When Anna Schumacher married Tim in 2012, their Burning Man friends Kat Green and Erik Rivas McGregor built them a special wedding-party gift: a giant carousel-horse unicorn that sneezed clouds of enfabulousing glitter on passers by and dispensed lemonade from a tap set into its crotch. At night, its horn jetted guest-controlled gouts of pink fire, to the delight of all.
Katy Perry the Wedding Unicorn began her life as a black carousel horse with feathers in her hair. Upon her arrival in Brooklyn, Master Unicorn Builders Kat and Jesse Green repainted her from black to white, cut holes in her forehead, nostrils, and crotchal region and custom-built a base that would both give her height (aka "majesty") and house the fuel tanks and keg…
…Since I tend to go to parties encrusted in glitter and always have extra on hand for the under-sparkled, it made sense for our unicorn to have a glitter effect. Kat and Jesse built in a small air compressor to activate the "glitter sneeze." It runs through a gravity-fed glitter containment unit, and is controlled from an arduino switch that is activated by a button on the base of the sculpture.
Beverages are run by a CO2 pressurized corny keg, also in the base, with a beverage tap at the crotch. She was originally supposed to pee champagne, but Vermont liquor laws prohibit anyone who is not a licensed bartender from serving alcohol on public land, and we weren't able to get the unicorn licensed in time. Plus, we figured that with lemonade, the kids could also partake — and have something to talk about with their therapists later.
Katy Perry the Wedding Unicorn: she sneezes glitter, pees lemonade, and shoots pink fire [Anna Schumacher/Offbeat Bride]
(Photos: Kat Green and Erik Rivas McGregor)
