“We Met Playing Gears of War”

Recently Epic Gamer Megan, aka zombiecupcake on Reddit, posted a photo of herself and her hubby cutting their wedding cake… with a Retro Lancer! The picture got very popular and caught the attention of one of our testers, Max Bruckner. Max got in touch with Megan and told her we’d like to do a story about her wedding. She agreed to an interview and sent along some amazing photos. The couple even had their engagement photos taken with the Retro Lancer!

Flak: When did you two meet?

Zombiecupcake: We met in winter of 2006. Well, met online that is. We played Gears together regularly for months before Jeremiah, in an endearingly creepster move, found me on Myspace. We were both dating other people when we first met, but we were great friends. Eventually we were both single at the same time and decided to meet! We mapped out an approximate “middle ground” and met smack dab in the middle of our respective homes- Winchester, VA. He even stayed up late the night before to program an app that would text me cute little messages all through our little vacation. I was so super nervous but he was totally cool. We went to see Where the Wild Things Are and went to this amazing tourist trap called Dinosaur Land. Naturally, we had brought along an Xbox so that we could play Gears too!

F: How long have you each been playing Gears of War?

Z: We both got the first game within the first month of its release and the following two were bought on the release dates. We’re huge nerds about our love of the game and credit it for giving us the avenue to meet. A girl in Pennsylvania doesn’t often get the chance to talk to a boy in a farming town in North Carolina, so our love of in shotgunning others in the face in game was essential.

F: Could you tell us a little about the engagement?

Z: The day that Gears of War 3 came out, Jeremiah had the day off. I didn’t and I was anxiously staring at the clock all day during work. Jeremiah agreed to wait to open anything until I got home, but that didn’t stop him from sending me pictures of the boxes all day. As soon as I got home we started opening everything up! First the Retro Lancer, which is freaking amazing (and now hanging on our wall). Next, I opened up the (seemingly sealed) epic edition box! We pulled everything out; examining the statue, the book, the flag and all the little extras before finally grabbing the game. I popped it open to find another extra- an engagement ring! Jeremiah asked, I said yes; we rejoiced, we killed Locust!

When a friend offered to do the whole engagement shoot thing for us, we couldn’t say no. We wanted to do something that really said “us,” so of course Gears came to mind. We live in a town that is revitalizing an abandoned steel mill, so we had some prime photo locations! Lots of rusty beams and gears to stand next to, and with two Retro Lancers… well, you can imagine how confused some of our family members were.

F: And the wedding?

Z: Before we sent out our Save the Dates with us holding our retrolancer, we wanted to make sure we could answer all the questions we got from family members. We set up a little website with a FAQ, explaining what the retrolancer was. For those unaware of how Jeremiah and I met, we had an artist draw up a little comic! She also drew our invitations, all with little comic renditions of us. They were super cute, and truly helpful for making a geeky and slightly unusual thing into something less threatening. Despite our weird introduction to the wedding portion of our lives, I don’t think our family really expected us to use a retrolancer to cut our cake. Maybe the Minecraft ring box, video games next to the dance floor and comic character seating chart tipped them off, but there were still a lot of surprised laughs. Related note, cake is more delicious when eaten off your retrolancer.

F: Who is the better player?

Z: I vow that I am the better Gears player, but concede that Jeremiah is the better all around gamer. He apparently has admitted the truth with others, but still won’t admit it to me!

F: What are each of your favorite weapons?

Z: Jeremiah’s favors the torque bow and my favorite is the sniper.

Thank you Megan and Jeremiah for sharing your awesome story with us!