This really applies more to the last part, but everyone's still talking about it, so we might as well address it. Aragorn will never reveal how he managed it, but he had hobbit beer at his wedding. He knew it would be a crowd-pleaser and that everyone would spend the rest of their lives wondering how he procured it. Was it from Saruman’s stores? Did he send one of the Rangers on a secret mission to cross the world and place an order at the Green Dragon? Were Merry and Pippin secretly brewing it somewhere in the back rooms of Minas Tirith as soon as the war ended? Aragorn’s not telling. Arwen claims she doesn’t know either, and that she was as surprised as everyone else (it was her idea).

Legolas and Gimli travel very, very fast. There are jokes in the books and in the movies about Dwarvish stamina; but the truth is, Gimli was there too when he and Legolas and Aragorn raced across the plains of Rohan to catch up with the Orcs who had captured Merry and Pippin. After so much time on the road traveling hard and fast that way, even their slowest pace would quickly surpass even most Elves. And they’re just used to it now. Everyone else they meet is certainly not used to it, and there are several shocked Elves who need to get over themselves and their weird opinions about Dwarves. That’s Legolas’s opinion on the matter, anyway. Gimli is mostly just trying not to laugh.

Thranduil as a dad is like. fine. He could be a good dad, or a good king, but not both; and he kind of picked king. He’s not a complete dick but he’s shit at multi-tasking. He can’t pay attention to what Legolas needs and what his whole kingdom needs, at the same time. You’ll have to read to find out how it goes with Gimli, but let’s just say that Thranduil only really clocks in when he’s given no other choice, and when he would seem like a really shitty leader if he didn’t get his ass in line.

We’re all wondering how the Dwarves are going to react to Legolas when he shows up, but here’s the thing. Legolas is lowkey hilarious. He’s also very polite and awkward, but he’s been rolling with Gimli for a while now and they tease each other constantly; he’s very used to Dwarvish humor. It doesn’t phase him. What I mean to say is: Legolas knows ball. He makes every single last damn one of them laugh, within 15 minutes of meeting him, and they were not in a laughing mood when he appeared. Glóin especially goes from “who the fuck is this motherfucker” to “if anything happens to him I will kill everyone in this room and then myself” very, very quickly, though he takes a while to admit it. It helps, quite a bit, that when Legolas is comfortable, he is really terrible at controlling his face. His expression every time he looks at Gimli is nothing short of besotted. It’s kind of hard to be mad at him when it is painfully obvious that he’s head over heels.

Legolas wasn’t expecting his father-in-law to actually take on the role of Dad 2. If you ask him, Glóin will tell you he did it out of spite. The kid needed a better dad; surprise surprise, Thranduil is a douchebag and shit at being a father. (Glóin’s words not mine.) Glóin is taking over if no one else will. Fuck that guy.

The Dwarves almost immediately collectively realize that Legolas is a really fun dude and they don’t really want to fight about him. But you know who is fun to fight with? His fuckin dad. That guy takes everything personally. And the best way they can think of to get under his skin, is to start a passive-aggressive competition over who can be the nicest to Legolas and Gimli. And they are so going to win this shit. They’re going to make that little bitty Elvish wedding look like an office birthday party. It won’t quite be a hobbit rager, but they’ve met Bilbo and they know some of his secrets. Suck it, Thranduil. You can kiss your reputation as Party Elf King goodbye. (Thranduil has no idea this is happening; he's just trying to get through this in one piece)

While he was away, Gimli worried sometimes about what his family would say about all the Dwarvish secrets he kept spilling to Legolas. When he gets home, he remembers: Dwarves love to argue. “A Dwarf is marrying an Elf and you can’t be married to a Dwarf without knowing anything at all about Dwarves, so how much do we tell him?” is a fantastic debate topic. They get so caught up in wondering how to do it that they forget to argue about whether it should be done, because it’s so much more interesting to argue about. Gimli had already gotten over most of his worry and decided to tell Legolas exactly as much as he felt like telling him. The fact that everyone else has opinions on what he should do is their problem.

Gimli’s mother is extremely suspicious of Legolas, at first. She doesn’t let on but she’s got her eye on him. She spent too many years in exile to trust easily, especially the son of a guy who put her husband in jail once. Glóin runs tests on him, and she runs her own, much more subtly. But you’d be an idiot not to realize that the Elf looks at Gimli like he’s the only thing in the world that matters. She’s not an idiot, and she’s been watching closely. And he keeps passing all her tests. And he really, really likes Gimli. He can stay.

The rings Gimli makes for their wedding are the last rings he will ever make. He was lucky to escape most of the One Ring's temptations. He is not going to push that luck.

We know Thranduil refused to go to Valinor the first time, but there’s no word on whether he did so after the Third Age ended. Personally I think he had trouble deciding, himself, and I think there’s a high chance that he never did. Also note that we have no idea what happened to Legolas’s mother. My belief is that she was killed in some tragic way. Elves who die show up in Valinor eventually, but it takes a while. When Gimli tells his parents about his plans to sail there with Legolas (he decides it would be really horrible to not tell them), Glóin is the first one to realize that when Legolas goes, he won’t have any family to go with him, and may not have anyone waiting for him. He doesn’t try to stop Gimli from going. Instead, he’s very, very proud of him.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of moving away from home, going back to visit, and realizing that you’ve changed, but it hasn’t? It’s both much bigger and much smaller than you remembered, and the feeling is comforting but also stifling? You’re enjoying seeing it again and finding out new things about it, but you can’t figure out where you fit into this picture, because you don’t, not anymore? Anyway. For Legolas and Gimli: yeah. Same. They’re not going to stay for very long.