The nuptial ceremonies at music festivals these days are far from conventional!
So you randomly met someone at a festival in your inebriated state and you want to get hitched? What’s stopping you? ‘Festival Romance’ seems to be the latest fad these days. Many couples who wish to have a playful wedding and make their special day out-of-the-ordinary tie the knot at music festivals. They obviously don’t care about missing their favorite artists perform, or the fact that their ceremony could be ruined by whacked-out junkies.
In 2011, a total of 48 couples tied the knot over a span of three days at Bestival in the Big Love Inflatable Church. The ceremonies were performed with the help of bedraggled bridesmaids, a ‘maid of dishonor’ and of course, a chunk of wedding crashers! And then there are some couples who just can’t get enough of walking down the aisle that get married every year, several times in a row! It’s like a strange fixation!
This year, Insomniac Events partnered with Viva Las Vegas Weddings to overlook weddings, vow renewals and non-legal commitment ceremonies at the Wedding Chapel. Electric Daisy Carnival actually offers you wedding packages ranging from $99 to $179, which include the use of the ‘Electric Daisy Bouquet’, a minister looking after the legal filing, photographs and an optional DVD for your ceremony.
EDC took it a step further this year by allowing you to have ‘fake weddings’ where you can trade candy rings and participate in the non-legally binding celebrations under the Ferris wheel’s lights. EDC also saw its first-ever same-sex newlyweds with the union of David Heuillon and Michael Flores. David said, “EDC connects us through the house music. We decided to do it here because this is where we fell in love. At first, I was nervous because we are gay and we didn’t want to face judgment. But being here, I feel like we didn’t face judgment. It’s a place with a lot of different people, lots of different genres of music and it was just the best place to decide to get married.”
Earlier this year at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, and bride and a groom were spotted in conventional wedding attire, kissing and dancing in the crowd. The ‘Ultra Wedding’ couple, Kyle and Graciela are dance music fans who had never been to UMF before.
But festivals are not just a destination for weddings, few couples prefer to spend their honeymoon at festivals. Some festivals like Glastonbury do not permit legally-binding weddings to be carried out on its premises, so this year, the newlywed festival goers John & Mathilda Fristom Eldridge decided to do the next best thing – celebrate their nuptials at Glastonbury!
As if this wasn’t crazy enough, the larger-than-life Tomorrowland has a ‘Love Chapel’ (also called the ‘Church of Love’), which is a small enclosed structure with a nothing but a bed inside. Married couples, long-term partners or even friends-with-benefits can go in for ten minutes and do whatever they wish to, while women dressed as ‘nuns’ guard the ‘shed’. They even give out condoms to those who wish to enter the chapel. Looks like festival organizers want to go that extra mile and fulfill every need of their guests. Don’t believe it? Watch this video!