Nothing makes a wedding more fun than adding pop culture-inspired dashes. Themed weddings are especially entertaining because the couple’s passion shines through everything from the flowers to the getaway car — though Courtney Ritacco and Shytle “Billy” McMillion opted for a Jeep Wrangler instead.
Yep — the couple had a full-fledged Jurassic Park wedding!
“Throughout our relationship, that has been a go-to movie we could both agree on, and then it became our favorite,” Ritacco told The Knot. “We started to make dinosaur dates and go to different dinosaur-themed exhibits, and of course the two new Jurassic Park movies.”
McMillion had incorporated the franchise into his proposal by surprising Ritacco with flowers and a ring at the bottom of a Barbasol can (though unlike Dennis Nedry’s, McMillion’s version almost certainly didn’t have dinosaur embryos). Later on, the idea to bring elements of the movie to their wedding actually started out as a joke. However, Ritacco said that one day when they were watching one of the films, they “both started to realize how awesome” it could be.
via OpenBox Events
The couple’s video, created by OpenBox Events, is an amazing display of the unique wedding. According to The Knot, it was even made in the same style of the Jurassic Park films. Hints of the franchise can be found everywhere in the ceremony and reception, from a menu with a custom-made logo in the movies’ font to a donut wall modeled after the Jurassic Park gates in the first film.
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The wedding was adorned in greenery, with palm leaf place settings, lush centerpieces, and wooden slabs covered in moss. Ritacco’s bridesmaids even carried gorgeous ferns instead of traditional flowers.
Even Ritacco’s and McMillion’s wedding hashtag was Jurassic Park-inspired: #AMcMillionYearsInTheMaking — a nod to the film’s tagline, “65 million years in the making.”
“So many people were very confused when they got invites with dinosaurs on them,” Ritacco told The Knot. “I think people have ‘child’s birthday party’ stuck in their head when they hear ‘themed wedding,’ and it was so exciting to show them what we had been working on, and that it was a sophisticated and elegant adult version of Jurassic Park!”
The night was topped off with the couple riding away in not just any old Jeep Wrangler, but one with their custom logo blown up on the side
