Nerdicon has taken this trend a step further with the addition of a permanent wedding planner to its staff. During the one-week span of the convention, dedicated members may attend up to five weddings a day, with interested parties able to fill out the guestbook with cosplayers of their choice who charge a nominal fee for their appearance.
“Naturally, Klingon weddings are most popular option,” says Sherwood Greg, overall coordinator of Nerdicon and head of the Council of 12. “While health and safety regulations prevent us from using genuine pain sticks or real bat’leths, Nerdicon is able to offer a high level of verisimilitude.”
Sherwood Greg goes on to say that other popular wedding options include elven weddings, stormtrooper weddings, and anime nuptials. “We have a fairly strong divide between people who want to be married as Tolkien elves and people who prefer Dungeons & Dragons elves,” says Sherwood Greg, “but luckily we have enough cosplayers to fill out either.”
One wedding option that is strangely unpopular is superhero weddings. “We’ve actually never had a superhero wedding,” Sherwood Greg says. “The closest we’ve gotten is Superman and Lois Lane, but even that didn’t last and they showed up at the subsequent Nerdicon for a divorce, which we are also able to grant thanks to our Spock also being a notary public.”
Asked why superhero weddings are so unpopular, Sherwood Greg speculated that the frequent deaths of spouses in superhero comics and movies gave people a sense of foreboding or of tempting fate. “Everyone worth their salt knows that Peter Parker’s love life is a mess,” says Greg, “and nobody wants that for themselves. It is also especially tempting for our guests cosplaying as villains attempt to disrupt the ceremonies. That’s not a problem in a Klingon wedding, were disrupting the ceremony is in fact part of the ceremony— look it up if you don’t believe me— but in a superhero wedding it’s a real mood killer.”
Susie Palmer is planning a stormtrooper wedding with her longtime girlfriend May Withers. “I know there aren’t any stormtrooper weddings in the original trilogy, or even in the—noncanonical— prequels and extended universe,” Ms. Palmer said. “But we still feel like having our union blessed by two rigid rows of galactic fascists and presided over by Darth Vader and the Emperor himself is preferable to going before a Republican notary.”
Marcus Dingman, a stormtrooper who was hired off the Nerdicon convention floor to attend the wedding, had nothing but fond wishes for the couple. “Sure they’re paying me 10 bucks to stand around and look intimidating as the Emperor give them lightsaber rings to cauterize each other’s fingers with,” he says, “but it’s really all about the love. I’d honestly do it for a nip of their wedding buffet.”
Asked if the trend toward Nerdicon weddings will eventually become unmanageable, Sherwood Greg had this to say: “if people want to get hitched in costume, we’re happy to take the money. They’re already here for a world-class nerdy experience, and they’re likely already in costume. Charging them a few bucks for extras in the use of one of our Hollywood level backdrops isn’t hurting anybody.”
“Not that I would ever consider such a ceremony,” adds Greg. “I’m married to the con, and she is a very jealous wife.”
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