choreographed light saber dance fight

Oh yes. You read that correctly. D and I went to his cousin's wedding two weekends ago and although I took a blogging sabbatical, I'm not going to not blog about that wedding. It was BY FAR the most interesting and memorable wedding I've ever been to!

He proposed at a Star Wars convention. They were registered at ThinkGeek.com. I mean, I was kind of expecting some... eccentricities. And by that, I mean I was HOPING for some eccentricities. But their invites were pretty typical and the venue decor led me to believe this was just going to be a regular union of a pair of Star Wars nerds. Until I saw R2D2 in the corridor of the church and I was like ohhhhhhhhhhh wait.

R2D2 was their ring bearer. He was remote controlled and about 3 feet tall and went "boop boop beep boop beep beep beep boop" as he went down the aisle. Very realistic looking, I think... although I've only seen about 45 minutes of a Star Wars movie before. I have utter confidence this couple wasn't going to let an unauthentic-looking R2D2 be a part of their wedding.

The groom wore shin guards like Luke Skywalker and a pretty intricate suit jacket, but other than that, the rest of the wedding itself was pretty straightforward. The bride, Daryl's cousin Sarah, made her own dress and her bridesmaids dresses and they turned out really well! I would not have guessed she hand made them all. And I thought to myself, R2D2! What a fun, harmless way to show your personality at your wedding! Now let's go eat some cake.

At the reception, we ate dinner and mingled some more with family, patiently waiting for the bridal party to come in to the reception hall but it took them a while. We were finished with dinner before we ever saw them. But when we saw a full-out-with-feeling Darth Vader and three storm troopers came stomping in to the hall, we understood why. Darth Vader introduced the wedding party and couple and then they took some wedding party pictures with all the Star Wars characters they'd hired. Afterward, Daryl's uncle asked his granddaughter (age 7) if she wanted to go take a picture with Darth Vader and when she said no, I immediately responded with "I DO!!!" and hopped up from the table. So D and I and his uncle went and hammed it up with DV, the storm troopers and R2D2. The storm troopers even danced with some of the girls! This kept everyone pretty busy so the couple had time to eat.

Throughout the rest of the night, there were MULTIPLE choreographed, Renaissance-y dances, the bride sang a song to the groom while her father played guitar, some pretty hilarious friends of the couple gave eccentric and hilarious speeches. But the whole time I was thinking, "I still haven't seen a light saber..." I eventually concluded that the light sabers were going to be for the farewell at the end of the night and D and I decided it was about time to call it since we'd been driving all day and this party was still raging on. But THANK YOU LORD JESUS, we were still making our round of goodbyes when the choreographed wedding party light saber dance fight happened.

Apologies for this being sideways... I know little to nothing about uploading videos to YouTube and obviously did this very wrong.

Afterward, I was convinced that every kid at that wedding is ruined forever on weddings. Nothing will ever measure up. I LOVED the photo ops with the characters AND the wedding party, the bride and groom seemed completely in their element and having a BLAST and there was PLENTY to talk about with everyone at your table, no matter how well you knew them. After this experience, these two families had something so fun and unique to bond over, there wasn't a stranger in the room.

And THAT, my friends, is why I've decided to revisit my idea of a Harry Potter themed wedding. At least I know it won't be the most nerdy wedding D's family has ever seen!