Rock Opera Wedding
I know including your own wedding in your design portfolio might seem a little odd, but design is all about creative problem-solving, and turning my wedding into a rock opera was all about that.
How do you design your wedding to be a rock opera? Well, first, you need to marry another musician, like the handsome and talented Bryan Garza. Together, Bryan and I set out to create a performance that integrated our loved ones (in performative ways they felt comfortable with) and allowed us to tell the story of our love like only we could—with songs we wrote together. Our bridesmaids became back-up singers, our bandmates (Bryan’s band is Scissors for Lefty and mine was Happy Fangs) became our wedding band, our moms embarrassed us on stage with childhood stories and artifacts, and our dads intermittently heckled us from the balcony dressed like Statler & Waldorf from The Muppets.
We had 300+ of our friends, family, and fans of our bands in attendance for a 40-minute rock opera performance where we intertwined our actual vows with eight original songs. The whole thing ended in an epic dance party. We got some very lovely press about our special day in The New York Times, GQ Magazine, Offbeat Bride & Entertainment Tonight!
Since you are here to see some design, I thought you might appreciate this element of our planning process: an animated stage plot. Besides the musicians, most of the wedding party was coming in from out-of-town, which meant we had very few chances to practice in person. Creating this teaching tool allowed our entire cast to know not only where to be and when, but also what songs required which instruments. The performance would not have been as successful without this visual tool. We also used screenshots from it to print out stage-side cheat sheets.
Every good rock performance needs a commemorative poster, right?
