Our nerdy post-elopement party with a D20 dice kissing game

Offbeat partners: Randy Joe and Jeremy

Date and location: Rotary Shelter, Fort Walla Walla Park, Walla Walla, WA — 6/11/2022

Our post-elopement party at a glance:

We had already had our elopement last year (previously featured here on Offbeat Wed), so we wanted this post-elopement party to be a simple but nerdy event to celebrate with some of our friends and family.

A big source of inspiration was my dress — I made it by taking apart my mother's 1980s dress as well as my maternal grandmother's 1940s dress, merging them into one.

Of course, we wouldn't be us without including some nerd stuff, too. We fell in love over our mutual love for things like “Star Wars” and Dungeons & Dragons, and the Pixar movie “Up” was the theme for our elopement last year, so I wanted to make sure that these elements were included in our post-elopement party theme!

Tell us about the ceremony at your post-elopement party:

Finding an officiant for the ceremony at our post-elopement party was not at the top of our priority list, given the fact that we were already legally married. At the last minute, we asked our best man to come up with a script and perform the ceremony. I gave him some suggestions and sent him the script from our elopement to use as a reference.

What he came up with was pretty perfect: he included having us vow to help each other catch all the legendary Pokémon, and made it even more feminist than I would have by having me vow to be my husband's superhero (since my husband vowed to be my superhero in our elopement vows).

At the end, instead of “you may now kiss the bride” or asking us to kiss each other, he told me to kiss my man. Not bad for short notice!

Tell us about the post-elopement party:

We have never been ones for dancing, and seeing as we hate the traditions of the bouquet/garter toss, speeches and such, we decided to forego all of those. We still included a cake cutting though… because cake!

We just wanted to have a big party/hangout with friends and family and that's what we got. There was a DIY taco bar, board games, my uncle brought his polar bear of a dog named Pascal, and my parents brought their Cavalier King Charles puppy Merlin, who provided tons of entertainment and photobombs for us and our guests!

Our tables were covered in brown butcher paper, and we put out crayons for everyone to draw on them.

We had planned on allowing dancing as an option for our guests, but ended up not having speakers big enough to project music or a set up that allowed for a dance floor, so dancing didn't happen for anyone, unfortunately. The party also had to be cut short because of the rain and cold, but that was quite all right by us – the post-elopement party was still a lot of fun!

Tell us about the D20 kissing game you played at your post-elopement party!

Instead of clinking glasses or ringing bells, we had guests roll a giant inflatable D20 dice to get us to kiss, which was a HUGE hit! Best $25 I spent for this whole affair, by far.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your post-elopement party?

As cliché as it sounds, consider getting a wedding planner or day-of coordinator. I liked and wanted to do things myself, but we initially started planning this in the summer of 2019, then had to postpone, then switched to planning an elopement, then we eloped, and then had to pick up planning this one where the original planning left off!

The long process meant that by the time 2022 came around, I was honestly tired and over it. There was absolutely no way that we could have afforded a professional planner to help keep things organized, find vendors for us, etc., but it would have been amazing! They also could have helped with the things that went wrong, such as our photographer canceling on us three days before the post-elopement party.

I did ask a couple friends for help, but waited until the day of to tell them what I needed… which is when my phone decided to stop receiving text messages. As a result, they thought they weren't needed because they weren't hearing from me.

So… yeah, if you can afford it, get a professional or talk to one or two friends/family members whom you trust unequivocally and form a game plan well in advance of the day of! Meet up with them periodically throughout the planning process and get everything squared away ASAP so that you're not scrambling at the last minute – so if your cellphone fails on you day of, you'll be covered!

Our post-elopement party vendors

Related Post How to use Etsy for your wedding, from an Etsy vendor
In 2007, I dropped the maintenance of my own website in lieu of joining a legion of independent designers on Etsy, a website full of... Read more

Cake Topper – LaserTree
Necklace – TalismanBijoux
Glass Bottle Label – OfftheWallVinylDecor
Flowers – Solawood Flowers
Star Wars Scroll – BitofMagicDesigns
Wedding Business Sign – HappyDistraction
Guest Book – LiveonLoveStudio
Lightsaber Bouquet Holder – BeardoBuilds
Wooden Gift Table Signs – OneDayMoreDecor
Bride's Rings – Aquamarise