.

Sean, 33, is a renowned publisher who has worked on CNN, CBS, The New York Post, USA Today, The Chicago Sun Times, Yahoo and Playboy. Addicted to the web, he got famous after posting a video that mixed a beer commercial jingle with pictures from the Cuban kid Elian Gonzales during the times that both the US and Cuban governments worked on the highly publicized and political topic of the boy’s custody. The video spread through the web like virus later causing several lawsuits from a photo agency that accused the publisher of using their images without consent.

Engaged on the defense of free content on the web, Sean Bonner travelled through the US and other countries to discuss the issue and reinforce the importance of blogs in creation and distribution of information and content.

In March, while at a conference in Autin, Texas, Sean had the first contact with Tara Brown, 33 – a Canadian who had lived in the US for 10 years and worked as a Program Manager in Microsoft. “Unlike what many people think, the first time was an old fashioned in person, eye to eye contact”, explains Tara. “We met during a party that happened soon after the conference. He was hanging out with a few friends and talking with some people close by. That’s when I got close and asked what he was doing”, says Tara.

The next day, Tara went to the cafeteria and saw Sean again. She says that unlike the night before, they had a chance to talk and noticed they had so much in common. Since Tara lived in Seattle and Sean in LA, the relationship started to develop daily over the Internet.

“One day we met in San Francisco and that’s when we had our first kiss. It was on April 22nd”, recalls Tara.
Since then, the couple started to meet frequently. Whenever possible, Sean would go to Seattle to meet her. And the internet was used to keep the daily communication going when they were apart. One of the subjects the couple discussed in their long online chat sessions that would go deep into the night was the marriage. “We always talked about it. The proposal didn’t come out of nowhere. It was maturing over time. I would never ask her to marry me without knowing she would say ‘yes’”, says Sean.

However, the startling proposal caught Tara by surprise, “I thought he was some type of joke, but he said over Skype that he was serious”, she says. She didn’t hesitate and said there were no doubt in accepting the proposal.

In a few hours, more than 20 pages of Twitter messages were full of congratulatory message from all over the US. “It was shocking, but majority of the comments were in support of our marriage”, says Sean. After a few days, the couple got messages from people in other countries. “I don’t remember if there were Brazilians. There were so many that I can’t recall”, says Tara.

The wedding happened on October 31st, in an informal ceremony at the top of the Runyon Canyon hill in Los Angeles. The wedding was so informal that many friends brought costumes and toys to the ceremony. There was even a friend of Tara’s with an Optimus Prime mask, from the Transformers movie.

Part of her life changes included leaving Microsoft and moving to Los Angeles. Now she continues working as a Program Manager, but in a smaller company. Sean is getting ready to leave San Francisco and finally move in with his wife.

“I think that without the Internet, things wouldn’t have progressed as quickly. It only helped accelerate the process and allowed me to be closer to him. Even many miles away, I knew what happened to him and what he thinks and feels,” explains Tara.

Sean believes their relationship was destiny and it would have happened with or without the Internet. “I only used the Internet in our favor”, he says.

As for the future, the couple is not planning on having kids yet. “For now, I would love to go to Brazil. I don’t know when, but it’s in our plans. I had a Brazilian boss at Microsoft that got me to admire the country,” says Tara.

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