A couple from Australia who are obsessed with the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies jumped at the opportunity to get married on the set of the movies and confessed that they live each day as the “main characters.”
Monique Bryson, 24, and her fiancé, Charles Mckinley, 29, wanted to do something magical for their wedding. They settled on the idea of a Hobbit-themed wedding and booked Hobbiton in Matamata, New Zealand.
The couple, who have been together for the past four years, are spending $12,200 for their upcoming November 2024 wedding.
Ms. Bryson, a fantasy photographer and filmmaker, shared that she and her partner both love to dress up and have fantasy-inspired adventures.
“[Charles is] a huge ‘Lord of the Rings’ fan, and we bonded over it,” Ms. Bryson said. “We love dressing up and playing the part.”
The idea to have such a unique wedding came about when the couple was visiting Mr. Mckinley’s family in New Zealand.
“We said ‘Why don’t we get married in Hobbiton?’” Ms. Bryson said. “Our family thought we were joking.”
Sharing more details about her upcoming wedding in a series of videos on social media, Ms. Bryson revealed that she'd screenshotted the inspiration for their invitations on her phone back in 2015, planning for her future wedding.
Her video includes details of where she ordered her specially crafted, Tolkien-themed invitations, along with additional details about the invitations such as the use of gold ink calligraphy, a wax seal designed with a pair of overlapping rings, and an inner envelope made to look like a large green leaf.
The card states that the pair would appreciate it if, instead of a gift, their 60 guests watched “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy before attending the wedding so that the experience would mean more to them.
The bride-to-be revealed that she will be wearing a custom-made Elven gown for her wedding, and they plan to have a replica of Bilbo Baggins’s ginormous birthday cake made.
“We’re getting a Keltic folk band and organizing a magician,” Ms. Bryson said. “Charles has a wedding band replica made from the jeweler who made them for the movies.”
The couple is not forcing their guests to dress up, but they do encourage guests to dress “inspired” by the films if they wish.
For those curious to know more about their wedding, the couple has also created an interesting question-and-answer-session video, revealing details. They’ve also promised to share a breakdown of the cost of the wedding.
Apart from the wedding, they said their lives are like an adventure.
“When we go out, sometimes we go out as characters,” Ms. Bryson said, “We romanticize our lives.”
They once even made a casual dinner at home into a meal inspired by a fantasy tavern, cooking a plowman’s lunch fit for a Hobbit.
Ms. Bryson’s love of fantasy started when her grandfather, David, 87, read “The Hobbit” to her when she was a child.
Now her love of the famous novel has even become her job as she shoots and edits fantasy-style photos.
