Honeymooners need fantastic costumes!

January 23, 2012 11:24 AM

Can you think of some great costumes for a honeymooning bar-hopping couple in New Orleans over Halloween?

Doesn't need to be a "couple" costume, I mean we're open to it but have never done that before. We like, you know, cool stuff. "Sexyness" is pretty cool if it doesn't seem to have come out of a plastic bag called "sassy nurse" or whatever. We like gay-glam and Chicago jazz and no-wave and pop and Motown and Star Trek and Sun Ra and Day of the Dead and punk. We're going to take lots of pictures! And we want to have a hip fun time!

I'm a smallish blonde woman with nearly bra strap length hair and he's a tall muscle-y Chicano, FWIW. Please no masks or other things that impede movement/sight/the sight of people sitting behind us. We are open minded--like the costume doesn't have to be something immediately recognizable to other people-- e.g. one idea he had for himself was "Space Mexican". Which is basically like Cheech and Chong if they were wearing really great Star Trek makeup. I thought that was fantastic. Can you think of some more stuff for us? Can be funny (or not), but must be fabulous-looking? Links to cool images would also be appreciated.

posted by powerbumpkin to clothing, beauty, & fashion (5 answers total)

Oh I guess I should say the context for "Space Mexican" is related to his lament about racial tokenism in Science Fiction. We are not looking for racially-focused suggestions please, unless they have a similar bent.
posted by powerbumpkin at 11:45 AM on January 23, 2012

Before I even read "tall muscle-y Chicano" or "Space Mexican" I was thinking Dia de los Muertos.

Something about the haunted nature of New Orleans with the bride and groom aspect just said "Celebrate dead ancestors!" to me. You could dress how you want and just paint your faces.

For some reason I also love it when a couple do Sonny and Cher when the girl can be short Sonny.
posted by TooFewShoes at 1:18 PM on January 23, 2012

Mayan Apocalypse is bound to be a prevailing theme this Halloween. The political race should be a hot item, too.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 1:46 PM on January 23, 2012

Paint your faces like calaveras or sugar skulls. If you don't want lots of makeup, you could just do the black parts and let your skin tone be the base. You'd have a variety of clothing options: "peasant style" blouse/huipil and flowy skirt, or more Victorian, baroque dress with black fringe shawl, etc. Flowers, marigolds, in your hair or as necklace. He could wear a suit and tophat with the make up.

My favorite way to do a costume is to pick a favorite character from film or books and then recreate it down to the detail as best I can. I've done the Royal Tenenbaums.

I've had great fun doing a group superhero costume. We didn't pick specific heroes but just built our outfits with similar or complementary color schemes and extra matching glittery accents, made capes out of the same yellow plastic tarps, etc. They turned out very elaborate but also very homemade feeling.
posted by dahliachewswell at 12:00 AM on January 24, 2012

Since you'll have a wedding dress, maybe you could use that as part of the costume. You could wear it with a rubber monster mask and hands and be Bridezilla.
posted by steinwald at 12:15 PM on January 25, 2012