When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice
Photos by Rachel Lahlum Photography

The Offbeat Bride: Christy, Optician

Her offbeat partner: Zack, Analyst

Date and location of wedding: Elm Creek Park Chalet in Maple Grove, MN — May 14, 2016

Budget: $10,000

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

My husband and I are both bibliophiles and shameless nerds. As soon as we got engaged and started wedding planning, we immediately began to think of ways to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) let our passions shine in our wedding. We saw the day as an opportunity to share everything we love with everyone we love.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

As soon as we started researching bookish wedding ideas, we saw a book arch and knew we HAD to have one. The bookish theme just sort of snowballed from there. We put out a call for unwanted books on Facebook and had tons of people more than willing to donate books. We used them for the book arch, table decor, planters, making bunting, a ring book in lieu of a ring pillow, and I handcrafted 100+ book page roses for my bouquet and the bouquets of my bridesmaids. We used bookplate stickers instead of place cards so people could take them home and use them when they were done with the wedding, and we made table numbers out of pictures of our favorite book covers.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

IMG 0676 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

IMG 0249 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

We chose a green venue because sustainability is important to us, decided on brunch for dinner because is the best meal of all (if you disagree, I will fight you…), and a huge beautiful pile of delicious donuts for dessert from our favorite local neighborhood donut shop. We also had a Polaroid photo booth guestbook, which meant each guest received two photos, one as a keepsake and one to turn into a custom Magic: The Gathering card to add to our guestbook wall.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Tell us about the ceremony:

The processional songs were from the soundtracks of some our favorite movies. Zack walked his parents to their seats to the opening theme from Miller's Crossing and our wedding party walked in to “Let Them Up” from Mad Max Fury Road. I fulfilled a dream I've had since I was eight years old and walked down the aisle to the “Throne Room March” from the end of Star Wars Episode IV.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Traditional ceremony scripts seemed dated and weird and not at all us, so we went with writing our own ceremony. In the end, we cobbled together bits and pieces of things we loved. Our declaration of intent was part the US Supreme Court's ruling on marriage and part Shakespeare.

IMG 0478 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Aside from books, our other big passion is tabletop role-playing games. Our officiant read his ceremony script from inside the Dungeon Master's Guide and, ever the Dungeon Master himself, Zack surprised me by making me roll for Initiative to see who got to recite their vows first.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

We had some great nerdy readings, leafed together the pages of two books as a unity ceremony, and after our first kiss, walked out together to “Christmas Island” (otherwise known as the song that plays at the end of Adventure Time).

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Tell us about your reception:

Our reception was just a bunch of nerdy fun. Everyone dug into their little favor bags and was soon bedecked in nerdy stickers and Adventure Time snap bracelets. In true RPG nerd fashion, our guests also received custom-printed D6s with our names and wedding dates on them and D20s in one of our wedding colors.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Zack and I both HATE the glass clinking that goes on at wedding receptions, so he devised a “Powered by the Apocalypse”-style dice rolling game to keep people entertained and still give them the chance to make us kiss. We bought some huge inflatable dice off the internet and posted the rules so everyone knew how to play.

IMG 0634 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Here's how it works: Want to see the bride and groom kiss? Grab a pal you wouldn’t mind giving a smooch, and come on up to the head table to try your luck. Grab two of the big inflatable six-sided dice, give ‘em a roll, and then add them up.

10+ = Congrats! The bride and groom will kiss, without you needing to smooch (unless you really want to, of course!)
7-9 = The bride and groom will kiss, but you’ll have to give the sweetie you brought up with you a smooch, too!
1-6 = Tough Luck, give your partner a smack on the lips or cheek, chance has given the bride and groom a break!

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

People LOVED it! It was super fun seeing folks of all ages embrace the game with gusto and the smooches provided some great photos of people having a blast at the reception doing something other than eating or dancing.

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

IMG 0348 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

What was your most important lesson learned?

