Love can be scary.

For some, it’s the fear of commitment. For others, it’s the haunting of loss.

And for couples like Seth McKay and Kyla Kaiser, it’s the Halloween-theme wedding.

“We’re not very traditional,” summed McKay, who’ll marry Kaiser Oct. 31 in Duncan.

“It was just a given — Halloween is the best time of year.”

“You can be anything you want to be,” added Kaiser. “And it’s a favourite for both of us, so why not celebrate it in extravagant style? Our friends and family wouldn’t have expected any different from us.”

The Cowichan couple has embraced the theme whole-heartedly: their rings are in coffin-shaped boxes, candy will be plentiful and jack-o-lanterns will decorate the hall.

And everyone — guests included — will be in costumes.

“They’ve had a blast with it. My maid of honour is the Queen of Hearts, and our best man (one-year-old son, Kaedyn Kaiser-McKay) is a little bat,” said Kaiser.

The couple has a zero-tolerance policy for no-costume guests — they’ve prepared a trunk of costumes to ensure all of their friends and family members are properly attired.

But while costumes are a must, the couple has left the theme wide open.

“We went through about 15 different (costume) themes — Goth, medieval, renaissance, Venetian — but it finally ended up being just any Halloween costume because not everybody is going to want to dress up as a Venetian or a Goth,” said McKay.

“And not everybody looks good as a Goth,” reasoned Kaiser.

As for the bride and groom, McKay said his costume is a mix best described as half-aristocrat and half-pirate — “like a pirate who has managed to become part of society” — but Kaiser is keeping the finer points of her costume under wraps until it’s time to say “I do.”

“I’m being traditional in this aspect, but basically,” she conceded, “I’m a Gypsy, a woodland Gypsy.”

So how does a couple plan for a Halloween wedding?

“You don’t,” Kaiser answered. “You just go out and buy a whole bunch of Halloween stuff once it’s out in the stores. It’s been amazingly easy.”

Friends and family are helping horrify the hall, carve pumpkins, and decorate cupcakes that boast the traditional vanilla and chocolate flavours.

“But they’re green and purple and black,” said McKay.

“And orange and red,” added Kaiser.

The pair, already exhibiting the married couple-like tendency to complete one another’s sentences, seems game for anything except frilly white lace.

The trick is tempering the traditional with the original — and the treat is an utterly unique result.

“The song for our first dance is Nothing Else Matters by Metallica,” McKay said in example.

“But it’s like a lullaby (instrumental) remix,” added Kaiser.

The couple promises to ditch the Chicken Dance and the Macarena in favour of the Monster Mash and other Halloween classics.

“And when I walk down the aisle we’re playing the love theme from the Godfather,” said Kaiser.

The goal, she added, isn’t to frighten — it’s to have fun.

“It’s a wonderful blend, I think,” Kaiser said of the pairing of romance and Halloween’s more whimsical side. “It’s not ghoulish or evil-themed — it’s about fantasy and fun.”

And, McKay said, it’s not all that unusual.

“It’s more common than you’d think,” he said. “There’s another couple on the island having a Halloween wedding with a renaissance theme.”

Judith Blakeston, a Cowichan marriage commissioner, has seen her share of unique wedding themes and costumes.

“There was a fun summer wedding that had a ‘30s gangster theme,” she remembered. “The men wore fedoras and sunglasses and the women wore the slinky dresses.”

She’s also married a couple that opted for a medieval theme.

“There were lords and ladies and princesses — they had a lot of fun with it,” she said.

And, Blakeston added, it’s easy to see the appeal of a less-than-conventional wedding.

“The couples are looking for something unique, to make their wedding stand out,” she said.

Kaiser’s banking on costumes and candy to set her special day apart.

“How often do 30-year-olds get to play dress up or go trick-or-treating?” she asked.

But once the masks come off and the sugar high fades, the couple is ready to trade in their coffin-shaped ring boxes for the wedding bands within.

“The main thing,” said McKay, “is friends and family being there, and us saying we love each other in front of them.”