When Joanna Popik neé Hutko ’06 married Ben Popik on Sept. 5, Ben’s friend Adam Conover was given the assignment to create a slideshow honoring the couple. The couple said they would not even preview the slideshow before the wedding, and they left him with just one instruction: Make it different.

One picture, taken of the couple at Cornell’s celebration of Holi in 2007, clued Red Letter Daze in to the couple’s Cornell background. Assistant Managing Editor Jasmine Marcus interviewed Joanna about her newfound fame.

How did you meet Ben?

We met at mutual friend’s birthday in December 2006 at a karaoke bar. It was right after I graduated and had just moved to New York City.

What’s the story behind the Holi picture?

We actually went up to Cornell in 2007 just for Holi because I told him about it, and I think it’s a unique experience.

A Colorful Couple: Joanna and Ben Popik added President Obama into their wedding slideshow pictures.So what’s the best place to take a date at Cornell?

Well, that weekend, besides Holi, we went on a wine trail, and we’re talking about coming back up again for that. Two other things we did that weekend were play badminton and go bowling at Helen Newman.

That’s cute. How did Ben propose?

That’s also a cool story. We’re big scuba divers and into snorkeling. We were snorkeling in Honduras and were each looking at our own things, and he jumped out and was like, ‘come check out this eel,’ and he had pulled out a ring. But he had tied it to a whole bunch of fishing lines so he wouldn’t drop it into the ocean, so I thought he just found a diamond ring in the ocean, and then he sort of explained he was proposing. He had actually found the band when he was snorkeling as a little kid and had it re-set, so it came out of the ocean and now it’s our ring. Then we got married in an aquarium and had an underwater theme.

What was that like?

It was pretty sweet; we just wanted it to be a lot of fun. I think little girls grow up and dream about their wedding, and he was worried about having a boring wedding. And another comedian friend of ours became a minister over the Internet and performed the ceremony with lot of jokes.

What were you expecting when Ben gave Adam the job of putting together the slideshow?

Ben gave Adam about 1,000 photos and told him to make it different and funny, and we wanted it to be a surprise. I was expecting something funny because he’s a comedian, but I was thinking maybe he’d do a [regular] slideshow and then do standup to make fun of it. I think this was way better.

Why did he choose Obama for the slideshow?

He said it was the first person who popped into his head, because this was the year of Obama. He just thought it made sense to date the slideshow like that, and he knew Obama would be so quickly recognizable.

How did your slideshow end up receiving so much attention?

We asked Adam to post the slideshow on the Olde English blog, and the next we heard about it, the editor of LemonDrop — who knows Ben through comedy stuff — called Ben to let him know they were running the story, and that was as much as we knew about it. Then it was up on AOL’s homepage, and by end of day, Fox News had called us. By the end of the second day, the Tyra Banks Show had called us, but that is still yet to be confirmed. That day was just crazy. You know, we didn’t even send [the video] out.

What does the fame surrounding your slideshow make you think about your wedding now?

It doesn’t change how great the wedding was. [The slideshow] was totally neat and extra. It’ll be neat to show our kids the video and the news clips.

What’s it like to be semi-famous?

I like it; it’s been fun! On the first day, I was reading a lot of the comments on LemonDrop, and that was a mistake because so many of them were like, ‘I hate Obama, this is awful,’ so once I stopped reading the comments and just started getting used to the attention, it’s been fun. It’s a little bit weird, too, a completely unintended source of fame.

Have people made comparisons to the YouTube video of the couple that danced down the aisle at their wedding?

Yeah, we were at a family reunion this weekend and were trying to explain it, and everyone was like, ‘did you guys dance down the aisle?’ And we had to say, ‘no, we’re a different couple.’ But when I was wedding planning, everyone was sending me that video, and I thought it was great, but I didn’t want people to be disappointed that we didn’t dance, because I just wanted a traditional walk down.where any character is without some sort of romantic conflict, which is interesting now that I think about it.

Are you planning to do anything special with your newfound fame?

No. Life goes back to normal pretty quickly.

What did you two do for a honeymoon?

We didn’t go on a honeymoon yet. We’re planning to move down to the Caribbean in the spring and do an extended honeymoon for a few years, so we’re getting ready for that.