The wedding was AWESOME. Being married is AWESOME! Everything went off perfectly and our guests had a marvellous time. And we got married! How cool is that?
We wanted a wedding to be totally us, who doesn’t? – so we booked Spookers, a haunted attraction in part of the old Kingseat Mental Assylum. The Spookers building used to be the nurses quarters.We had the ceremony in a circus tent, the photos on the assylum grounds, and the reception in the spookers banquet hall. After the wedding festivities and the food, our guests could enter the attractions or dance/hang out in the hall or tent.
We wanted our theme to be “heavy metal” so we mixed elements of all the metal we like – medieval, warriors, horror, fun – and came up with this:
a kiss from my warrior...
The Wedding Day
It sunned outside all day, while we relaxed at our motel and ate sausage rolls. The hairdressers came around and sorted us out, then the girls (my bridesmaids are Belinda, my baby sister who’s 6 months pregnant, Linley – my best friend of all time, who was Matron of Honour, and Jennifer, a good friend for about 8 years and about 12 weeks pregnant.) put their dresses on and strapped me into mine. Jennifer had called her baby sitter to come over to pick up her son at 4:15 (we had to leave motel at 5) and it’s 4:45, 4:55…and babysitter still isn’t here. Then it starts to BUCKET down with rain. I’d been so excited all day and at 5pm started to get a little like ‘you bastards!’ fortunately, the babysitter showed up just then – she’d been caught in a road detour – and we hopped in the cars.
When we got to spookers we were 10mins early, so did a couple of laps of the parking lot waving at everyone. The sky clouded over but it didn’t rain.
Our two ushers seating the guests.
lighting the altar candles
Meanwhile, the boys had already lined up.
My nervous husband, quietly waiting...
We lined up outside our end of the circus tent and Shane (my other best friend of all time) lit our lanterns.
my friend Shane lighting our candles before we walk down the aisle...gulp!
Primped and Preened and ready to go.
Our wonderful friend Lee – bassist in CDH’s band, dressed in his ripped jeans and Slayer t-shirt, of course - started the evening off with an address:
‘For the thousands in attendence, and the millions watching around the world. Ladies and Gentlemen, lets get ready to Maaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrry…..”
"Ladies and Gentlemen, lets get ready to maaaaaaarrrrry..."
Brendon (my sis’ husband) started the music – Bittersweet, by Apocalyptica – and everyone started walking.
- ’should I walk now?’ ‘don’t go yet’ ‘what? go?’ ‘no, DON’T go!’ ‘Okay, I’m going…’
...so she did 
My dad walked me in, and we met James at the centre of the tent. He had the biggest smile on his face, and he looked like a Warrior. I giggled so much and cried and he cried and everyone laughed and snapped pictures.
Here I come, husband...
"I come forth and finded you"
He drew his sword, placed it on the ground, and said his vows – which he wrote himself:
‘I place my sword, my life, and my heart at your feet.
I wov to protect and honour you
Through whatever may follow.
From this day on.
As I link my soul to yours.
and take you Steff, as my wife.’
And then I picked up his sword, handed it back to him, and said:
”I return this sword to you, bound with my heart.
I shall be the shield for your back
And the healer of your wounds.
I shall honour you above all others
From this day on
As I link my soul to yours.
And take you, CDH, as my husband.
And I’d memorised it all, except I got choked up on the second line and forgot everything, so our celebrant had to prompt me.
"I lay my sword at your feet..."
"You can have it back now. It's awfully long and pointy"
Then our mothers lit a candle for us, and we used those candles to light our own candle.
our mothers lighting the candles..
We exchanged rings. James designed them himself – it's a simple band with a rope design around each edge. “Twegan Gastus in Annes” is inscribed around the outside in Anglo Saxon – two souls as one, or two ghosts in unison, depending on your translation. Mine has a garnet set in it, and his had an emerald. The gold for the rings and my garnet came from melted jewellery of CDH’s great grandmother.
We had our friends John and Andrea red ‘A Lovely Love Story’ by Edward Monkton while we signed the registry. It was a surpsie to James from me. The story – about two dinosaurs that fall in love – is so cute and so us!
Johnowar and Andy reading 'the lovely love story' as my surprise to James.
