Katie & Kellan’s Firefly and sci-fi geek chic wedding

The offbeat couple: Katie, high school English teacher & Kellan, university student

Date and location of wedding: The Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel, Poughkeepsie, NY — May 1, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: The thing that brought us together originally was Dragon*Con, a weekend long geek and pop culture convention in Atlanta, GA, and specifically our love for the show Firefly. We decided to theme our wedding around the show, with lots of other nods to our favorite sci-fi shows and movies.

Everything started with the idea that our groomsmen should wear Jayne hats and the bridesmaids should carry Kaylee parasols. It just snowballed from there. Our colors were purple and green (the colors of many DC comic book villains) because we’re big comic book readers.

We also had paper lanterns and 1000 purple and green origami cranes Kellan and I folded over many evenings watching horror movies. We named the tables after planets in the Firefly universe. Our table numbers, which were watercolor paintings by my mother, were held in place by toy dinosaurs (a nod to Wash, the pilot on the show).

Our cake was covered in purple cherry blossoms, and my father made the cake toppers: wooden Princess Leia and Han Solo dolls. I also put together our program, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Katie and Kellan’s Wedding,” explaining a lot of our details to our families, who are a bit less geeky than we are.

Our favors were chinese takeout boxes filled with gummy bears and Raisinets, mine and Kellan’s favorite candies.

Tell us about the ceremony: Our ceremony was non-religious, since neither of us are practicing anything (except maybe Jedi?). We wrote our own vows, which we tried to make both funny and meaningful. I promised to help support him through his World of Warcraft dungeons, and he promised to love me through all the evil uprisings that happens in sci-fi.

One of my bridesmaids plays cello in a string ensemble and played the music at our ceremony. I walked down the aisle to “Fools Rush In” by Elvis and we walked back out to “Beauty and the Beast,” in honor of my becoming “Mrs. Potts.”

Our biggest challenge: Working with our venue-mandated wedding coordinator was probably our biggest challenge. We got married and had our reception at a hotel, and she was used to dealing with really traditional weddings. She fought us every step of the way when we wanted to do things differently from how she expected them to be. Example: We wanted a sweetheart table and when she showed us the layout of the ballroom, there was a half round table in front of the sweetheart table that was intended to be the cake table. I’m short. I don’t want my three layer cake in front of my table. No one will be able to see me and vice versa! It was a real struggle to get the table moved because “that’s just how they do it,” but we did in the end.

My favorite moment: Our first dance was great. We took dance lessons and chose to dance to “Ohne Dich” by Rammstein. We were both nervous, but when the music started, there was really no one else in that ballroom but us and we just Foxtrotted our way around the floor like we’d been doing it for years.

Having Kellan’s family fly up from Tennessee to be there was also great. Kellan was convinced none of his family except his mom and brother would come up for the wedding. His family isn’t terribly close. We invited everyone anyway and several came, much to his shock. It’s helped to mend some bad feelings, and we’re more in touch with all of them now.

While it was sweet at the time, Kellan’s brother’s best man speech has become much more meaningful to us since he passed away a month after our wedding. The photos and memories we have of him from the wedding (which was the last time we saw him) are much more dear to us now that he is gone, and we’re glad the last time we saw him was such a happy occasion.

My funniest moment: The best man leaping into the groom’s arms (trying to do the lift move from Dirty Dancing) and ripping his pants was hilarious. Thank goodness Kellan had another pair of trousers in Matt’s size!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Cheryl Bolton-Reuter
• Dress: Town Shop Bridal
• Hair and makeup: Styles Hair Studio
• Cake: The Pastry Garden
• Necklace: Etsy seller Damselle
• Officiant: Jeanne Stark
• Flowers: Toad Lily at the Burgevin

Still hankering for more geeky wedding silliness? Check out some of these posts:

• Don’t Panic! Make sure you have your Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy programs!
• Katamari Damacy, Star Trek, Lego, and Dungeons and Dragons wedding cakes and more in the nerdy cake roundup.
• Check out the perfect candles for your Star Wars geek wedding.
• R2-D2 ring bearer, a bearded Leia, cave duels, and ritual sacrifice of delicious Jabba the Hutt. The force is strong with this wedding.
• Have you ever wondered what Rydia from Final Fantasy IV would wear on her wedding day? Wonder no more.
• When Star Wars, Doctor Who & cosplayers collide at a Las Vegas wedding, this is the AMAZING result.