My brother got married!

Over Fall break, my older brother Patrick got married in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame. Patrick's younger brother, Kevin, was the best man and gave an incredible speech. Patrick and his (now) wife, Maggie, had a nearly two year long engagement because the procedure for reserving the Church for a wedding is an incredibly complicated, and drawn out process. In the wedding planning process, there were really three parties that wanted to have a say in when the wedding would happen: The bride's family, the groom's family, and the engaged couple. All parties agreed and were excited to have the ceremony at the Basilica at Notre Dame, but there was some disagreement about when the wedding should happen. Some dates worked better for some parties over others, and it didn't help that the reservation process was so convoluted that a decision had to be made well in advance. Patrick and Maggie preferred to have the wedding in October over having it in May, over having it in December. My family preferred to have the wedding in December, over having it in October, over having it in May. Maggie's family preferred to have it in May, over having it in December, over having it in October. If there was to be a vote, where each party had equal say, October would beat May, May would beat December, and December would beat October. In this situation, Condorcet's Paradox is realized. Even though all the parties have transitive preferences over when the wedding should be, the group preferences become intransitive when voted on under majority rule. The funny thing is, Maggie and Patrick had a little more say than the other two parties involved, considering they were the ones to be married. Because of this, they almost acted like the "Senate Majority Leader," in the sense that they could "set the voting agenda" and pick the winner. Given that the wedding occurred over Fall break, it's clear that Maggie and Patrick got their way, though all three families ended up having the best time at the wedding regardless of their preference for when it should have happened!