OMG honeymoon registries! This is a revelation. As folks who were living together seven years before we tied the knot, my future husband and I were already pretty set on housewares and whatnot. We decided that we would set up a Honeyfund for our Icelandic honeymoon and people could gift us experiences rather than things.

We were a bit apprehensive at first, but everyone seemed to love it. People liked the idea of giving us a whale watch or a trip to a thermal spa instead of housewares and other things off a traditional registry. It was also super fun to share pictures of our honeymoon on Facebook so people could see us having a blast enjoying their gifts. If you are at all on the fence about whether or not to try a honeymoon registry in lieu of a traditional one, DO IT.

IMG 0716 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

Vendors

Meet our fave wedding vendors

Comments on When books meet RPGs: a book nerds wedding to tickle your dice

  1. I love the retro feel of this wedding. Pretty dresses and I love the grooms specs.

  2. Oh WOW, LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, especially the Dice Game of the Bride Groom kissing Game. HE RETRO FEEL IS AWESOME!!!!!

  3. Oh WOW, LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, especially the Dice Game of the Bride Groom kissing Game. HE RETRO FEEL IS AWESOME!!!!! Looked like everyone had fun all around, congratulations on your day!!!

  4. Wow so gorgeous! I love the fun game twists. So creative. We had a similar theme and called it “wordplay”. I wish this wedding happened first so I could have used these awesome ideas!

  5. One of the most fun weddings I’ve ever seen! Love all the details!! I would also love to hear how those book vases with the flowers inside were made (underneath the picture of the ribbon wands). Thanks for sharing!!

    • They are actually lengths of cardboard tubing fashioned into flowerpots. My mother-in-law made them by cutting them to length and then harvesting interesting book spines and hot adhering them around the surface of each tube! They turned out so awesome!

  6. Your wedding looks amazing! I have also been considering getting custom-printed d6. Any advice/vendor suggestions? Thanks!

    • We went right with Chessex (http://www.chessex.com/) and had a great experience, though their website was out of date as far as available colors when we ordered so we had to cross reference off a spreadsheet they sent us. It was much less expensive than I expected and the quality of the final image stamped into the dice was much more detailed than I expected.

      • Thanks so much for the reply! I actually have a small collection of great custom Chessex dice which were printed for conventions, so I’d hoped to use them, but their aged website made me a little nervous. I’m glad to hear it worked out well for you two! I will go ahead and give them a call.

  7. Everything about this is amazing! The donuts, the book archway, the dice game…yessss. It looks like everyone had so much fun!

  8. Congratulations!!
    This all looks so beautiful! Im also looking to make paper flowers out of our favourite books / comics! Im just wondering roughly how long it took to make all the bouquets and button holes… i have over a year till my wedding and just not sure when i should start making all the things i want to make, i want to start soon but im worried about them being damaged trying to store them…

    • Thank you! 🙂 They were a lot of work but I love how they turned out! I banged all these out with the help of my mother-in-law, bridesmaids, and assorted family and friends over three “D.I.Wine” nights that lasted 4-6 hours each. Pick some dates, throw up some Facebook events, invite everyone you think might want to help! All those folks who keep saying “let me know if there’s anything I can help with” – now is their time to shine! When the night comes, drink wine, put on some jams, chat, and craft! We fed everyone by making easy large-group crockpot meals.
      We tried to space out these nights over the months leading up to the wedding. I got married May 14th and we did one in late February, one in March, and the final one the first week of May. It’s never too early to start crafting! As the book page flowers were completed, we just stored them in vases and put them up somewhere high (we have cats) until we were ready to assemble them into bouquets during the final crafting session. It’s super helpful if you are short on space for storage to have a friend or family member with a dedicated storage place for things, that way you can finish things but get them out of the way to do more things and not get buried under your own avalanche of D.I.Y. wedding crafting. Best of luck and happy crafting! 🙂

      • That is such a good idea… my bridesmaids are all for girls night, drinking wine and wedding chat! I’ll definitely be getting them involved in making, im thinking they can each make their own bouquet and then their partners buttonholes!
        We can have some practive nights as well… some of them aren’t very crafy!

Comments are closed.