THIS is how a blind girl signs a wedding register - with her nose. (Do ya notice the Battle Axe pen?)
We kissed, which was fantastic, and exited to Manowar’s ‘The Gods Made Heavy Metal’ and all our bogan friends cheered. We is married! Yarrrr!
We is married!
Awwwwww
Awwww
Throwing the Goat during our Manowar Recessional
Hug for everyone! I'm married!
We tried to race through our group photos, but there were so MANY, including a ‘heavy metal’ photo with all our bogan friends “throwing the goat”.
All our wonderful friends and family
Hail and Kill!
Our two wonderful attendents
Our guests went to the bar for drinks and snacks while we did the portraits. I love the way these photos came out – our photographer rocked.
The owner of Spookers made this hearse himself!
sitting on a hearse...
I don't know what this was...CDH's first telling-off as a married man, perhaps?
I loved my beautiful red wedding dress. Can’t you tell?
I'm so happy
my beautiful red wedding dress
My bridesmaids getting their muddy shoes over my beautiful dress
pweddy dwess!
The boys love playing with their swords!
happy groomsmen with swords \m/
Wedding swords - they just look so COOL
But we got them back!
I get my own back!
Then we entered the banquet hall where everyone waited. The venue had gone all out with decorations – blood red walls, cobweds everywhere, manniquins hanging from the ceiling – we had black roses centrepieces and barbed wire and candles. All the plates are red – we had silver medieval goblets.
My dad gave a beautiful speech, My father-in-law gave a beautiful speech, Linley and Jen gave a cute speech, and CDH’s’ brother/best man John Paul gave a funny speech – he missed the stag do so had to work in the phrases ‘these are not the droids you are looking for’ ‘you’re a towel’ and ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ into his speech seamlessly. He did, and got huge applause.
We ate food, which was sooooo good. And I socialised and circulated. A few spooky ‘visitors’ showed up and scared our guests.
mmmmm food...
Our 'uninvited' guest terrorizes our friends!
Then we had a first dance (to Skalds and Shadows – blind guardian) and got everyone up dancing. We got a big group together, got our tickets, and lined up to go through the haunted house. Because it was Halloween, HEAPS of people were there, and man did they all think it was cool that we were getting married. The haunted house actors picked on us cuz we were the bridal party. It was brill.
Then we went through the haunted forest – two chainsaw-weilding maniacs (actual chainsaws with no chains – you could SMELL the gasoline) chased us for ages, then we met an actor wearing corpsepaint – turns out he was in a local metal band so we stood around talking to him for ages about local gigs and stuff (he could get in trouble for doing that but too much fun!) After we escaped the forest we went back to the banquet hall, hung out with more people, and did some more dancing.
Dancing the night away
Dancing!
The phantom hand - giving his phantom seal of approval...
A LOT more dancing.
Old people. Hmmm....
That's my mum, straddlin' my friend...
My Maid of Honour kept a vice-like grip on this bottle of wine. Apparently it was quite tasty
MOH and her wine bottle
My metal friends got ahold of the laptop and put on Manowar’s ‘Hail and Kill’ (practically our metal anthem) and about twenty of us had an awesome metal singalong. It was epic – the photographer couldn’t stop laughing.
'May your sword stay wet, like a young girl in her prime...'
Hail and Kill! \m/
Sadly, eventually our limo arrived and it was time to go. Everything went perfect – no mishaps, just a total fun night. We went to our surprise accommodation courtesy of my awesome Mother in Law – 5 star at the Langham, which free champagne, chocolates, breakfast and the biggest bed in the whole WORLD (two king-sized beds put together). Next morning we got up and had breakfast with our families, then went off on our surprise 2 day honeymoon to queenstown, which was a whole different kind of awesome!
We made the guys cloaks and shirts, James sword and the groomsan’s broaches came from our friend at Wulflund in Czech republic, we had friends and family help with cakes, readings, etc. I DIYed the invitations (scrolls with skull and crossbones seals) and we had no flowers or favours. My dress came in under $500NZ and I wore stockings (black and white striped with skull and crossbones) and shoes I already owned.
So that’s the wedding, I guess! There’s so much more but my hand be tired! I want to put way more photos up but I don’t want to crash anyones browser!