A Video Game Wedding Between Two Rockers – Abby & Reid

Today’s tattooed bride and groom is Abby and Reid who had a short and sweet wedding ceremony but then rocked the night away at their awesome gig venue The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY with photography from Justine Johnson Photography. They both met prior to a video game convention online.. Seriously their story is awesome.

We met volunteering at a video game convention called PAX — Reid is from Seattle originally, and I’m from Los Angeles. We started chatting online in the volunteer chat room, and became really good long-distance friends. We had mutual interests in punk music, art, and video games. Reid finished grad school, moved to New York to start a job in physics… and then we decided to date because our mutual attraction was too strong! I was still finishing school in Los Angeles, so through video games, chatting and visits, we managed to do long distance for 2.5 years.

We did this wedding all on our own so basically everything from the venue (a music venue in Brooklyn called The Bell House) to the music (we played all sorts of punk during our cocktail hour) to our Street Fighter cake toppers were 100% us! We also had a fuss-free reception with our favorite Cambodian sandwiches, along with cupcakes. You can hold all of these while dancing.

We made 90% of our decorations, including the bouquets and boutonnières. The most fun was the PVC pipe trellis (cut in the snow!) The trellis was decorated with handmade tassels and then jerryrigged by someone who is very good with knots.

I didn’t have the tattoo when I searched for dresses, but I knew something was going to be on my arm. I definitely wanted something with either no or short sleeves.

Our tips for those planning their wedding:

Pick 5 things that are important to you for your day and focus on those. For us it was a quick ceremony, great food, great booze, rocking music and close friends. Anything else is superfluous.
Test everything you find on Pinterest before committing.
Everyone remembers good food, and bad food. You can get away with mediocre, but if you like good food, so will your guests!

How awesome is Abby and Reid’s wedding? Thank you to them both and to Justine Johnson Photography for sharing with Marry Me Ink. Be sure to leave them some love!