Right from the beginning of their planning, Janelle and Andrew knew that they wanted their wedding to be a reflection of the two of them. They not only just choose the traditions which were the right fit for them, but they also went for a Pokémon theme! The pair got legally married a few months before, so this day was all about having fun and celebrating with their closest friends and family.

“Being kids in the 90s, we both love Pokémon”, Janelle told us. “We both play the games and throughout our years together have bought each other way too many Pokémon themed gifts. In 2020, Andrew started doing Pokémon YouTube videos, so he wanted to sprinkle hints of Pokémon throughout the reception.”

“Andrew’s favourite Pokémon is Gengar, so he got his friend to add a Gengar lining into his suit, found a Gengar lapel pin, and a Gengar plushie was at our sweetheart table. Gengar had a blast that night, he was in the photo booth, on the dance floor and even attended the afterparty!”

Andrew is a graphic designer, so he designed the Pokémon themed invitations, signage and their monogram. For décor they incorporated some of the many Pokémon cards which Andrew had collected over the past year for his videos. They scattered them throughout the tables and their guests had fun searching for a card of their favourite Pokémon on, which they were also allowed to keep as a favour.

The reception started out with a mini ceremony where Janelle and Andrew made a cocktail together as a symbol of their vows. They then kicked the evening festivities off with a competitive game of Pokémon at their sweetheart table!

For safety during COVID, they gave each guest colour coded wristbands to indicate their comfort level with being close others (we love this idea!) and as favours they had personalised hand sanitisers. Instead of a traditional money dance, they had carboard cut-outs of themselves made which their guests could attach money to.

“We do wish we’d realised earlier in our planning that your wedding can be whatever you want it to be”, Janelle continued. “While we knew that, it was hard to fully put it into practice. Both our families had very strong ideas of what a wedding ‘should be’ and we had to lean on each other to find the courage to go against that. People are going to have an opinion either way, so the celebration might as well be one where you enjoy yourself!”

“Planning really made us focus on what was important and what we actually care about”, she concluded. “We kept talking about details in terms of ‘what people will remember’, which made us think about what we want to remember about our wedding. For us, the specifics of flatware and centrepieces weren’t what we wanted people to remember. We wanted us and our guests to remember the good food and drinks, and spending time with some cool people.”