A Gamer’s Wedding With A Tattoo Station At Middle Earth – Zarah & Rick

This morning on Marry Me Ink, I get to share with you Zarah & Rick’s wedding that took place earlier this year at Heaton House Farm in Cheshire and photographed by Manchester wedding photographer Cassandra Lane. They’re both avid gamers so their wedding reception was full of retro arcade game machines and being massive Tolkien fans, had their table plan based in Middle Earth.

I had never experienced the joys of online dating before and my best friend Luke (serial professional online dater) signed me up to a well known dating website so I could be acquainted with the whole process. He had enjoyed several (extremely funny) nightmarish dates which I loved hearing about. We both met at drama school years ago and had the genius idea to write a hilarious play about dating in the modern world but he insisted that before we start writing, I needed some of my own online horror stories. He signed me up when we were chatting about all this at a house party, uploaded some drunk selfies of me pouting and wrote some terribly cheesy things on my new profile about what a geek I am. He then spent the rest of the evening logged on as me messaging boys! The next day after my hangover had cleared and regret had set in, I fully intended to delete the profile and as I was trying to negotiate my way to the ‘delete account’ section (never easy to find!), a little message from a very handsome looking chap popped up. Well, I must say I was intrigued… so I messaged him back and we went for our first date a few days later. That dating app was immediately deleted and we married three years later. Luke was still on that dating website for another year and wouldn’t let me forget it! He was my ‘bridesman’ and took credit for the whole wedding in his speech!

Our wedding was far from traditional and really represented us as a couple which is exactly what we wanted. We just wanted to have fun. Before we met one another we never imagined we’d ever get married and when Rick proposed to me, it was a huge surprise. I couldn’t believe we were going to plan a wedding day! We are both party loving geeks and massive retro video game fans so this is what we wanted to celebrate. I am a huge Tolkien nerd so our seating plan was a huge map of Middle Earth with each table being a place from that world.

We had lots of DIY decorations throughout the venue which were inspired by all the geeky things we love such as a dalek with a bow tie, and BB8 (of star wars fame) in a top hat along with models of Link and Zelda (from The Legend of Zelda) dressed as a bride and groom. The colour scheme of the day was also ink inspired. My favourite colours (and therefore most of my tattoos!) are red and black and these colours ran throughout the day and looked stunning.

I love arts and crafts so having the opportunity of doing DIY decorations was amazing. Our wedding favours were home made Nintendo DS game boxes with chocolate coins inside and the covers were an 8bit design with our wedding details on. They were so much fun to make. We also made place settings for everyone with old floppy discs spray painted!

I had no idea what kind of dress I wanted when I first started looking as I had never dreamt I’d ever need to search for one! So I didn’t really think about my tattoos, they simply are a part of me and are usually proudly on display.

We do have matching tattoos – When we were first engaged we got ‘Player 1’ and ‘Player 2’ tattooed on each of our wrists. I also got myself a new secret tattoo which was intended to surprise Rick on our wedding day and be a dedication to our wedding. Its a gorgeous vintage swallow design with two love birds holding entwined wedding rings. I loved it so much and managed to keep it secret (I still don’t know how!) for several weeks right up until the week before the wedding when on a really hot day I accidentally pulled up my cardigan sleeve and he spotted it! I was sad I hadn’t made it to the wedding day for the big reveal but Rick was over the moon and very touched, and that’s all that matters.

Our advice to other couples would be to be true to yourselves and plan and enjoy the wedding day that makes you both happy. Try not to get caught up in the ‘stress’ of planning and instead try to have fun and enjoy the process of planning a day that is unique to you as the day itself will be over in a flash! Do not compromise for anyone else as its only you two who matter. There are plenty of people who will offer their opinions and try to persuade you that traditional may be better or more ‘appropriate’ but remember its not their day, its yours, so rock your nuptials in your own style and be proud to do so. Oh and wear that beautiful ink with pride!!!

How cool is Zarah and Rick’s gamer wedding?! I absolutely love it! They put in so much time and effort into the decorating and it’s looks amazing. Thank you to them both and to Cassandra Lane Photography for sharing their wedding with Marry Me Ink. You can find a full list of their suppliers at the end of this post.