About Town: Hitched, Hatched, Hired

GAIMAN WEDDING: Coraline and Doctor Who writer Neil Gaiman married musician and artist Amanda Palmer on Jan. 2 at the Berkeley, Calif., home of authors Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon. The pair surprised their guests — who included author Daniel Handler (pen name: Lemony Snicket) and wife, graphic artist Lisa Brown; composer Lance Horne; and Gaiman’s children, Michael and Holly — with the impromptu ceremony. The bride’s gown was the same dress she’d worn during her days as a human statue during the 1990s (“She’d just had it dry-cleaned,” Gaiman tells THR). Close friend and musician Jason Webley, who was ordained on the Internet and read E.E. Cummings’ poem “i thank you God for most this amazing” to end the ceremony, married the longtime couple, who plan to honeymoon in Tanzania.