On this day thirty years ago, Steve Jobs, the golden bachelor, the character who had avoided engagement all his life, held a wedding ceremony with Laurene Powell.
It was a somewhat unusual ceremony, in keeping with the background and beliefs / influences of the technology visionary.
Friends and relatives were present at the ceremony, which took place at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.
How Steve Jobs met Laurene Powell
Jobs met Laurene Powell in October 1989, shortly after introducing the NeXT computer. He gave a lecture at Stanford Business School called "View From the Top".
Laurene Powell, who was finishing business school, was late for the conference and had to sit in the front row. At the end of the conference, he chatted with Steve Jobs for a while.
Steve Jobs was supposed to go to a formal dinner, but was he so… fascinated? from Laurene who canceled her presence and asked her out for dinner.
From there they started dating and Steve Jobs asked him to marry him on the first day of 1990. However, much along the lines of Steve Jobs, once he got the "yes" he never mentioned the engagement again.
After months of disagreement, Steve Jobs bought the ring that would make the engagement official in October 1990.
Steve Jobs is getting married
Jobs-Powell's wedding took place on March 18, 1991. About fifty people were invited, including Steve Jobs' adoptive father, Paul Jobs, and his sister Mona Simpson.
The ceremony was presided over by the Zen Buddhist monk Kōbun Chino Otogawa, who blew a gong and lit the incense, leaving those present a little bewildered.
After the ceremony, the group enjoyed a vegan wedding cake in the shape of Half Dome mountain, in Yosemite Park itself. Then they hiked in the snow.
At the time of the wedding, Laurene Powell was pregnant with the couple's first child, Reed. They would later have two more children, Erin Sienna and Eve.
Jobs and Powell remained together until Steve's death at the age of 56 in late 2011.
