Possible Inspirations for an Instagram Co-Founder's Operatic Wedding Theme

Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of Instagram, and his wife Nicole Systrom (née Schuetz), a clean-tech investor, were married this past October. Vogue now has published some delightful and moving photos of the event.

It was held in the morning at the Beaulieu Vineyard in northern California’s Napa Valley, timing that the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss noted as “eccentric” for the West Coast. The nuptials took place on Halloween, and included a performance from a high school jazz group that the groom found through YouTube. Vogue says the couple walked down the aisle to “The Spy Who Loved Me,” which is a song that doesn’t actually exist. (The magazine probably means “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme to the mediocre Roger Moore-era James Bond movie, which is indeed a pretty good wedding song.)

Because it was Halloween weekend, the Systroms planned their wedding reception as a masquerade ball, replete with masks attached to sticks and horse-drawn carriages. Nicole Systrom told Vogue that one reason the couple decided to go with the theme was that they “didn’t want anyone showing up in, say, a police costume.”

As far as Silicon Valley goes, a few campy costumes sounds pretty mild. Just over two years ago, early Facebook president and Napster co-founder Sean Parker got a lot of attention for his $4.5 million “Lord of the Rings”-style affair in a redwood forest.

Anyway, the Systroms’s event sounded lovely, but since we weren’t there, we have to rely on Vogue’s photos from the event, taken by Jose Villa. They are presented with some quotes from the piece, and we’ve added some other photos that we think their inspiration might have come from — or not!

And, oh yes, congrats to the bride and groom.

“‘I started to get nervous,’ [Nicole Systrom] said. ‘It’s a big project to plan a wedding!'”

“‘We wanted to do something that people would remember forever,’ said Nicole. #Success.”

“We didn’t want anyone showing up in, say, a police costume.”

Jose Villa and United Artists

“I feel like I have two good ideas per year, and this was one of them'”

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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