It was the summer of 2002, the intersection of 49th Avenue and Fraser Street in Vancouver. Barbara Jean Trinidad was on her motorcycle, stopped at a red light. “Is that your motorcycle, or your boyfriend’s?” asked a voice from the truck next to her. A young man was smiling back at her.

“Oh no, here we go again,” Barb thought to herself. “It’s mine,” she replied. “Cool,” said the man. “I’ve never seen a girl riding before.”

They exchanged a few friendly words until the light turned green. “Ok, see you later,” Barb said and started off. Within seconds though, the truck had caught up to her. “Do you think I can give you a call sometime?” the young man shouted over the noise of their engines. “Do you think I can get your number?”

The young man was Vancouver day trader Ben Mackenzie. And he must have possessed a special charm, because Barb passed on her phone number. The two had a few telephone conversations before getting together the next week. When Ben picked her up it was the first time he saw Barb’s face— she had been wearing her motorcycle helmet throughout their brief initial encounter.

Their first date was at a downtown Dairy Queen, where 10 of Ben’s friends awaited. “They were there to interview me,” Barb says, half joking. Evidently, she got their stamp of approval because after a round of playful interrogation, the friends left her and Ben to get to know each other. “I guess they finally decided I wasn’t a crazy person, so left us to it,” says Barb.

A second date followed and before long they were inseparable. They dated for five years, sharing new experiences, travelling to Singapore, Germany, Italy and Paris; even sky diving.

By the fall of 2007, Ben knew he wanted to share his life with Barb. They hosted their annual Christmas party at Ben’s place and part of their tradition was a secret Santa gift exchange with their friends. “When it was time for the gifts, I said Barb would start first, just so we could show how it’s done,” Ben explains. Barb recalls feeling a bit odd at this request—in previous years the guests had always gone first. But she complied.

At the Christmas tree, Ben asked Barb to close her eyes. Once her eyes were closed, he handed her a large box. “Shake it,” he instructed. “Guess what’s inside.” Barb made a few guesses, and then Ben took the box from her. “Okay. Open your eyes,” he said. Barb opened her eyes to see Ben down on his knees before her with a small ringbox in his hand.

There, before family and friends, Ben asked Barb to marry him. “Her eyes teared up and she started crying,” Ben recalls. “At first she was speechless, so I hugged her. Then she said ‘Yes, yes, of course!’”

“We started planning the wedding pretty much the next day,” says Barb. The main concern was to have a Catholic ceremony for Barb’s family and a Hindu ceremony for Ben’s. “Everything else was easy. We figured it out as we went along,” Barb says. “We decided on the flowers first, something simple— whites and greens. Everything followed that.”

The couple married in a Catholic ceremony at St Andrew’s in East Vancouver, Barb’s family parish. After the ceremony, the bridal party was escorted to Coal Harbour for a cruise around Stanley Park on Ben’s brother’s 65-foot Marquis power boat. They returned to the Marriott Pinnacle hotel in downtown Vancouver and changed into Indian garb for Hindu nuptials on the hotel balcony. Seated in the canopy known as the mandap, Barb and Ben were wed in a traditional Hindu ceremony. The ends of their sashes were tied together to signify unity, then they recited vows while making seven passes around a sacred fire. They then placed garlands around each other’s necks. “This was like the exchange of rings,” Barb explains. “It symbolized that we were man and wife.”

Following the ceremony guests gathered in the ballroom for the reception. The Marriott Pinnacle menu featured a selection of Western and Indian dishes. “There was something for everybody,” says Barb.

A few minutes into their first dance, “Dilemma” by Nelly and Kelly, it seemed that the power went out. “The song stopped, the lights went off and everybody started wondering what was going on,” says Ben. “Then they started hearing the Boyz II Men song “I’ll Make Love to You” and next thing they knew, there they were on stage: Boyz II Men.” As a surprise for their guests, Ben and Barb had arranged for the Grammy Award-winning R&B group to perform a 40-minute set at the reception. Guests rushed the stage, incredulous, to see the Boyz up-close.

The dance portion of the evening captured the atmosphere of a rave. “The lights went down, everybody had glowsticks and the DJs were playing dance music with a laser show going. It was a really fun party,” says Ben.
“It was a thrill to see everyone having fun and being so happy,” Barb says. “It wasn’t your typical wedding; it was a rollercoaster ride. The best part was that I was able to hang out and just soak it in.”