 |
| From left to right, voice actor Anna Graves, Jessica Schmidt, Chris Payne and voice actor James Arnold Taylor take part in the Star Wars-themed wedding ceremony at FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018. |
Utahn Chris Payne and Californian Jessica Schmidt first met while watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and their bond grew from there. As avid members of two Star Wars costuming clubs — the Rebel Legion and the Mandalorian Mercs — Payne and Schmidt had met voice actors James Arnold Taylor and Anna Graves at Salt Lake’s FanX convention in the past couple of years. Taylor is the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, while Graves voices the Duchess Satine of Mandalore.
“We thought it would be really fun to kind of throw together a Star Wars wedding,” Payne told the Deseret News. “We have the costumes, the characters and then when the voice actors found out about it, they contacted us and the convention and said, ‘Hey we’re coming and we’ll … officiate.”
But the Star Wars theme didn’t end there. Not only did Taylor and Graves offer to officiate, but the two voice actors also involved a scriptwriter from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Henry Gilroy, to help write the wedding script, which the actors read at the ceremony.
Although they had a more traditional wedding a month ago, Payne deemed this event the “party wedding” — and it proved to be just that. Draped in Obi-Wan’s signature brown hooded cloak and adorned with an elegant headdress as Duchess Satine, two fellow comic characters escorted Payne and Schmidt as they entered the ceremony. They said their “I do’s” while close comic convention friends looked on and cheered.
Read more at the Deseret News.