With this tweet I thee wed

Compulsive Twitter and Facebook users aren't exactly rare these days but a US geek has raised the bar to a whole new level, pausing his wedding while at the altar to update his relationship status and send a tweet.

Dana Hanna, a software developer known online as "The Software Jedi", married his wife Tracy late last month but within minutes of the celebrant pronouncing the pair man and wife, Hanna pulled out a smartphone.

"Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride," he tweeted.

The entire room burst out into laughter when the celebrant, who was the only person other than Hanna who knew about the tweet plan, announced: "Dana is updating his relationship status on Facebook."

Hanna published a short video of the stunt on YouTube, which has garnered almost 90,000 views so far.

In emailed comments, Hanna explained that he and his wife were "very technology centric" and used Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with their large families scattered across the US.

"In fact, when we got engaged, we changed our Facebook statuses and didn't even call anyone since the word would spread on Facebook far faster than it would have over the phone," he wrote.

"After doing that, we received a lot of laughs, and some minor criticism from family whom were insulted that we couldn't even pick up the phone to call them. It became a bit of a joke between all of us."

To prepare for the gag, Hanna had the maid of honour swipe Tracy's mobile just before the wedding. He pre-typed Twitter and Facebook messages into both of their phones.

"All of our family and friends loved this, and in fact many people even Facebooked pictures of me Facebooking during the wedding," he said.

But many of the online viewers didn't see the humour in it, labelling him rude and accusing him of letting the web rule his life.

To which Hanna retorted: "People really don't understand the history behind the story, and that we don't really twitter/facebook to the extent that it's interrupting our lives."

- © Fairfax NZ News