We've all faced the question of what to wear to a friend's wedding. It can be a tricky one. Can you wear the same dress to Friend B's wedding that you wore to Friend A's wedding two years ago? Will it be warm enough to go without a jacket or cardigan of some kind? You know the sort of thing. Unless you're a friend of billionaire Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster. For when he tied the knot with his singer-songwriter partner Alexandria Lenas in June, he decided to have a themed wedding. A Lord of the Rings-themed wedding.
According to the UK Independent, Parker and his now wife found a site in California that matched their vision of the Elvish citadel Lothlorien. And then...
[a] landscape architect then decked out the forested grounds around the resort with fake ruins, waterfalls, bridges, ponds and a cottage. Meanwhile, Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings costume designer Ngila Dickson was hired to design “elaborate fantasy-inspired costumes” for each of the 364 guests. An iron entrance gate was erected at a cost of $250,000. The staff required to make Parker and Lenas’s dreams reality numbered 450, including 24 tailors and 100 artisans. The wedding was also attended by 10 rabbits, five goats and a pony.
Okay, I would have liked rabbits and goats and a pony at my own wedding (though I don't think they'd have fitted in the function room at the top of Fallon & Byrne). But the rest is insane! Also, the whole thing cost a gobsmacking $4.5 million (yes, million). On the plus side, the guests didn't have to provide their own clothes.
But even then, would you really want to go to a party where the host handed you an outfit for the evening? I am not a huge fan of dress codes for weddings, let alone themed weddings. I know there are people who decide to have a black and white dress code, or a 1920s theme, or a rockabilly theme, but that just seems weirdly controlling to me. When you get married, you are basically expecting all your friends to turn up and celebrate you. Yes, you're feeding and watering them, but hey are happily taking an entire day out of their lives to cheer for you.
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Deciding what they should wear when they pay homage to you seems a bit much to me. Even black tie seems like a bit of an imposition, although at least you can be fairly flexible with the concept of an evening dress these days, and it's fun to have an excuse to really dress up.
When I got married, I genuinely didn't care what my friends wore as long as they had a good time. In fact, my bridesmaids chose their own dresses and I didn't see them until the actual day. Maybe if I thought there was a chance they might have all turned up in egg-stained tracksuits I might have put my foot down, but I trusted them to dress vaguely respectably and of course, they all looked lovely.
Anyway, not everyone was pleased with Sean Parker and Alexandra Lenas's scheme, and not because of a hatred of themed weddings or indeed Lord of the Rings. They were accused by the California Coastal Commission of environmental damage, a charge Parker denied in a 9,500 word post on Techcrunch.com entitled "Weddings Used To Be Sacred And Other Lessons About Internet Journalism", in which he complained (understandably) about the personal attacks on himself and his wife and defended himself against the environmental charges. But as far as I can tell, he didn't reveal what the guests thought about having to dress up as Arwen and Galadriel for the day.
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So what do you think of themed weddings? Would you have one, and what theme would it be (if I was forced to have a theme, it would probably be 1930s - I did have a vintage '30s dress for my actual wedding)? Have you been to one? And if you've been asked to one and you're not a fan, what do you do?
wedding site images via techcrunch
