So, just as the post title would lead you to believe, I got married recently. Both of us set out to blow out of the water any tired trends that make weddings boring or suck…and I’m lucky enough to have an awesome chick who wanted me to be able to put my own personality into the wedding theme instead of the woman stereotypically taking the reigns and dictating all the aesthetics and logistics of the ceremony. She was open to just about anything, but I still wanted to be sensitive to the importance and meaning of the whole event without making a circus of it…didn’t want to make any sort of mockery of our marriage or scare off the mild-mannered relatives who don’t know a thing about metal. As it turns out, there were plenty of opportunities, but here are the ones I went with…
Opportunity #1: The Table Names
Table names were the perfect way to go full metal. The trick was having fun with it without over-doing it, which was easy to do since they’re just words. I ended up going with a mixture of references. Start by thinking of song titles, album titles, band names, miscellaneous metal culture phrases, personalities, etc. The table name cards ended up looking tastefully hilarious with the fancy centerpieces and the rest of the wedding decor. Use the same stationery as the invitations and programs for full effect, of course.
The table names were as follows:
- Bootscraper
- Sacrifice for the Slaughtergod
- Fire from the Sky
- Gorod
- 11th Hour
- Soul Thrashing Black Sorcery
- Black Valor
- Throsh Nosty
Pick out some names that are in and of themselves not too scary-sounding, but that you know are super brutal. These are the tables where you sit anyone you think might get offended. Then pick out some that are hilariously over-the-top in a way that is obviously humorous. Then pick out a few that have special meaning between you and your heavy metal buds. Seat everyone accordingly, and try not to lose your cool; arranging wedding reception seating can be pretty brutal.
Opportunity #2: The Music
You don’t need to hire Skeletonwitch to play at your reception to sneak in a savory bit of brutality (but if you ever pull this off, you e-mail me immediately and tell me when/where to show up with your awesome wedding gift). For our reception, we did a mixture of live band for dancing and the iPod during dinner and breaks. I wasn’t ballsy enough to play Dying Fetus or anything, but it turns out there’s plenty of quality tracks to put on a widely enjoyable playlist of awesomeness. Here’s some of the tracks I picked out:
- Iron Maiden – The Trooper
- Black Sabbath – Into the Void
- Mastodon – Sleeping Giant
- Baroness – A Horse Called Golgotha
- Queen – Stone Cold Crazy
- Metallica – Breadfan
- Van Halen – Panama
- AC/DC – Beating Around the Bush
- Black Sabbath – Rat Salad
- Danzig – Mother
Un-seized Opportunities:
- Throw horns in your wedding photos
- Make your wedding invites out of blood and/or babies
- Only register for gifts at websites that sell medieval torture devices
- Say “Fuckin’ Slayer” instead of “I do”
- Put magic mushrooms in the quiche
- Growl your vows into the mic
- For your first dance as husband and wife…full windmill to Behemoth
I recently got married and my wife allowed me to pick our intro music at the reception. I chose “Forecast for Today” off of Pelican’s S/T EP. I had the dj time it perfectly so when the really heavy part came in, he introduced me and my wife. It was fucking righteous. Also, my wife didnt necessarily allow it, but I snuck in “Bodies” by Drowning Pool (it was the heaviest thing we could find at the time) as the last song of the night. My college buddies and I all moshed to it. The DJ said it was the first time he witnessed a mosh at a wedding reception.
I fought hard for these few Metal moments in my wedding. Its proof that with hard work and incessant begging a person can slip some metal moments into very unmetal situations.