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If you've been a reader of OBB for a while you will recognize the name Whitney Lee Photography — we've gotten so much amazing wedding porn from this Austin, Texas photography team that we've even assigned them their own tag! Well now Whitney Lee Photography is back to share Cat and Andrew's sci-fi, gamer nerd wedding goodness! And we're going to let the bride tell us about this awesome wedding. -Megan
What made your wedding offbeat: Wow, where to begin… Well, our main challenge was integrating our own nerdy interests into our wedding in ways that were clever and fun, without being so over the top as to freak out grandparents etc. Of course, none of them suspected that the piano pieces being played by our long time friend were actually arrangements of Nintendo's finest. 🙂
Little touches (like the raygun boutenniers) were also really special to us. A lot of steampunk touches made their way into our wedding, lots of jewlery and tidbits from Etsy, which was great even during the brainstorming process. Our steampunk “hero pose” photo was something we took even before planning the wedding, using costume pieces and props we constructed ourselves. And my mother was actually the one who insisted on the mini top hat, which surprised me (but in the best way).
Because we really wanted to cut loose with our friends (many of whom traveled across the country to be with us) we held a second party on the evening of the wedding day…
12 deliciously geeky wedding cakes
You may or may not know that I'm a total dork, even Ariel attested to that fact during her last book reading. So every now... Read more
A friend DJ'd for us with anime and video game mixes, there was sushi, board games, and a photobooth corner with more props and costume pieces for people to dress up and pose. (A lot of costuming enthusiasts in our crowd, so this was a big hit!)
Our “guestbook” for the evening was a giant sketchpad (sort of running with our ‘Scribblenauts' theme) that our friends wrote and doodled their best wishes in. I'm keeping it *forever*.
Specially important to me was having everyone join Andrew and I in our first dance, which was a ton of fun!
What was your favorite moment: Since Andrew is a Chemist, and a big science nerd. His favorite moment (and that of many of our friends) was our special version of a candle lighting/unity ceremony. Instead of lighting candles together, we each poured a vase what looked like plain water into a large pitcher- causing an instant color change from clear to pink. Magic! (I mean… Science!) The audience gasped and applauded, and we were beaming.
I loved our cakes! We had a robo topper and worked in as many sci-fi references into the main wedding cake as possible. I was so excited about the reveal of the groom's cake, with many of Andrew's favorite game characters on the cake. Serving it to the guests reminded me of a little kid's birthday party. “Can I have the piece with Mario?” “I want Bowser!”
What was your biggest challenge: It was sort of tricky trying to plan what a lot of our family viewed as an unconventional wedding. I can't tell you how many times I was asked “So what are your colors????” only to have people utterly confused when I tried to explain that we weren't really going that route.
What's your advice to other brides: It's just a silly detail, but it's true what they say about often being so busy running around and shaking hands at a reception, you don't really get a chance to eat. I'm not gonna lie, we definitely stopped for tacos on the way from the morning reception to the hotel. (But our buddies joined us, so it was just a continuation of the festivities, right? 😀 )
Tell us about working with Whitney Lee Photography: Whitney was fantastic to work with. She made everyone (even some of my notoriously camera shy buddies) feel comfortable in front of the camera, and every photo I've seen fills me with those warm fuzzies you get of remembering a fun and amazing time.
If you would like Whitney Lee Photography to give YOU the warm fuzzies when you look back at your wedding photos, head over to the website and book 'em asap.
Enough talk show me the wedding inspo! Head over to Whitney Lee's photography blog so see more photos and even more nerdtastic details from Cat and Andrew's wedding!
About the Author: Megan Finley Horowitz
When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!
Oooohh… did you use phenolphthalein and calcium hydroxide in water for your clear to pink unity science thing? <3
Phenolpthalein and sodium bicarbonate. (He told me to add that calcium hydroxide is more corrosive, so we didn’t want to bring that into the nice chapel…) Andrew was really worried that it wasn’t going to work, he kept testing it because if it didn’t go just right it would be “all on him”. Thankfully- it was awesome. 😀
What can you use to make the color purple or orange please. Thank you
This whole wedding made me go “dawwwww.”
