Shadow and Thanos: Wedding Pics

Well, we did it! Instead of putting it off longer, Thanos and I decided to take the plunge over the weekend, kind of an elopement with frills. We decided on Wednesday to do it on Saturday, which meant a mad scramble for clothes, rings, flowers, etc. We spent Thursday evening touring chapels and wedding venues, and had the perfect spot all picked out. We found rings, clothes, we begged friends for help with getting flowers to match the venue, there was a mad scramble (on my part, at least, Thanos had his written ages ago =) ) to write vows and get all the odds and ends wrapped up by Friday night. In anticipation of an end of the month wedding, I had begun building a few things already, such as a cake, and managed to get most of it finished on Friday. Amazingly enough, we managed to get it all together....or so we thought. As with the best laid plans, things didn't exactly go as planned.

Friday morning, I revisited the venue we had chosen, took pics of the decor there and sent them to Resje Bailey of Sacred Flame Wedding Flowers to see if she could take pity on me and do some flowers to match the cake the venue provided (yay! I didn't have to use the one I made!). She blew my mind, and came through in under 24 hours with an absolutely perfect bouquet and boutonniere of gorgeous roses and lilies to match the floral arrangements at the venue. Saturday, Thanos and I tied up a few loose ends, and got all dolled up...ported to the venue...to find that the place is gone. As in nothing there but the gently rolling hills and babbling brook that winds through the property. No chapel, no minister, no reception area, no cake, no champagne toast, no dancing, no wedding poses, nothing but grass. Yes, there was some panic. =)

We did our best to take it in stride, and proceeded to a gorgeous little chapel we had seen, which has an automated minister, George. We started the service, which had some truly lovely sentiments expressed and Thanos' vows went without a hitch. We get to my vows, and apparently I hadn't read the notecard about proper responses, so I answer, "I do, with all my heart"....and Minister George replies, "Sorry you changed your mind. You are welcome to come back when you're ready." And the ceremony ended. Without us being married.

At this point, I was beginning to think maybe the cosmos was trying to tell us something. Its a testament to the joy and happiness that Thanos brings to my life that we pretty much just looked at each other and burst out laughing. We did finally get married, exchanged the vows we had written, made our commitment to one another and at the end of the day - that is what really matters. It wasn't as smooth a day as it could have been, it wasn't exactly how we envisioned things going, but we got through it together, we made a memory neither of us will ever forget, and we're in the place we wanted to be together.

So...here are some pictures from our adventure. They were taken in several different places as we scampered around the grid trying to pull this off, including an impromptu build on our work platform just for pictures.

Love and respect,

Shadow and Thanos Darkfury

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A kiss for luck before we left the house to begin our adventure...

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"Wait....he said what??"

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Yay! We did it!

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And they lived happily ever after...

Our Vows

Shadow: Will you take me as your wife?
Thanos: I wrote these vows a long time ago, but they are more true today than they were then. I love you Shadow, heart and soul, and i want you to be my wife, so i claim you as such.

Thanos: I promise to love, and to cherish you and to hold you in my heart above all others. I am your man, and as such, your protection falls to me. I will shield you from the world, when it turns against you, and choose you over it, even if you are wrong. You belong to me, heart, soul, body, and mind, and I give these things back to you. I will be your shoulder to cry on, your friend, your shelter, your lover and whatever else you need me to be. When you need strength, I will add mine to yours. I will give you all that I have. I will do my best to see your side of any arguments that we have, and expect the same back. By taking you as my own,and giving myself to you, we become more than we were before. The individuals are still there, but now we are an us, something that is greater than than the sum

I will help you to grow as a person, to find your own dreams, and to share my dreams and goals with you. I will tend your needs as if they are my own even if they mean sacrifice for me. I will explore the secrets of your soul, and embrace them, good and bad. I wish to be your companion as we walk down the path of life together and I will do my best to accompany you on that path until we reach the clearing at the end of it. Our journey, will hold the things that all journeys do. I accept that there will be pain, given and taken, but that the love will more than make up for it

Thanos: Would you take me to be your husband?
Shadow: I love you, Thanos...and I want you to be my husband...I claim you as such to be by my side, my heart and soul, my best friend, my husband...

Shadow:  May we always need one another, not so much to fill the emptiness as to help each other know our fullness. May we want one another, but not out of lack. May we embrace one another, but not encircle one another. May we succeed in all important ways with each other, and not fail in the little graces. May we look for things to praise, often say 'I love you' and take no notice of small faults. May we have happiness, and may we find it in making one another happy. May we have love, and may we find it in loving one another.

I love you.    And when I tell you I love you, this is what I mean: You are the one for whom I have waited. You have brought me more peace and steadiness than I have ever known, and the days since I met you have been the best days of my life. 

Everything within me, from the most analytical thoughts (complete with shadow-logic), to the goosebumps and butterflies, and especially the still small Voice, tells me that it is right to commit to building a life with you because I believe we are stronger together than we are apart and that we can grow more in our intellect and our compassion together than we could alone.

