A Gentleman Geek's Guide to Wedding Planning

Before you get all excited, this isn’t going to be the type of wedding that has the bride and groom dressed in super hero costumes. No lightsaber arches, no Vulcan hand gestures, and definitely no ‘so say we all’ (unless the best man decides the crowd is ready for it). 

Nope. My wedding is going to be recognisably a wedding, between two human people. But maybe, just maybe there’s room for a little geekery.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Arrow_and_Black_Canary_Wedding_Special_Vol_1_1

My future wife, Elizabeth and I have prepared our wedding in the knowledge that the majority of our respective family members are confused by capes and glowing swords, so instead we’ve opted for a relatively Loki (see what I did there?) affair.

You see, my lovely lady wife to be isn’t what you would call a geek. When we stated going out the only thing that could put her into that category at all was a love of Stargate. Make that all of Stargate! SG:1. Atlantis. All of it!

With that in mind, Elizabeth’s vision of her wedding day has always been free of comic book and science fiction influence. But that's where I come in.

When we started seeing each other I had already been engaged. A long and convoluted story of people being young and stupid, that engagement lasted three years and never went anywhere, finally ending quite badly. I accept the blame there. What this meant, though, was that when I did meet Elizabeth, the prospect of marriage was furthest from my mind.

The big change came when I realised this person, Elizabeth, was by far the only one I could possibly want to spend my life with. Now, marriage is not for everyone, but if one of you wants this and it’s important to them, well sometimes you just have to put their happiness before your own, and very loud, opinion.

So I proposed. And she said yes.

The condition, as it were, was that the wedding be a reflection of us both, not just a celebration of love and all that, but an expression of who we are as individuals as much as who we are as a couple.

And with that I got to add my little comic book touches!

The invitation to the engagement party was a mini-comic, the save-the-date was in the style of the Green Arrow, Black Canary Wedding Special, the invites featured Elizabeth and I wearing little bits of Superman and Wonder Woman costumes, and the Order of Ceremony booklet is an homage to the Green Arrow, Black Canary cover.

Elizabeth and Paul

My groomsmen and I will wear comic book cufflinks – Green Arrow, Green Lantern, John Constantine and Lex Luthor.

The flower girl will have a little Batman pin, although, importantly, she has offered to wear her full Batman costume should we change our minds at the last minute.

As for the flowers; the bouquets are made from paper, with a few flowers made out of comic book pages – don’t worry, none were first editions, or of even slight worth. And the table decoration; the vases will be filled with large paper flowers and lined with more comic pages. The place cards will be speech bubbles and thought balloons.

Collectively, these are things that together we decided would allow my personality to be reflected in our big day, without taking away from Elizabeth’s idea of her wedding day.

But it hasn’t all been easy. On some details I’ve had to ask Elizabeth to let me make my own decisions, and allow me to get to them in my own way. My suit, for example.

Originally Elizabeth wasn’t going to join me at the suit fitting. I knew what I wanted – a three piece grey suit with a green tie. Elizabeth came. I walked out with a two piece charcoal suit and a blue tie. The justification? It’s an outdoor wedding in summer, so the vest would be too hot, charcoal was more slimming, and the blue would match the bridesmaids. While these are all perfectly reasonable points that I would have eventually come to in my own good time I felt as though I was getting steamrolled before I had the chance to even think about it!

One thing that we did agree on at the outset was making a special point in the ceremony about our views on marriage. By law the celebrant has to say that ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’, which is total bullshit. While it is required, we’ve added out own little disclaimer, which works nicely but isn’t as vocal as I originally wanted. That said, telling the Liberals to go fuck themselves in the middle of my wedding ceremony probably isn’t altogether appropriate. In fact, my political views have already seen some relatives choose to boycott the day.

While some may say weddings are the bride’s special day and that the blokes should keep out of it, I think that by adding my own personal touches this has become one of the most memorable parts of our relationship.

I know that come 7 December, I will be a very happy man, surrounded by the people I love and the comics that I hold so dear.

-Paul Briske

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Arrow_and_Black_Canary_Wedding_Special_Vol_1_1