Rosie & Kerry’s fantastical fairytale costume wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Rosie

Her offbeat partner: Kerry, IT Technician

Date and location of wedding: Forty Hall, London, England — July 14, 2012

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We began by taking that well-worn wedding formula and stripping it right down to its bare bones, chucking out everything that we felt didn't mean anything to us, or was just a way to get us to pay vast sums of money. Then we filled it up with fun things that were about us and the people we love, who are predominantly as weird and theatrical as we are! So we had cupcakes for starters, with vintage teacups at every place setting. We persuaded our talented family members and friends to perform in a Victorian-style music hall, which was followed by a very rude, very violent Punch & Judy!

Bach's “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” was played live on the organ during the signing of the register, and we left the church to The Cure's “Plainsong” on the organ and drums with beautiful faeries bashing wind chimes, determined for the twinkling sound to be heard over the organ.

Pretty much everyone came in costume, including a huge Dobby the house elf, Queen of Hearts, pirates, steampunkers, historical re-enactors, flappers, lords and ladies, and more.

For the RSVPs, we included little cards in the invitations for people to draw a picture of themselves as “someone awesome from the past” and we got some incredible drawings back. We intend to frame them all together so we'll have a little piece of everyone who came.

Since I'm an historical costume maker, I DIYed lots of details. I made my dress, the groom's outfit, the bridesmaids' dresses, and my father's outfit. I also DIYed the invitations (including the envelopes), save-the-dates and RSVPs, the bouquets (paper roses), and the decorations (paper rose garlands and bunting). I had some help with these — they wouldn't have been done on time. I think my mother and sister still haven't forgiven me!

The things I couldn't make I got my talented friends to make instead. One friend did the cake and another made my shoes. They also did all the hair, filmed the day, played the organ and drums, and made a fabulous cat card box that now lives in our lounge.

Tell us about the ceremony: We got married in my family's local church. Neither of us are hugely religious, and a lot of the people there were not at all religious, so we tried our best to make the ceremony enjoyable and inclusive of everyone. Our reading was Edward Monkton's “A Lovely Love Story” which features two dinosaurs who fall in love and is very sweet.

We also had a crazy song, which was really three songs in one, with one half of the congregation singing “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” and the other half singing “I Want to Sing,” and then some of my dad's friends singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” at the back with a trumpeter just to confuse things even more! It was all very silly.

Our biggest challenge: I'm not very good at delegating. I wanted to do everything myself because of a strange combination of control-freakishness mixed with an insatiable love of making, and this meant that I had an enormous workload with not enough time to get everything done. So I put off asking for help until it got critical. So eventually I got my mum, sister, and a friend to help make the paper roses for the bouquets and garlands that were going round the pillars in the reception venue. But was so much more fun having people help me. And now that the weddings done, we have all these garlands that we've shared out between us.

My favorite moment: To be honest, on the day I was just so insanely happy that it's hard to nominate anything as being more meaningful than anything else. So I'll go for things that I didn't know were going to happen, as they had the element of delighted surprise mixed in with the insane happiness! For example, the fact that pretty much everyone came in costume made me really happy. I wasn't expecting that, and it was made particularly awesome by the fact that people had really gone all out.

Also, our magician friend did a Punch and Judy show during the reception, but he customised the whole thing with new puppets that were in-jokes that only us and a few others understood, so we were in floods of tears from laughing, made funnier still by everyone else staring at us in confusion.

My funniest moment: During the Victorian Music Hall, one of my Dad's friends (a big, rugby-playing bloke) performed a song whilst dressed as Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. It was one of the most surreal and funny moments of my life.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? No matter how much work you put into your wedding, ultimately it will be the people who make it special on the day. Although I loved having the paper rose garlands on the day, our wedding wouldn't have been any less special if they hadn't got done because we were surrounded by all the people we love best in the world.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Rita Dobo
• Shoes: Jonathan Moyler
• Cake: Tori Porter
• Hair: Jenna Wright
• Filming: Vaia Ikonomou
• Ceilidh band: Licence to Ceilidh
• Bride's elven tiara: Medieval Bridal Fashions
• Net petticoats: Sister of the Moon

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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