I promise to stand firm beside you as your partner in pursuing knowledge, adventure, spirituality, peace, and responsibility. I promise to love and honor who you are rather than who I imagine you to be, and I promise to present myself honestly and openly to you. I promise to support you when your strength is challenged and to ask for your help in my weakness. I promise to hold you as completely in my heart in the difficult times as in the joyous ones. I promise to be open to growth and change and the unexpected as we, as individuals, grow and change.

And, finally, I promise to be open to laughter and wonder and mystery in our life together. You make my joys greater and my sorrows more bearable, and you make my spirit feel known. From this day forward, you are my husband and companion, and I promise to be a loving and faithful wife for the rest of our lives.

Thanos

Shadow asked me if I wanted to contribute something to the pages for our wedding. I thought about it for a moment, and I asked her to include the vows that we wrote to each other. I thought a bit longer, and I asked her to include a poem that I wrote for her when we first met. The words that I wrote are just as true today.

The last time that I wrote in here, we got a lot of well wishes from the community that we are a part of, and a note from one dedicated, but boorish hunter, who told me that if I wanted to write, that I should write an online diary. This amused me in ways that I can’t begin to tell you about. As far as I know, I can write pretty much what I want in here, and there is not one thing that you can do about it, but whine. However, sometimes even out of the mouths of jackasses comes a kernel of wisdom once in a blue moon. Even the ones that talk out of there ass. In the interest of the rest of the people who read this blog, and are thankful for the work that goes into it, I asked that this is given its own separate page, so that folks who don't want to be bored with the mundane lives of Shadow and Thanos can simply click on the hunt items that they want. The whiners and crybabies of the world can go screw. For those of our special friends and well wishers, who wish to take another look inside that window, here is a peek inside of our hearts. The poem I wrote long ago, when I first met her. Over time, it’s truth has only become greater, so at the risk of being horribly out of proportion, my heart the size of a refrigerator beating inside my misshapen chest (way inside joke on that one) I put it out there for the world to see.

At the time I wrote it, I had just finished reading the Dark Tower series, by Stephen King.  For the fans of those novels, you will catch a few references in there. I hope that all of you out there in the land of hunters are able to reach your own Dark Towers someday. If you do, make sure that you are brave enough to turn that key to the final room... It’s a real hoot!!

~ Thanos Darkfury

My shadow my sin

A chance meeting, or fate if you believe in such things, and I am hooked. I wasn’t walking down some dark alley, wasn’t seeking an addiction, but I found it nevertheless. A living drug that instantly addicts my soul, I always want more. Never satisfied, even when she is there, when I begin to see that I will have to close my eyes to sleep, that I will have to separate, it feels like a physical ache.

Drawn down into a vortex of confusing emotions and sexual need, I close my eyes in rapture as it flays my soul clean. Purity of darkness, purity of sin, yet from the darkness shines a light into my being that scours me clean, and washes away everything that I thought I knew about myself.

I’m falling. A suicidal headlong rush into sweet oblivion. There is no hope for me, the building leapt from without even seeing the ledge, and gladly. I close my eyes, and enjoy the rush, the taste of life inside swells up in the joy of it. Imagine my surprise when the ground is as gentle and soft as a barely felt kiss deep in the night.

The words spoken to my heart, reverberate through me in a great ringing cacophony that makes me feel like I am going to break. Mine, I say, and she concurs. Love she says, and I answer in kind. I’m shaking apart, dying in every way that anyone has ever died, and born again over and over into divine ecstasy. A fantasy trip of life into my own dark tower, my hand reaching for the knob of the final room, I draw all of my courage into myself, and walk through, and damn the consequences.

Style Info:

Wedding Rings: Earthstones (Devotion set)

 

Wedding outfits: We are both wearing outfits by Utopia (Nathan and Alexis)

Wedding flowers: custom made by Sacred Flame Weddings Flower Boutique - Thank you Resje!

Wedding cake: Dark Water Designs (insert shameless self-promotion for Shadow's store)

Wedding poses: SecretStyle (Walk with Me, Forever), .::Y&R::. (Sweet Wedding Pose), and Sylvia's Animation Factory(Cutting the Cake)

Chapel Location: Chapel of Dreams, Cerveza sim.  Chapel of Dreams is owned by Morgaine Faith, who was fantastic - we contacted her about our problem with Minister George, and even though it was my fault for not reading the card, she made everything right and gave us really superior customer service.  If you ever decide to elope, this is the place..just, uh, be sure to read the card!  =)

Additional Items:
We both are wearing custom shapes.
Our skins are by Belleza.
Thanos has Emo-tions hair, Shadow has Secrets hair (Elegance II).
Shadow's choker and earrings are by Yellow Jester (Antiqued silver/black diamonds).
Shadow's shoes are by N-Core (Prelude), Thanos' boots are by Utopia.