Rachel & Dale may have got married in Vegas first, but having a goth perfect UK wedding was also very important to them. The couple, who’s outrageous punk rock engagement session I featured back in July, told me all about their awesome wedding, both here and in Viva Las Vegas! Rock music, choreographed lights, smoke machines  and dry icewere what was required for this fabulously theatrical wedding!

“We knew we didn’t want a conventional wedding, not being exactly a conventional couple so we eloped to Las Vegas in August and had Elvis do the deed for us,” Rachel told me. “We only told a few people we were going. We had a fantastic few days in Vegas then hired a convertible Mustang and drove through Death Valley and across Yosemite National Park – including having to sleep in the car one night, not easy for a 6 foot tall groom! Although my wedding dress made a surprisingly comfy pillow.”

“We drove through to San Francisco and stayed for a week. While we were there we popped into the PictureMachine (a very fine tattoo establishment) and Dale got an appointment set up for some new ink. The card in his top hat was the business card from his tattoo man (on the back it says $40 deposit paid – Dale and Wife!!) He got an awesome tat, complete with Highway 101 sign and a desert scene, surrounded by an old wild west border and a couple of wedding rings to finish it off. Love it!”

“The UK wedding was totally unofficial, not even a civil ceremony. It was for our friends and family to see us “married” in our ideal perfect way. So, we took a stroll around Kirkstall Abbey last year and joked about how cool it would be to get married there…and then it started! We got prices from the Abbey (ludicrously cheap to hire) and the whole thing grew arms and legs all by itself! The lights, fog, music, shrubbery…we had an insanely theatrical wedding with a rock music soundtrack to boot.”

“Dale swaggered down the aisle to the Ecstasy of Gold by Metallica, I came in to Yellowcard’s You and Me and One Spotlight. Both songs complete with dry ice and choreographed lighting. My friend Belinda was our officiant (the funniest girl I know, she dressed up as a geeky priest for the occasion and even sang Nana Mouskouri halfway through the ceremony!) Dale’s daughter was his Best Woman and my oldest friend Louise was my bridesmaid, dressed in black with fab red shoes and not a hint of a puffy sleeve in sight.”

“We had about 45 guests for the whole thing, everyone said it was the coolest wedding they’d ever been to and had never seen anything quite like it! We all hopped on an old red route-master double decker bus to take us to the reception where we got royally pissed and danced like idiots all night. No cheesy tunes were played and we rocked out to NOFX, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, The Jam, Queen, ACDC, Green Day (and a bit of Bon Jovi for the laydees! Much to Dale’s displeasure!) It was freaking awesome!!”

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