Heroine Junkies caught up with fellow blogger, Cassandra Hipple, who runs fan-tastic blog, When Geeks Wed. She showcases some of the nerdiest and most creative weddings fandom has to offer… including proposals, cakes and other geek goodies! Check it out!
HJ: I see you are married and had a Halloween themed wedding! Since starting up your blog, you must have seen many amazing ideas! If you could re-plan, would there be anything you would change/add to your wedding day?
CH: Definitely. I’ve been so inspired by all the weddings I’ve featured on my blog, and learned so much from them, that I wish I had spent a little more money on my own wedding and maybe even have changed the theme. I really want to do a video game themed wedding instead of our zombie theme, but then, my wedding had to be on Halloween (my favorite holiday) so zombies seem so much more appropriate. Another thing I would’ve changed would be the cake and venue.
There have been some amazing cakes on my blog which you would think cost thousands of dollars but in reality most of them only run a couple hundred or less. My black and white damask cake was $150…what could’ve been. The venue, I wish had been another spot because it already had a gothic theme going so didn’t need much decorating. Looking back I should’ve spent the extra money for it because it would’ve been a great background for my wedding photos.
What inspired you to set up the blog to begin with? Why weddings?
Initially I just wanted to make a WordPress website and learn to code. I had already worked with Blogger and Tumblr on other blogs which I have since abandoned so I wanted to do a little more advanced coding and graphic design.
As for weddings, I can’t even remember why I choose to do weddings in the first place I think I may have blogged about the Portal 2 proposal on one of my other blogs and just ran with that theme on this one solely.
Do you have a favourite wedding?
I really like the Minecraft wedding as far as decor and all the little details. Of course the cake cutter from the Gears of War wedding was particularly epic.
Have you ever thought of taking the blog to a new level? Do you have any future plans for it? Cons, etc?
I would love to! The only thing that’s been holding me back is time. I already have a full time job so adding in blogging, answering emails and keeping up with all my social media accounts is like a whole other full time job on its own.
For the relatively near future I’ve spent some time coding in a shop and slowly adding products I hope everyone will love. I’ve also partnered with a few artists to sell their geek themed artwork through my shop with all profits going back to them and a charity of their choice. If anyone else is interested feel free to reach out to me.
I also really want to get to some cons this year! Hopefully I’ll be at SDCC and NYCC to spend some money and meet some of my amazing readers.
Do you get more women or men submitting to the site, or is it about equal?
More woman but I do get quite a few men submitting their proposals.
Cassandra, a beautiful example of when ‘geek’ and ‘girl’ unite!
Would you describe yourself as a geek girl? – I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like if I do someone is gonna jump out and test me on my star wars knowledge or something…
Haha. Yes, I definitely would, but I think I have a more generalized knowledge of geek culture. Which is great for the blog because I can at least keep up with most fandoms, or in my case, know the wedding theme enough to write about it.
Do you think girls have a harder time in geekdom? There is this whole “fake geek girl” phenomenon when there is no “fake geek boy” idea… what are your thoughts?
I always find it really hard for me to answer questions like these because I’ve never experienced any negativity toward being a geek, a girl or a gamer. So my opinion can only stem from my own experiences so I would say no. I’m also pretty thick skinned so a comment that may affect someone else negatively I may just brush off with a really?
Do you find people still have a slight disbelief when you tell them you work in games/ play games/ walk into a comic store, etc… more so than you feel they show towards men?
I will say that I’ve walked into many a comic book shop where every guy as stopped and stared at me, but I think it’s cute.
Have you built up quite a vibrant geek girl/geek community around your blog?
I really hope to one day add a forum/community section to my blog so couples can ask questions or bounce off proposal ideas with other geeks.
I have regularly thought about setting up a similar sort of blog. I find there aren’t many UK based sites for geek weddings, do you get many UK contributors or vendors?
Actually yes, my site has a pretty good following in the UK and I find that UK wedding bloggers and vendors are particularly super nice and helpful. If you look carefully, you’ll find a unicorn (geek wedding) every once in a while on sites like Rock N Roll Bride.
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