Karen & Ian's swords and boards geek-tacular wedding • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

The offbeat bride: Karen, Payroll Analyst (and Tribe member)

Her offbeat partner: Ian, Software Engineer

Date and location of wedding: The Baldachin Inn, Ontario, Canada — September 10, 2011

What made our wedding offbeat: Ian and I met because of our mutual interest in City of Heroes (an online superhero game). We're both huge geeks, and among our common interests are comics, video games, Dungeons & Dragons, and sword fighting. We knew we wanted to incorporate those things into the wedding.

I proposed to him using a picture I commissioned of our City of Heroes characters and our save-the-date cards were superhero-themed. We had Tetris-themed invitations and online-only RSVPs as well. I wore a red corset and skirt and carried a feather bouquet, while Ian wore a kilt, a bowler hat, and an axe.

Our wedding party carried swords, axes, and daggers, and our wedding party gifts were hand-painted shields. We signed the legal paperwork ahead of time and our “officiant” for the ceremony was our Dungeon Master (dressed as the Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride).

We had an armoured honour guard, Tetris blocks centrepieces, mini cupcakes with chocolate D&D dice toppers, and had our first dance to “Mario Kart Love Song.” [Editor's note: here is an awesome tutorial for those dice!]

We also had a photo booth (Ian's laptop with Sparkbooth loaded onto it) and it was a huge hit. With Sparkbooth, we were able to print a copy of the photos immediately for our guests and save a copy to the hard drive.

Tell us about the ceremony: When we first started planning the ceremony, I told Ian it needed to be short and funny, and I didn't want to have to say anything if I didn't have to. I know that I cry at weddings (every single one I've attended) and when I'm crying, I get all choked up and can't talk. I'm also quite shy and it would have been pretty awful to have everyone waiting on me to say my lines, and the silence stretching on and on because I couldn't get the words out.

When we put the two thoughts together, we immediately thought of our friend Craig to be our “Impressive Clergyman.” We took the ceremony from the movie and added in some things that were uniquely “us,” such as standing together against the zombie hordes. He did a great job and kept an amazingly straight face throughout. And there is a video:

We had originally been planning to walk in to the ceremony site together, but my dad had expected that he would be walking me down the aisle. We butted heads over this a bit (I don't like the tradition, but my dad had always imagined doing it) and finally reached a compromise: both of my parents walked me down the aisle together, then Ian's parents walked him down to meet me. It ended up working out perfectly. Our processional song was “Storybook Love.” I'm not sure if that clued anyone in to what was about to happen. At the end of the ceremony, we walked out together to music from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Our biggest challenge: Communication with the venue was a huge challenge. I would send an email with several questions, and only get an answer to one or two of them. I made the mistake of falling in love with the venue and putting down a deposit before I read any online reviews, and learned my lesson! It did all work out in the end, but it was very frustrating having to re-send the same questions over and over again to get them answered.

I also had a very difficult time finding someone to do my makeup. I had four different trials and contacted seven places in total, only to find out that they were unavailable on my date, already booked, or didn't do as good a job as I would have liked. The search was made more difficult by the fact that our venue is outside of the city and I wanted someone nearby or who could travel to the venue. I luckily found a place 15 minutes away the week before the wedding, and thankfully they were available and did a great job!

My favorite moment: Spending time with our guests right after the ceremony. We decided to do our photos ahead of time, rather than have a gap between our ceremony and dinner. Immediately after the ceremony, we spent half an hour mingling with our guests and it was so awesome. We didn't have much of a chance to talk to anyone during the photos, and I'm really glad we took the time. It was such a relaxed and happy atmosphere, and it meant so much to get to hug everyone and talk to them for a few minutes.

Ian loved watching everything come together in the end despite all the stress and problems we faced along the way.

My funniest moment: Hands-down, my dad walking into the reception dressed as “King Richard VIII” to emcee. He had managed to keep it a secret and we were both shocked when he came in wearing his crown and robes. It was the perfect touch. My brother-in-law and one of my cousins were dressed as his court jesters. It was probably the hardest I laughed all day, and that's saying something!

Ian found the ceremony (especially the “split mad loots” line) to be the funniest moment. We both had a very hard time keeping a straight face. His youngest brother completely lost it during the ceremony because he didn't think we'd actually go through with the one we had practiced during the rehearsal.

The speeches were also touching and hilarious. We got rickrolled by my Maid of Awesome, and Ian's best man busted out Journey's “Don't Stop Believing.” By the end of the night, my face hurt from smiling and my feet hurt from dancing.

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? I was worried about what the older crowd would think of our geeky touches. My dad's mom did ask him after our ceremony if we were really married or not, but other than that, everything went off without a hitch. Our grandparents loved our photo booth and Tetris block centrepieces, and my dad made a point of sitting down to watch The Princess Bride before the wedding so he could incorporate lines from the movie into his speech.

Ian: The weather was a big concern for me since we wanted to do the ceremony outside. We had a backup plan in case of bad weather, but it was going to be much more impressive done outside than in our ballroom. Luckily, the weather was perfect. Those threats to the weather man finally paid off.

My advice for offbeat brides: Look carefully at all the wedding traditions in your area/culture, and decide which ones work for you and which ones don't. Just because it's “always been done that way” doesn't mean you need to do it that way. You may need to compromise with more traditional family members, but make sure you sit down and discuss things with them so you can each explain your point of view and see if you can come up with something that suits you both.

Check out day-of coordinators. We ended up winning one in a draw, and Wendy was amazing.

Ian: Make sure you get involved and give input to as much as you can. There were lots of things for which I didn't give any useful opinions (“whatever you want to do” is never the correct response), and that just makes things harder. If you help out with stuff, you get to put your own personal touches on thing. You will never get everything you want so learn to compromise.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? We're terrible procrastinators! No wait, I didn't learn that then, I already knew that. But I do wish I'd kicked my butt (and Ian's) a bit harder in the months leading up to the wedding. Thankfully, we were able to get everything done a few days before the wedding, but I was really worried that we'd be up all night trying to get everything finished.