Metal fans fall in love and get married like everybody else does, but their wedding attire and playlists can wildly deviate from convention. Who says you can’t serenade your wife with Guns N’ Roses or that an Ozzy Osbourne track can’t sub for Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus” as the bride makes her entrance? Hey, you can even get Gene Simmons as the officiant. Take a look at eight metal wedding moments captured on video.
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1. Wedding Mosh Pit Set to Slayer
There’s plastic masks. There’s flannel. There’s headbanging and fist-pumping. It could be any random mosh pit in the world, except for the bride with peacock feathers in her hair and the reception hall where the pit has erupted. We don’t know how long the champagne (or the Jagermeister) had been flowing, but these guests were feeling no pain when Slayer’s “Raining Blood” got the dancefloor boiling during this video that was supposedly taken at the wedding of Butchered Records’ Patrick Pagan.
2. Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley Bring Together a Couple in Holy Matrimony
Kiss has branded everything from toilet paper to caskets with its imagery. Since the group named itself as such because it wanted to be as memorable as one’s first kiss, putting its stamp on matrimony is, well, kismet. The music veterans opened the Hotter Than Hell Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas in 2012, uniting all the absurdity of Vegas with the bombast of Kiss. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley stood up with the couple at the chapel’s first wedding, which was officiated by Mini-ster Brian Thomas in Spaceman makeup.
3. A Metallica-Fueled Reception Entrance
A whole article could be dedicated to how Metallica’s 1992 ballad “Nothing Else Matters” is a go-to track for weddings because of its romantic lyrical sentiments and grand orchestration. However, this couple makes the list because instead of playing it safe with a down-tempo song that’s bound to go over well with elderly relatives, they charged into their reception to the sounds of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Even better: The bride, still in her marital finery, later commands the drum kit with the wedding band for a spot-on rendition of “Master of Puppets.”
4. Walking Down the Aisle to Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Mr. Crowley”
This bride, clad is show-stopping scarlet, glided down the aisle to meet her top-hatted groom (we’re guessing Slash was his sartorial inspiration) to the gurgling sounds of an organ piping out the intro to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley.” No rearranging of the music was needed since the piece was originally composed for organ, and the preacher is probably none the wiser that he officiated a wedding that involved a song dedicated to one of the most infamous practitioners of the occult.
5. Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’Mine” Soundtracks a First Dance
Guns N’ Roses has contributed two songs to the wedding canon. “November Rain,” another monster ballad that arrived in 1992, forever cornered the metal wedding market with its dramatic celebrity-studded video. The other is “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” which lends itself well to father-daughter dances. In this video clip, the groom changed up his first twirl around the floor with his bride by playing Slash’s iconic opening guitar licks of the song before letting the band take over.
6. A Bride-Groom Duet of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”
Talk about making sweet music together: This couple helped entertain their own wedding guests when they jammed to Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” together. The groom handled guitar and vocals while the bride rocked a bass decorated with the words “Just Married” in black tape on the back of her fiddle. Her husband does a credible Lemmy imitation and manages to completely rock out without rumpling his wedding suit.
7. Forget the “Wedding March,” Bring On AC/DC‘s “Rock N Roll Train”!
This pair put on a multimedia show at their wedding ceremony with everything from video to dancing to strobe lights. While the bride chose Glee’s tailor-made “I Think I Wanna Marry You” for when she walked down the aisle, the groom kicked off the evening by making a jaunty entrance to AC/DC’s “Rock N Roll Train.”
8. Iron Maiden Gets a Classical Spin
Iron Maiden’s classic lament about nyctophobia — “Fear of the Dark” — isn’t a top-of-mind choice for wedding repertoire, but when you bestow a heartfelt gift upon someone, the only element that matters is that it’s meaningful to the recipient. This bride clearly knows the path to her new husband’s heart: With firm concentration, she deftly performs the song’s bewitching melody on piano as her openly emotional groom looks on. The wedding band later accompanies her with the song’s rousing power chords, but this lady has already proven she’s one elegant iron maiden.