Author Topic: Final Fantasy VII Themed Birthday Adventure / Marriage Proposal  (Read 10102 times)

Raker57

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Hi guys! This is my first post. I came to this forum because it's the only Final Fantasy forum that's not blocked at my work. I haven't ever posted this stuff in any other forums, so you guys are the first ones to see it.

Back in November of 2012, I had a huge, real life, FFVII themed adventure for my girlfriend Ashley's birthday. I also took this opportunity to propose to her. The adventure took an entire month to plan out, buy crafting supplies, create stuff and coordinate with her friends to set everything up in a private facebook group. She's always been a huge RPG fan and especially loves Final Fantasy.

I came up with a few methods to guide her through the adventure. I wanted to create this feeling of nostalgia for her. One of the methods was to try and recreate the blue menu screens in the game and use that as a medium to guide her to her next objective. I started out by buying some blue posterboard and some silhouettes of FFVII characters off ebay. I then cut the blue posterboard into rounded rectangles, put white tape around all the edges, and stuck the silhouettes on there:



After that I used some white sticker letters to write the dialogue for each character. This took A LOT longer than I thought it was going to, because the letters had to be in precisely the right spot so the sentences wouldn't look all jacked up. This first character is just some random guy I made up. On the morning of the event, while she was still asleep, I posted this on the door of her room. I woke her up with the FFVII intro music:



When she went to the kitchen, this one was waiting for her:



Then this was waiting on her car:



I had already left her house and went over to our mutual friend's house to set up the next part. His role was to play a shady shopkeeper who sold potions and various other little things. The shop was his garage attic and we had set up a table with all the stuff on display. I wish I had more pictures. Right outside his shop was this board:



So at this point, Ashley went upstairs to the shop, but she didn't have any Gil to purchase anything. Our friend the shopkeeper told her that someone had also stolen some materia from his shop and he was about to go out and look for them. He told her Cloud's Buster Sword was probably stolen by the same person and that she could come along. He suggested they arm themselves with some weapons, as there had been reports of bandits in the area. Then he "joined her party", gave her an airsoft gun and grabbed one for himself, and they headed out towards a nearby patch of woods to search for the thief. (I should mention here that Jack had FFVII music playing from his phone the entire time he was with her. When they were travelling, he would play world music. When they were in a battle, he would play the battle music, etc...) Once they got to the patch of woods, this attack menu was on one of the trees. (The final version was on a much smaller board):



At that point they were attacked with airsoft guns by three of her friends dressed up as bandits. When my girlfriend would get hit, Jack would throw a handful of white feathers at her as "Phoenix Down". I had been watching all this happen from a hidden location. It was pretty hilarious. Once they killed all the bandits, the bandits just played dead on the ground. Jack suggested they loot the bodies to see if they were the ones who stole the materia. When Ashley walked over to them, all of them had these pouches laying next to them:



The pouches were filled with these plastic coins:



One of the pouches also had a fake map with the location of the bandit's hideout, as well as some clues to convey that's where the materia and sword were. Now that Ashley had some Gil to buy stuff with, they headed back to the shop so she could buy potions and some food. Neither of these things really had a purpose, it was just a way to give her something to eat and drink throughout the day. The potions were made from Mio and other similar brands:



After that, the clues sent them into the deep woods of a nearby state park. While they were walking through the woods, they came across someone on the trail who had Cloud's Buster Sword strapped to their back! (This girl was another mutual friend who cosplayed as Yuffie for the day. So Yuffie took off running with the sword on her back and an armful of material and Jack was all like "AFTER HER!". Ashley caught up to her and Yuffie dropped the material all over the place. Here are some pictures of the materia and the sword:









I made the materia by spray painting some wooden balls I had picked up at the craft store. I bought the buster sword from a Renaissance fair, then spray painted it and inserted some materia in the slots. I wrapped the handle with some leather cord as well but I don't have a picture of that.