Yay geeks in love. <3
OMG, your unity ceremony is brilliant! Science FTW. What a fabulous wedding! =D
:3 I’d expect nothing else out of an Austin wedding. 8D I can’t wait till me and my boyfriend have ours.
Also I adore that cake. D: I love that game. XD
So it was you who has the Scribblenauts cake!
I saw it on OBT a while back and just had to share it with my favourite Nintendo forum. Now I can finally add some more details. 😀
Your whole wedding looks fantastic, I love the giant pencil, and for some reason the shot of everyone at the table with coke cans. Don’t know why but I love how random they look in with all the weddingy stuff.
Memories! My father was a chemistry professor, and he’d use the color-changing-water trick to impress schoolkids whenever he did a demonstration for my elementary school. Brilliant idea!
EEP! Could you please please tell me where you got the fab ray guns from? I adore these!
Buildersstudio on etsy. They were just little minis, but he happily attached pinbacks to them for no charge.
I haven’t ever commented on this site before, but your wedding was just too adorable NOT to!! I love every bit of it! Color me jealous!
WOW! I love it! Those pictures are amazing! You will have one awesome photo album! Cakes were so cool, after party looked like a blast, the whole thing must have been so much fun!
Where did you get that gorgeous dress? You look AMAZING! What a fantastic wedding!
I feel terrible for admitting this, but it’s a David’s Bridal. I didn’t have time to get something custom made, so I just went in, looked at the two short dresses that were available in my size and… picked one. No “Oh… mommy…” moments. XD The jacket was from them as well, but I had it altered (I thought shorter sleeves would be more of a retro look.)
Don’t feel terrible! I looked at some of their dresses and they look great! Some Alfred Angelo dresses are really pretty, too. Who cares if you went to a chain store, a thrift store, or had your dress custom made? You look FABULOUS, and like you FELT FABULOUS, and that’s all that matters. I am green with envy! Don’t be too surprised if you see other ladies inspired by you to rock that dress!
In my head space for my ideal wedding, I have been bouncing around using special arrangements of nerdy songs, and I’m so glad it worked out for you! Did your friend do the arranging for you? it looks like you had fun 🙂
To be honest, the reason we asked him to play for us during seating was because we had fond memories of him rocking out the dormitory lounge pianos with various video game music he had apparently bought piano sheet music of (and then memorized). He was happy to rise to the occasion. He was skittish about playing the actual march, until he realized I wanted the Final Fantasy theme played- and then he was all over it.
http://www.highlyderivative.net/~rojotrece/2009%20Finale/march.avi
It was kind of awesome- and 90% of the people weren’t the wiser. The 10% that did know what it was loved it.
I’ve been looking everywhere for a version of the Final Fantasy theme song that’s not too long to walk everyone down the aisle to! 🙁 I love all your details!!!! So awesome!
I love this! The raygun boutenniers are really cool, and I love that you used video game music. I feel really happy every time I see a video game/geeky wedding on here, because I’m trying to plan one myself. It’s so inspiring to see your awesomely beautiful and awesomely geeky wedding, it makes me feel like it’s ok for me to put in all my geeky gaming ideas into my wedding. It sounds like your wedding was super fun, congrats!
I absolutely love your cakes! Could you tell me where you had them made? My boyfriend and I live in Austin, and we’re planning a Nintendo themed wedding. I’m really hoping to have a Zelda cake if we can manage it.
Congrats on such a wonderfully fun wedding! Can anyone tell me where to find that style of twisted wedding band? I’m in love! : )
Cat, I love your ceremony! I would really like to steal the idea as my fiancee and I have looked at every other option and don’t like any of them. But I’m really curious, did you write your wording for the unity ceremony part? None of the other ceremonies have wording that would work for this and I am terrible at writing. I would appreciate any inspiration or help.
Is there a way to make the New liquid Purple?