D&D, costumes, & epic music at this heavy metal wedding in Utah

Offbeat partner: Eleora

Offbeat partner: Henry

Date and location of wedding: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City, UT — November 6, 2016

Budget: $10,000

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Our wedding theme was Dungeons & Dragons! It's not just a game to us, it's a lifestyle. I have been playing since I was 12 — my dad Dungeon Mastered a group for me and my best girlfriends. Later, I met my husband through D&D. He was such an amazing Dungeon Master himself, that I asked him out on a date. I have developed the most amazing friendships and family relationships through D&D and it only made sense to make it our wedding theme. We even picked character classes for the event. I was a Paladin and Henry was a Wizard.

I was iffy on doing costumes at first because sometimes they can look really cheap or bad in general. But when we finally decided to dress up, I made sure we got our outfits through a professional theater company (as well as buying pieces off amazing Etsy shops here and there). I also wanted our best man's band Visigoth to play at our wedding. Metal music is also a big part of our lives. Most of our friends are in the metal community and I also sing in a power metal band (Ancient Council) myself. So we decided to do costumes, in a theater, with a heavy metal show to finish off the night.

Tell us about the ceremony:
The whole ceremony was more like a theater performance than anything else. My husband and I started off by singing “For the Dancing and the Dreaming” from How To Train Your Dragon 2. Then our wedding adventuring party joined us on stage for the ceremony itself. My dad played the king of the realm, recounting our epic D&D adventures from a magical tome.

Then we read our vows from sacred scrolls. We were joined in holy matrimony by the king himself (my dad got ordained just for the occasion). Our friends and family cheered our union with three “huzzah's!” To wrap up the ceremony, Henry and I performed a traditional folk dance choreographed by my sister. In between our acts, we had our friends read speeches to the audience recounting embarrassing events and heartfelt memories. We got the whole thing on film too, lest we ever forget the epic tales told that day.

Tell us about the reception:
We had the reception in the theater lobby. All our guests were encouraged to dress up as well, and seeing as it was only a few days after Halloween, most of them did! Everyone ate food, chit chatted, and enjoyed each other's company. Henry's father gave a speech, and then we cut the cake.

More importantly, we chopped the heads of the candy dragons off to save and eat for our first anniversary. Then I tossed some flower crowns for the fair maidens in the crowd to catch. What we didn't know was our videographer was interviewing people for our wedding video. It's just stupidly cute footage of people telling us how much they love us, and I am so happy to have it.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
Take your time! I was engaged for two years and I feel like it was the perfect amount of prep time; especially since my wedding was mostly DIY, no wedding planner or anything.