Variations on a theme

Fairly early on, Billy and I settled on incorporating movies into our wedding as the theme. It's perfect for us: we absolutely love movies and we can incorporate our theme and have fun while also easily maintaining a stylish and rather formal flair.

So I quickly began figuring out how we could incorporate movies into our wedding. Of course, naming our tables after our favorite movies was obvious. And back in February I discovered the Internet Movie Poster Awards, which is going to be perfect for printing out postcard size versions of our favorite movie posters.

This poster is currently hanging in our living room, and will definitely be making an appearance as a table name!

Next idea was to have all of our "pre-show" music (I've been a theatre geek for a lifetime; I can only think of these things in theatre terms) be from movies. Maybe just the orchestral scores from various movies? (Easy way to incorporate some Star Wars - Billy's favorite movie(s) - into the wedding. Even though I'm not a big fan of the films myself, the music is fabulous)

Another fun idea: movie-inspired cake toppers! Right now I think we're each going to have an action figure representing our favorite movies: Billy wants Hans Solo, I'm using Elizabeth Swann (I told you I was obsessed!)

And then, as we began figuring out what music we wanted for various parts of the wedding, I discovered our movie theme was insinuating itself in that aspect, too, without me even trying!
Processional: Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, performed by Low Strung (inspired by hearing a few bars of this in The Wedding Singer)



First Dance: Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole as seen in Finding Forrester


Father/Daughter Dance: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Jefferson Starship as seen in Mannequin

We still haven't figured out what our other songs will be (I want "One Day" from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End to be the bride's processional; Billy wants The Final Countdown to be our recessional. Neither of us is 100% behind the other's choice, so we're at a bit of a stalemate at the moment!).

So since that discovery, finding clever, understated and tasteful ways to incorporate our theme has been my obsession. By choosing a relatively common event theme (we certainly aren't the first wedding to choose this theme, and I think everyone attended a high school dance themed around the Academy Awards!), I find myself walking a fine line between doing something cliche or elegant. But here's some of the ideas so far:

An Oscar ballot guest book: instead of everyone signing a traditional guest book (or even some of the awesome guest book alternatives out there), we'll make up short Oscar Ballots covering the big categories, and then throw in either some fake categories (I have no idea what they would be at this point!) or leave lots of extra lines for well-wishers to leave their own input. Of course, this is something that I can't really do too far in advance: the nominees are only going to be announced one month before our wedding! I'm also thinking that maybe after the honeymoon, when we're looking through the "ballots," we'll post whoever got the most categories correct and send them a small prize.

Oscar trivia kissing game: Mentioned first by our officiant, and the idea further solidified by this kissing menu: we come up with a bunch of movie/Oscar trivia questions. If someone wants us to kiss, they have to correctly answer the trivia question

Rejected idea: movie clapboard card box

(Source)
For me, this delves too much into cheese-y territory. It's just a little bit too much. Instead, I think I'm going to stick with her original idea: a wooden treasure chest that served as my Christmas "stocking" a few years ago (when she only bought my Pirate-related things for my stocking. Mom loves a good theme as much as I do!)

How are you incorporating your theme into your wedding? Anyone else worried about coming off as cheesey?