A costumed royal Renaissance affair with a sword in the stone cake(!)

Offbeat partner: Laura

Offbeat partner: Jim

Date and location of wedding: Barclay Villa in Angier, North Carolina — October 27, 2018

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We love attending Renaissance Faires and have always wanted nice Renaissance costumes, so we decided to have a themed wedding. Our wedding was Renaissance-inspired and we encouraged guests to dress on theme as well. Nearly everyone showed up in costume to have a merry time. We even got to reuse our Renaissance outfits the next weekend while attending a Renaissance festival.

Tell us about the ceremony:
Our wedding ceremony was officiated by our mutual friend who introduced us at a trivia night. Our ceremony was short and sweet. Beforehand, we placed our wedding rings in a glass chalice that we took out and placed on each other's fingers during the ceremony. The officiant referred to us as “Lord Jim” and “Lady Laura” throughout the ceremony and and it concluded with sharing a drink of wine from the same chalice.

Tell us about the reception:
The reception was the highlight of the night, of course. There were father-daughter, mother-son, and stepfather-daughter dances to begin the night. The reception music was mostly '70s-'80s dance party music, with some Halloween songs sprinkled in (for an October 27 wedding, we had to have “Monster Mash”).

Our dinner menu was on theme as well: a carving station with tenderloin and a buffet of herb roasted chicken, fingerling potatoes, vanilla-glazed carrots, and more. We also had a signature cocktail: the “Apple Pie Cocktail,” made with apple cider and cinnamon-infused vodka, served in goblets with a cinnamon stick.

Our wedding cake was a stone-shaped cake with a sword placed in it. To cut the cake, Jim pretended that he could not pull the sword out of the stone, and then I came up, placed my hands on his, and we both pulled the sword out of the stone together. We then cut our first slice of cake with the sword.

We chose royal colors for our decor, with plum colored linens and golden napkins on our guests' tables. At our head table, we had golden linens with plum colored napkins. And of course, Jim and I got to sit in royal thrones at the head table. Our centerpieces were put together by my mother — each one consisted of a slice of pine tree covered with moss and red berries, with fairy lights placed in the moss. Then on top of that were brass candlestick holders we found at various thrift stores with lit pillar candles on top.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
Communication, communication, communication! My biggest wedding challenge was keeping the lines of communication open with all our vendors. The DJ and I kept missing each other's phone calls so we ended up planning everything via voicemail. There were a few hiccups in the night, but I had already decided before the wedding to just go with the flow and enjoy myself no matter what might go wrong.

I also ended up creating a separate email address for wedding vendors after getting bombarded with wedding email promotions in my regular email account. For future couples, I would highly recommend contacting all of your vendors 1-2 weeks before the wedding to ensure that everything is still set as planned.

One last piece of advice would be to lean heavily on your wedding planner if you have one! On the day of the wedding, I allowed the planner to take over our scheduling and simply guide us from event to event throughout the night. It was pretty much stress-free and I never had to worry about the time because I knew the wedding planner had everything on track.

Vendors

Our photographer/videographer was amazing and I can't recommend her enough: Michelle Gunton Photography • Venue: Barclay Villa • Dress (made to measurements): Dawn's Medieval Dresses • DJ: Elite DJ Solutions • Caterer/bar: Rocky Top Catering

Gallery

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