Are you prepared for this Borderlands cosplay wedding?

Borderlands cosplay wedding as seen on @offbeatbride #borderlands — Photos by HARD Photography/Picture Me Sweet

The Offbeat Bride: Carady, Student

Her offbeat partner: Matthew, Retired

Date and location of wedding: Pacific Beach Naval Resort, Oceanfront Cabins, Moclips, WA — December 12, 2015

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

We had so much we wanted to integrate into the wedding. It started off as a simple Celtic handfasting, but we also wanted to include levels of geekery and general fandoms. At some point one of us made a joke about elemental cupcakes, and then the ENTIRE wedding got turned into a Borderlands-themed cosplay celebration.

I couldn’t find any Borderlands-themed weddings, so we decided to go all in. We wanted to keep some of the Celtic elements, and figured that steampunk themes would be a good crossover point, especially after finding out about the Community Day skins for the characters. Luckily, almost all of our friends played along for us.

My biggest fear was that we would be the only two dressed up and we’d feel silly; but instead, almost everyone invited played along. The group participation was what really pulled it all together. The first day and night were dedicated to finishing up costumes and crafts, and the second day was getting dressed up and the ceremony and reception.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our ceremony was set up like a quest. We had so many things we wanted to include, and even cut most of the readings day-of and ended up winging it for the most part. Dr. Zed preformed our handfasting, and after we were bound together, we had to complete the quest series to win Golden Keys, which would open the chest holding our rings. We didn’t have a wedding party — our guest list was under 30 people so we told our friends they were ALL the wedding party.

I think the most romantic part of our wedding was actually beforehand, when we made the besom together in our garage. The boughs were from the willow tree in our yard, and it took a lot of cooperation and team work to build. It kind of holds a stronger symbolism because of the effort we put into it together.

Borderlands wedding as seen on @offbeatbride #borderlands

Tell us about your reception:

We kept the idea of having a wedding weekend, since the cabins were a minimum two-hour drive for most of our guests. Most everyone came out the night before or stayed the night after. On the wedding eve, we had dinner and finished up all the crafts for the next day. There was a hurricane flourish of paint, sharpies, knives, and glue. After the ceremony, we had a small reception with a taco bar, many drinks, and Cards Against Humanity.

What was your most important lesson learned?

Take more pictures. It’s over so fast. After my wedding was over, a Tribesmaid posted about wedding “scrumming” — I wish her post had come out before I started planning!

Place Etsy orders early — we could NOT have done this without custom orders from Etsy! I highly recommend HootKit for folks who have a bigger/more structured reception. It would be wonderful for a photo booth, but we ended up not using it.