Do you dream of a wedding thats both eerie and utterly unforgettable?

I had the honor of capturing such a wedding, and what better place to celebrate this wedding than the Merion Tribute House in Merion Station, PA. If you have never seen the Merion Tribute House before, the large, gray brick exterior, the castle like doors, wood beam ceilings, and slate floors will definitely add to your aesthetic of the day! But the details didn’t just stop at the venue, Claire and Ed went ALL out for their decor - completely transforming all the venue spaces. But before venturing into all the small details of the day - I want to talk a bit about the bride and groom Claire & Ed.

I met Claire about 10 years ago, when we both played rugby together, while we may not have been close friends, as Claire puts it “Rugby is a bonding experience. There's a lot of trust and support as a team and time doesn't change that.” I’m also plenty aware its unreasonable to expect friends to use your business just because they are your friend, so another deciding factor was my photo style of using a mix of natural light and off camera lighting. Claire was definitely looking for someone who could capture the darkness, moodiness, and strong attention to detail. They were also looking for a vendor who was just as stoked for their wedding as they were.

I knew they were going all out for this wedding, but about a week before is when she dropped the info that they were going to be UV reactive, there were costume changes and costume contest, decor everywhere, and even animatronics.

On to the wedding info!

Upon any consultation with me, I will tell you every wedding is unique and I will work with you to find coverage time, and a coverage schedule that works best for what you want and need! Claire and Ed opted for less time pre first look, so I could be there for the majority of their celebration instead. I still captured some candids of Claire getting ready, and Ed in his attire waiting for their first look. Some of my favorite details included a black studded tiara with a black veil, groom and groomsman boutonnieres with a skeleton hand holding the florals, and the deep purple flowers in Claire’s bouquet. They were incredibly lucky with a beautiful, mild, fall day, leaves completely orange, green, and yellow and in full bloom.

The groom standing in front of trees in full bloom at the Merion Tribute House waiting for his first look. He is in an all black suit, black shirt, black bow tie, and black scally cap.

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Close family and friends watched their first look from the venue, while we were out amongst some of the trees on the property. Their first look was full of emotion and tears which made for such sweet emotional candids of the couple. After they had time to take it all in, we started their portraits around the property. If we had even more time for portraits, I could have spent all day exploring the grounds with them because the Merion Tribute house is like a playground for photographers and videographers!

BUT! Instead of venturing around the grounds - SURPRISE! The bride and groom actually rented a hearse to use for a few hours. I took the opportunity to place some of my color changing lights inside, and one of the groomsmen snuck in the back to spray atmosphere spray to add to some ambiance to their photos. They found the owner of this hearse kind of through a friend of a friend of a friend and - you know how it goes. But they also let us know the hearse has been used in some movies and videos as well, but this was their first wedding.

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The bride wearing all black, with green tips of her black hair, is walking up to her soon to be groom for their first look. The photo is over the grooms shoulder, he is out of focus, so the bride is the focus.

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The bride and groom are sitting next to each other at the back of a hearse with the door open. They are looking at each other and smiling. You can see smokey atmosphere and red lights from behind them.

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A portrait of the bride and groom outside the side of the Merion Tribute House after their ceremony. The black veil is flowing in the wind.

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One of the benefits of having a first look is getting nerves under control, the anticipation cools down a bit (don’t worry there ceremony is still JUST as emotional!), and you can spend more time together. Another benefit is that you can get formal photos done before the ceremony too. We got to have wedding party (together and individuals) and family portraits all completed with time for the couple to relax together for 20-30 minutes before the ceremony started.

The ceremony

Claire and Ed were fortunate with the weather for this late October wedding - it was mild and the trees were still in full bloom giving off gorgeous colors. As you walked from the Merion Tribute House venue to the ceremony space, you could see the space decorated with hay bales, pumpkins, corn stalks, decoration tombstones (in lieu of flowers that are usually in the aisle), and fake skeleton people and animals. If you were arriving to the ceremony site around the same time as me, you walked up to find a crowd full of people in costumes, and halloween colored outfits if they didn’t dress up. (I even caught Beetlejuice walking around a parking lot by himself).

One of the couple’s friends was able to hook up his violin to a sound system, and was playing music for guests as they waited, and played the processional music. Their ring bearers were dressed as a plague doctor and Jack Skellington, behind their flower girl (Claire’s aunt) was dressed as a witch, and scattered florals down the “aisle”.

