This past weekend, I attended the wedding of my friend, and frequent BTQ commenter and guest-blogger "Sebastian Haff." Seb is my good true friend, and I couldn't be happier for him, or more honored to have been there for him.

The wedding itself was nice. It seemed really suited to Seb and the Mrs., in that it was short and not too elaborate and seemed to honor friends and family as much as the two principals. Let me share a few thoughts about Seb, whom I've known for ten years -- his freshman dorm room was next to mine, and we roomed together sophomore year.

Seb is from Montana, and was an almost iconic figure at Duke. You know, men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him, that whole thing. I can't imagine the culture shock for him. It was bad enough for me, coming from a small town in the boonies. But for Seb, his whole class in high school had been about eleven people. He told me that he lived closer to nuclear missiles than to other people. I know that when he showed up at freshman orientation was the first time he had been on the east coast. But still, he never seemed ill-at-ease. He was like a cross between John Wayne and Steve McQueen.

Seb was instantly recognizable on campus, because he was so different. So when he wanted to go across campus unmolested, he simply took off his cowboy hat and boots, put on a pair of sneakers, and became invisible. Another funny thing: while many of our dorm-mates put up posters of half-naked models, Seb's desk held two framed pictures, of Reba McIntire and Tonya Harding.

I think the thing that people admired so much about Seb, that instinctively drew them to him, was that he was the most self-assured person we knew. At a time in our lives when we were out on our own for the first time, trying to reinvent ourselves from high school nerd to college BMOC, Seb was just...together. He knew who he was and didn't care to change, and didn't care what you thought. I think we could attribute a lot of this to his upbringing, but I know a lot of people whose parents were as decent and modest and hardworking as Seb's and turned out to be jerks. Seb just had a self-confidence and comfort in his own skin that's rare anywhere, but especially so among a bunch of cooler-than-thou young people.

And as solid and dependable as he was (and is), Seb wasn't predictable. Well, maybe it was a little predictable that his favorite move was Red Dawn. But I don't think any of us foresaw Seb living in one of the biggest cities in America and doing software consulting. And we probably didn't see Seb as being a world traveller, although we probably would have guessed that he would enjoy seeing Scotland and Amsterdam as much as he did. A lot of our friends also thought that he wouldn't settle down, because we wondered if there existed a woman to suit him. But when I met the Mrs., I realized that she is as self-assured and self-confident as he is. She's bold and brassy and outspoken and opinionated, and she doesn't take crap from anyone. She's his equal in so many ways that when a friend asked me what she was like, I said, "She's the female [Seb]." Okay, she's lively and he's laconic, but that difference works well for them. Seb couldn't have been with a shrinking violet who worried about what others thought of her. He needed someone as solid as him, and he found her.

After a reception at one of the swankiest places in town, the couple took a carriage ride...to their neighborhood bar. Naturally, they seemed right at home in both places.