After that, Yuffie said she was really sorry and begged and pleaded to come along. So after some initial protests from Jack, Ashley allowed it and Yuffie "joined the party". I don't recall exactly how this part went but I believe they told Yuffie about the missing chocobos and Yuffie said she had seen a chocobo down by the creek in the park, so they headed out and went down this winding path towards the creek, but on the path they were ambushed by a WILD PINATA! For real. I had a sign on one of the trees that said "You've been ambushed by a wild piñata! Oh noes!". I had wanted to make a custom piñata that looked like this:



It ended up being WAY too much work to make it, so I ended up having to go to Party City and just buy a random one. One of our friends was holding a rope that was looped over a branch and had a piñata hanging from it. So Ashley readied her newly acquired buster sword and beat the living crap out of this thing. I wish I had been there to see it. From what I hear she was giggling like a little girl. When she broke it open there was a bunch of candy and some random gamer stuff like 1-ups and bob-ombs. So then they kept going down the path and they started hearing chocobo music. They zoned in on the music and found a blue chocobo! It was one of these chocobo plush thingies:



These plush Chocobos are pretty rare because they were only released in 1997, only in Japan, and only in specific "grabber" stuffed animal machines. Every time she found one of these throughout her quest, it would have one of these little signs next to it:



They then went back to the shop to return Cloud's sword. This sign was waiting for them:



There was also a yellow plush chocobo next to the sign.

At this point there were no more clues and they didn't know where to go for the next part of the quest. I don't recall exactly what happened at this point (It's been a while). I believe there was a threatening note waiting for them back at the shop from the Bandit Boss. They didn't know where the Boss was hiding out, but Jack said he knew a wizard that might be able to help. So they went over to our friend Ben's house.

Ben was playing the role of a wizard who's job was to send letters between hundreds of different characters between different games, by opening up portals and stuff. He was a postal wizard pretty much. He had just bought a new house and it had nothing in it, so he turned each room into a different mailroom. Each room was essentially from a different game that Ashley had played. He bought hundreds of envelopes, and he wrote a character's name on each one. Then he printed out tons of clues, and he linked each character to another character somewhere in the house with the clue. There were several FF games, several Suikoden games and a couple others. I won't bore you guys with the finer details, but basically she had to run all over the house solving this huge puzzle and it took her hours. After that, the wizard stated that he would lead her to the Bandit Boss hideout. The final location for this quest was our friend Graig and Kelly's house. When they arrived at the house, I was waiting in the yard wearing this:



BOSS FIGHT! Ben pulled some larp swords out of Ashley's trunk that we had placed the previous night. I had one of my own. Ben remained out of the fight and stated that he abhors violence. The rest of us beat the crap out of each other with swords. After a little while, they realized they weren't doing any damage and Ben suggested they try using magic, Ben pulled several confetti cannons out of his trenchcoat and gave them to the party. After that, everyone shot me with the confetti cannons all at once and I performed a spectacular death animation. Behind my body was a chest:





Inside the chest was the Golden Chocobo:



On the door to the house was the last story board:



So that concluded the quest. After that I took off the armor and proposed on the driveway. She said yes of course. Then we went inside and I had these "Party Screens" on the table that showed all of her friends who attended (Pics show before completion and after completion):









This is what I was going for:



I also had a cake made that looked like Aeris/Aerith's church with the broken boards and flowers, then I had a Buster Sword sticking up out of the middle of it. I don't currently have a picture of it but I think one of my friends does.

There was also this:





So anyway, we got married and it was awesome. We cut our wedding cake with a battle axe.





Hope you guys enjoyed.

Maki

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Dear lord ... You're a God!
« Last Edit: 2015-06-27 06:10:32 by MaKiPL »

DLPB_

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haha!  I like it :)

White Wind

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Omg that's epic !
Must have been so much fun :p

dkma841

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« Reply #4 on: 2015-06-27 03:46:14 »
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« Last Edit: 2021-10-28 16:19:59 by dkma841 »

LeonhartGR

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Good for you bro! That was amazing and really touching... I was just about to get married and we broke up because of my mother.

nfitc1

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This is WAY more thought than what went into my proposal. :) Still, extremely awesome and outstanding attention to detail!

Luigi Brosse

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Good job!

I wasn't so extreme for my wedding, but still succeeded in getting the FF7 fanfare playing out when I kissed my (now)wife at the end of the wedding ceremony. :) Not that many people got it, but for those who understood, they liked it.

Raker57

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Thanks! I'm glad you guys like it. It was a lot of hard work but it was definitely worth it.

Anyway, here's a picture of the cake. It turned out pretty well despite the lady having no experience with the series and just going off a few pictures.




I'm ridiculously excited for the FF7 remake.

nfitc1

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Anyway, here's a picture of the cake. It turned out pretty well despite the lady having no experience with the series and just going off a few pictures.
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I had a cheesecake with a picture of Kirby at my wedding based off this:


We couldn't use red for some stupid reason (pink was fine) so we recolored him a bit.

StickySock

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Where were you to help me craft some sort of Pokémon themed proposal when I proposed?!?!?  >:( (Seriously great job on the proposal though, you should definitely be proud).