Once it was time for the bride, the violinist played a rock version of Danse Macabre, and the guests were surprised to find that Claire was not walking from the venue like the rest of the wedding party, but instead was being dropped off by a hearse. Her dad, dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, opened to door to help her out and escort her down the aisle. As you can tell, even though the bride and groom saw each other earlier in the day, there was no shortage of emotions that what they had been planning for was happening.

Their ceremony was short, sweet, and personal - with the officiant even playing the jeopardy theme song for Ed before he gave his answer. For their first kiss, Claire specifically requested that the officiant step out of the way so I could take their photo facing the audience to get a more unique view!

Ceremony details for a halloween wedding on the grounds of the Merion Tribute House in Merion Station, PA. There are hay bales, corn stalks, fake skeleton people and dogs, pumpkins, and fallen leaves.

A man playing his violin with a live looping system.

The brides aunt dressed as a witch was the flower girl, walking down the aisle throwing petals.

A bride getting out of the back of a hearse as her dad, dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, opens the door.

Father of the bride dressed as Phantom of the Opera is walking his daughter down the aisle. The bride is wearing an all black dress, black veil, a black studded crown, carrying deep purple lillies in her bouquet.

The Deets!

Some of my favorite things to capture at a wedding are the details; its such a large part of the story that sometimes people don’t think they want much documentation of until they realize how it pulls together their stories in a gallery. Especially with Claire and Ed there were SO many details to capture. Every room in the Merion Tribute House had halloween decoration: from dolls and figurines to signs and scrolls. There were also two special guest animatronics: a mummy in a doorway of the reception room, and a jumping spider at the bottom of the stairs just outside of the mens restroom. Earlier in the blog, you could see there were paper bats lining the walls of the lobby, but those were also the escort cards for reception seating! The entryway was lined with things like skulls and bones, various halloween decor, a scroll that acted as their guestbook, and welcome signs. One of the cutest signs I noticed was where people would normally have something noting people who could not be with them that day because they have passed, but their sign had photos of their passed loved ones and said “We’re happy to host our favorite ghosts from the other side.”

The main centerpiece at most of the tables were jars filled with body parts or masks (and some even with the bride or grooms faces), and they lit up! The couple bought and made most of their own decor, I thought the jars were genius! There was even a face painting station run by another former rugby teammate of Claire’s (as was her hair/make up artist!).

THE CAKE was the most artistic, beautiful, cool cake I have ever seen. It was in all black and had florals that had giant mouths, and big fangs. The detail work on each one was INCREDIBLE (super kudos to Butter Sugar Flour). Even the servers and bartenders with JAM catering dressed up! JAM catering also had some spooky plays on how they could serve some of their food.

Last but not least is photos of the rings and the ring boxes. Claire had a ring made with a detailed skull, and her dad CUSTOM MADE the ring boxes which were mini coffins.

A scroll with skeletons on it reads True Love Never Dies, the couple used this as their guest book

A beautiful, 3 tiered black cake with creatures with huge teeth coming out of flowers.

A Merion Tribute House/JAM catering employee also dressed up for the theme.

Wedding rings displayed in their case which is two hand made coffins by the bride’s father.

So what about the reception?

WELL! We’ve already seen the reception space but now the formalities. First as you may have noticed, the couple highly encouraged people to dress up! Even the vendors! They actually even had a costume contest towards the end of their reception.

The wedding party spent some of cocktail hour doing a costume change for the reception; for the bride and groom that meant putting in their UV reactive contact lenses (they also had a blacklight on the dance floor - and the green part of Claire’s hair was also UV reactive). I wanted to showcase some of the guests costumes while they are dancing in the costumes for you to see. There is one that is going to live on my phone FOREVER.

Many guests enjoyed having caricatures of themselves drawn, and others enjoyed watching the artist work and interacting. What was hard to capture was the DJ had TV screens set up around the stage that played music videos of some of the music that was picked out by the couple. Much of the music for the first part of the reception was like Rocky Horror, Beetlejuice…music people would associate with Halloween, so the video was definitely a fun addition! The night ended with the bride’s sister singing to her, and us exiting out the front to create a quick, fun portrait with colored smoke!