'Trek' wedding: Warp-factor bliss

Sometimes it takes an Enterprise spaceship with a cast of Captain Kirk, Uhura and the pointy-eared Spock to ordain an earthly union.

Of course, it also takes one couple head-over-heels with a certain 1969 Gene Roddenberry sci-fi show to allow such extraterrestrial intervention at their wedding.

Last night at the Franklin Institute, Maine residents Brad Siegel and Kate Erwin, winners of Philadelphia's Star Trek Exhibition Wedding Competition, stood decked out on the U.S.S. Enterprise bridge for a night of star-studded, matrimonial magic.

Together, the bride, in a strapless crimson dress, and the groom, in his "Star Trek: The Next Generation" London-made uniform, found themselves on the deck of a mock Enterprise, standing before a Vulcan-speaking Buddhist priest and surrounded by green faeries and dark angels.

In a way, it had everything you would hope for in a dream wedding - romantic theatrics and the promise of intergalactic adventures, with friends clad in black capes amid an interactive exhibition that contains the world's most comprehensive collection of "Star Trek" ships and props gathered from 40 years of the show's filming.

"We were so lucky to win this," said Erwin, whose online entry with Siegel was chosen from among the fifteen submitted to the Franklin Institute, which is hosting the "Star Trek" exhibition until September 20.

For Erwin and Siegel, celebrating their union in the Fels Planetarium - with purple orchids landing atop a sphere of black roses and stars lashing showers across the coiled curtains - was more than a "dream come true."

"It was so meaningful to see family dressed in 'Star Trek' garb, supporting us in the one thing that plays such a big part in our lives," said Siegel, 53, who met his 34-year-old bride three years ago.

After the ceremony, with Michael Giacchino's memorable score playing in the background, the couple went on to enjoy the rest of their winning package, which included a galaxy-inspired champagne toast and wedding cake, two nights at the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing and a four-hour private party at the "Trek" exhibit with up to eighty friends.

For those jealously gawking at last night's wedding, Siegel and Erwin's union goes to show that it takes true devotion to turn a human ritual into a magical one.

That commitment started in 2006, when Brad and Kate met and fell in love at a "Star Trek" convention in Chicago, only to become engaged at the next "Trek" conference they attended in New Jersey. Within a year, the couple made dozens of friends at "Trek" conventions, many of whom attended their ceremony last night in true warp-style.

"We never would've married without the show, and it's so awesome to have done so on the replica set," Erwin said.

But while the more famous bridge of "Star Trek" 's Enterprise-D sits out in Las Vegas, the Institute put on a great performance last night, spinning crab nebulae on its IMAX dome theater and sending wisps of clouds up the room. It was a dream that became a Vulcan reality; and as Spock himself would say, while the event was "not 100% efficient . . . nothing ever is."