Wedding Helmets

Making a moment.

Design
Craft
Finish

Craft at lightspeed

Just three weeks before our wedding, I made a joke to my wife about wearing helmets in the groom’s suite instead of masks. She rolled her eyes, I jumped to lightspeed to make several helmets for my closest friends and family.

Over the next two and a half weeks, I raced to learn what it would take to manifest my dream. Every morning became a time-trial of crafting. I had to find a template, iterate on it for “mass production,” and produce six helmets in just over two weeks.

Why?

More than a helmet, I wanted to make something that created a shared memory.

In the business of design, this approach would follow extensive research and testing. I was following my gut and I truly believed this was the way to do that.

Challenges

The first challenge was “is it possible?” I started by creating a single helmet to estimate how long it would take to make the six I needed.

If you’re not familiar with the foam cosplay crafting process, I would love to share my Infinity Gauntlet project. It offers more details on how these types of items are made. Making several helmets in a short amount of time exposed challenges in this process, and it was fun to find ways to adapt... or to avoid them in the future!

Once I knew it was possible, I modified the process to fit my short timeline.

I reduced the number of pieces in the template to lower the chance of divergence between helmets.

I realized I would need to modify some of the finishing steps to save time, this made the first helmet more polished than the others.

When I made the first helmet, I used my favorite metallic paint. But when I went back for the other five, I realized the price point would put me over budget. I had to go with another paint. It was noticeably different and did not allow for polishing.

Final thoughts

Don’t start a major crafting project 3 weeks before your wedding.

Keep an idea “journal” throughout the year. Think about the people you would like to impact, and ask yourself if you can do something to make something to help them feel special, celebrated, cared for, or seen.

When the opportunity arises, have a plan, have a budget, set boundaries, and have fun.