About

...or, what's the deal and why are we doing this?

While having fun doing wedding planning for a couple of our RPG characters, I realized that there was no good reason I couldn't do the same for us. We were going to have a "traditional" ceremony back in '98, but finances were bad enough that we had to call it off. Now, there are other reasons why it's unlikely we'll ever do another ceremony to renew our vows. But in cyberspace, we don't have to worry about how much things cost or whether friends can afford the time and/or expense to join us.

And so, the idea for this blog was born.

This isn't meant to be a "fantasy" wedding in the sense of having the ceremony in Hyrule Castle or having Superman be a member of the wedding party. It's more along the lines of "what might we do if we were planning a real-space ceremony, but had a huge (not unlimited) budget, didn't have to worry about things like not being able to book the chapel for the date we want, or didn't have to take people's ability to travel into account when asking people to participate?" We'd like everyone to stay within this basic paradigm. A virtual gift of a new Rolls Royce fits the concept, while a gift of a TARDIS wouldn't (there's one case where people might spend real money, but see the Gift Registry page for more info on that).

Since we don't have to worry about making reservations months in advance, we're working on a compressed timeline of each week counting as a month. So, things that would generally happen three months out will be three weeks before the date, more or less.

We've chosen to do this on Blogger because that means anyone with web access can participate without needing to sign up for a service they might not already have. Anyone can leave comments, using the name/url option (the URL is optional).

Those who agree to be our honor attendants will be asked to contribute their opinions on clothing (hey, you don't have to pay for anything this way!), throw a shower (i.e. make a blog post where people can participate in that part of the festivities, describing the theme and maybe coming up with "games"), and making toasts/speeches as part of the reception. This is just what comes to mind -- if someone has more ideas, we're listening :-). Having posting rights (as opposed to just commenting) on the blog requires a Google/Blogger account.

So join us for our Big Fancy Wedding!

How we got here

We met in the news-group alt.callahans, and got better acquainted via our participation in a "play by e-mail" game that started as a thread in that group. We still tend to refer to each other by the names we use in the CAoL -- Morgan and Roland.

In late May of 1997, we started corresponding outside of the game, and quickly realized that we were in love. In late June, Morgan flew to Connecticut to meet Roland in person, and we soon decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. These "engagement" photos were taken the day Morgan flew back to California, after a long, magical weekend. The one on the left was to show off our rings (they don't come across too well in the JPEG, though), and the one on the right is just us looking happy. As of this writing, the silly grins are still there :-).

Two months to the day after we decided we were officially engaged, Roland arrived in California to stay. Over the summer we had our characters in the CAoL fall in love, and they had a beautiful wedding in the faerie kingdom of Arcadia.

Our SCA personas were officially betrothed in September 1997. Our persona (and legal) wedding was on Valentines Day 1998. We intended to have the ceremony in the woods in Prado Park, where Great Western War II was taking place. However, there was heavy rain for several days before the event (it was the bad El Niño season), and the woods became flooded. Fortunately, when we arrived on site Friday, the rain had stopped for the most part, and we arranged to have the wedding at sunset in the rapier field. It was a beautiful site overlooking the lake.

The next day, the skies opened up and drowned the park.

We arrived that morning to considerable rain, but were hopeful that it would end well before sunset. Though much of the event would be "rained out," if we had enough of a dry spell the wedding could occur as planned, and weather reports indicated that the rain would stop at approximately noon.

That estimate was later pushed back to two in the afternoon, then anywhere between three and five. After spending most of the day huddled in a tent, we finally decided to return home and have the ceremony there. Packing in the downpour was an adventure in itself, as the mud and wind threatened to knock over the clan's tents as it had several others. Fortunately, just as we were finishing up, we got a reprieve. The rain slowed, then stopped, and the winds slowed to manageable levels. This, however, resulted in another danger as the skies cleared, and as night fell we all eventually ended up at Chirurgeon's Point to avoid hypothermia. After warming up and drying off (and meeting a fellow Callahanian -- thanks, BetNoir!) the clan packed up and headed for our house.

We arrived at nine, got everyone into something dry, and promptly collapsed. We all ate, dried off, and rested. Finally, at eleven, we began to prepare for the ceremony. Those who had their fine garb with them changed clothes, Dylan was the ring-bearer, the clan chief presided, and the wedding was magical. We wanted to be married on Valentines Day, and we finished with ten minutes to spare!