Since I am getting married tomorrow, it is fitting that the Institute of Art and Ideas TV has just put my lecture from Hay-on-Wye this year online: Manufacturing love.

It was a lovely opportunity to sit in a very comfy armchair and feel like a real philosopher. Of course, armchair philosophy is what it is: tomorrow I will do an empirical experiment with N=2 (with ethics approval from mother-in-law). We’ll see how it works out.

While I suspect my theoretical understanding is limited and the biomedical tools I have written about are not available, there is actually some nice empirical research on what makes good wedding vows. My husband and me also went for a cheap, simple wedding for just the closest friends and family, which seems to be a good sign (the rest of my friends come to an informal party the day after). And it is probably a good sign that we got together in a slow and gradual way: we have very compatible personalities.

A fun project.