Hi Gang,
I’m happy to report that my wedding book project is coming along quite nicely and should be ready for its debut some time this summer. I’ve got the bulk of content in place – thanks for all the quotes! Searching gets tricky once you realize that not every good quote is going to have the words “love” or “marriage” in it, you know. 🙂 Now I’m working on formatting for presentation as well as beefing it up with some other wedding related content, not just quotes. Shakespeare bio, section on Elizabethan wedding tradition, that sort of thing.
Which brings me to my question. Anybody got ideas for me on … unusual … ways to incorporate Shakespeare into the wedding? It’s fairly easy to grab a sonnet for a reading, or offer up a toast, or scribble a love quote onto the invitations. I’ve got all that. Now I’m looking for more out of the ordinary ideas. For instance, could you decorate the cake in a Shakespeare theme? I have this wonderful (to me :)) idea about a Romeo and Juliet cake where the bride is up on the top tier, done up like a balcony, and the groom is down on the lower tier, done up like a garden or something similar. (If anybody runs with that, please send me a picture!!) Or here’s another one, I don’t know if anybody would ever do this but how awesome a wedding reception would it be if actors were hired to perform the final scene of Midsummer? I mean, come on, YouTube is loaded with people who break out in a group Thriller dance at the reception, why can’t we have Pyramus and Thisbe? This simply must be done. Quick, someone out there get married so we can do this.
What else ya got?
I have attended two – count them, two – weddings where, when the priest says, "If anyone knows any reason these two should not be wed, let him speak now," a groomsman rose and challenged the groom to a sword-fight. Seriously. It was all choreographed, of course, and in one of the weddings the fight ended with the bride punching out the interloper. But seriously, it was the most embarrassing thing I've seen at weddings since the Chicken Dance. But it was unusual!