Morgan & Matt’s robot love fest wedding

Robots and aliens have invaded weddings this week! It's making me want to break it down in a binary solo. This couple had all their guests bring something robo-related, including a mini mechanical baby!

The Offbeat Bride: Morgan, video game writer/designer

Her offbeat partner: Matt, software engineer

Date and location of wedding: Gas Works Park, Seattle, WA — September 22, 2012

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We are, at our very essences, extremely silly people. In preparation for the wedding, everything I sent to friends and family ended with: “Remember, if you look around and find that you don't know what to do next, the answer is: whatever is the most fun. The number one rule of robo-wedding is to have fun.”

The idea of having a “robot wedding” was what helped us shape our wedding into what it needed to be for us: geeky, colorful, and fun. We asked our friends and family to bring robots, whatever that meant to them. Some got temporary tattoos, remote-controlled robot dinosaurs, jewelry, handmade robot quilts and pillows, decorated tights with circuit patterns, and dressed their babies up as robots.

Tell us about the ceremony: Our friends and family provided all the music. My brother and his girlfriend played Beirut's “Postcards from Italy” on the banjo and violin as we came out, and Matt's childhood friend played the bagpipes for our exit.

We had a few special readings, but one stood out. It was a conversation between Inigo and Fezzik from The Princess Bride (the book):

‘Look: we can't go back and we certainly don't want to stay here, so we just must keep on going as we were before these little things happened. Down. Down is our direction… but I can tell you're a bit edgy about all this, so, out of the goodness of my heart, I will let you walk down not behind me, and not in front of me, but right next to me, on the same step, stride for stride, and you put an arm around my shoulder, because that will probably make you feel better, and I, so as not to make you feel foolish, will put an arm around your shoulder, and thus, safe and protected, we will descend.'
‘Will you draw your sword with your free hand?'
‘I already have. Will you make a fist with yours.'
‘It's clenched.'
‘Then let's look on the bright side: we're having an adventure… and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.'

Our biggest challenge: Narrowing things down, both in the scope of the theme, and with our guest list. Our initial list was almost twice as long as the final list, and our reception venue had a strict headcount limit. Trying to figure out how to bring it down to a reasonable and affordable length was difficult, and the whole process didn't end completely smoothly. There were some hurt feelings, but I think people have forgiven and forgotten.

My favorite moment: I found our handfasting to be just the right way to symbolize our union. It allowed us to bring all of our immediate family into the ceremony, and at such an emotionally intense moment, I found myself so overwhelmingly happy and grateful to have a single moment where each of them shared it with us.

Our dances were also some of the most magic moments. Matt and I are dancers, and that first dance was definitely the most emotionally intense moment of the entire experience. We blues-danced to an acoustic version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' “Hysteric.” It's hard to put it into words, but the rest of the world definitely did melt away at that moment. On the flip side, but equally wonderful, was my first dance with my father. My father's an amazing dancer as well, and he and I went for a fast-paced swing dance that segued from just us to the whole group.

Lastly, our ceremony was held in a public park. I think this idea might scare a lot of people, but the thing of it is that people love weddings, and everyone wants to share your happiness. Strangers clapped and cheered, and that helped make our day special. Even the disruptions added flavor, like the teenagers who ran by shouting “YOLO” and the byplane that drowned out part of our vows.

My funniest moment: There was a moment that was not meant to be funny, but it was in the end. Matt spent many hours designing and building a remote-controlled LEGO robot ring bearer. It was meant to be a surprise, and our officiant panicked in the last second and picked the robot up rather than passing the controls to the flower girl. The robot's head popped off, with LEGOs and rings scattering. Whenever I tell the story, I can't help but laugh.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? When you're budgeting, make sure to think about what parts are really important so you don't cut corners with the things that are a priority. The only real disaster in our wedding was the dance party. We decided to go with iPod and the reception hall's sound system, which they had said was just recently upgraded. Unfortunately, once we turned the music up to dancing volume, the tuner would overheat and shut down. We couldn't really get the music up loud enough to get people excited about dancing. Knowing how important dancing is to us, our friends danced anyway with us, but it didn't last as long as we would have liked. It didn't ruin the day, but it did cast a shadow.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Lydia Chen Photography
• Dress: Wai-Ching
• Male accessories: Cosmic Firefly
• Invitation/thank-you design: Brad Lockhart Design
• Cake topper and other decor: Forgotten Robots
• Catering/reception venue: Ravishing Radish
• Peacock bridesmaid dress: Amazon
• More inspiration: My Pinterest boards

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

Offbeat Wed Vendor

This page features vendors from our curated Offbeat Wed Vendor Directory. They're awesome and we love them. If you're a vendor let's get you in here!

Wai-Ching

PortfolioWebsite

About the Author: Offbeat Weditors

@offbeatbride @offbeatwed

Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.