What started as a joke about getting married in a drive-through during their annual New Year’s Eve trip to Vegas, turned into a reality for Vanessa and Rob, who were married on January 3rd at A Little White Wedding Chapel.

“We weren’t even engaged when we started planning this wedding,” Vanessa laughed. “We’d been together for 10 years and planning on forever no matter what. I made a joke about getting married in a drive-through and here we are!”

Combining the bride’s love of gothic and vintage with the groom’s penchant for all thing retro and 60s, they created a unique visual theme which felt perfect for them. “I’ve known I was going to wear black, a cape and a crown to my wedding since I was fifteen,” Vanessa said. Her dress was bought online and modified to reflect a gothic Game of Thrones vibe. Rob matched her with a burgundy suit and a handblown glass anatomical red heart with an owl brooch chain instead of a boutonniere.

They invited five of their closets friends to come as witnesses (dressed in dark reds to complement their outfits) and that was it. They kept the wedding planning a total secret from everyone else in their lives, telling them about it only the day before they flew to Vegas.

“Finally telling people what we were doing was the was the best”, Vanessa explained. “We had a small group of people we wanted to invite with us as our wedding party, so we put together a fake weekend getaway on the Cape (where I’m from) and surprised them with the news that we had already done half the planning for the wedding and we were inviting them along. I designed custom invitation suites for each of them with a Vegas luggage tag that had a different charm for each person. Originally we were only going to tell that group, but we work in the same company and had to coordinate vacation; then decided to tell our families on Christmas Eve. ‘Surprise! We’re getting married in Vegas. Surprise! We leave tomorrow, here’s the details for the livestream!’ That was all really joyful.”

As this was an elopement, they didn’t need to to arrange any decor, but the bride did make welcome backs for each of their friends which were on theme, “I designed welcome bags that included illustrated itineraries of the 36 hours surrounding the wedding, hangover kits, corsages that matched my bouquet, custom robes that said ‘Brides Coven’, gold skeleton boutonnieres, pink champagne, etc., all in custom Vegas illustrated tote bags.”

Despite everything being planned to perfection, Vanessa was super nervous morning-of, and didn’t relax until their private vows, which they read to each other in an alley before heading to the chapel. “I was a disaster morning of”, she admits. “I cried that my dress wasn’t perfect (it was). I was sweating and so so nervous. But before the chapel we had decided to go to a graffiti alley and do a first look and read private vows. The sound Rob made and the look on his face when he saw me for the first time was incredible. I forgot about everything else instantly. I quoted Nicholas Cage and made him cry, and he decided not to read his written vows and spoke to what he was feeling in the moment. That was really special.”

After the formal ceremony they then headed to a speakeasy bar for cocktails before moving to their reception venue where they ate BBQ in the industrial gothic surroundings of The Beast by Todd English. “The room is painted black and red with metal Edison black candelabras and BBQ – I mean, c’mon…they gave me a smoking skull cocktail! We only chose it two days before but it was fate.”

Even though it was small, their wedding was a real celebration of their unique style and the perfect celebration of their love. “Part of why I was open to this micro elopement is because I’m an all or nothing kind of person,” Vanessa concluded. “The other wedding of my dreams is a grand gothic castle affair and everything else would have fallen short because that would never be in our budget. So this was the perfect option for us.”