The offbeat bride: Corrin Cramer Pierce, Pilates Instructor/Massage Therapist/Actor/Improviser (and Offbeat Bride lab rat!)

My offbeat groom: Chris, Actor and All Around Good Guy

Location & date of wedding: The terraced gardens of a lovely B&B in Watkinsville, GA, just outside of Athens. October 30th, 2004.

What made our wedding offbeat: On the outside, our wedding probably looked pretty traditional. It’s more how we got there that made it different than friends’ experiences…our planning process was mostly laid back, and all about FUN. We thought of it as a big party for everyone we loved, and that took the “wedding-y” pressure off of it. We knew that we wanted lots of good dancing, lots of good food, and the people we loved, and everything else was gravy.

We also wrote our own ceremony, which was officiated by Chris’ dad. It was short and sweet, but very personal, and included an improvised section, which I don’t recommend to everyone, but was wonderful fun for us as improvisers.

Don’t let anyone make you feel that you SHOULD be concerned about things like tablecloths and whatnot, if that’s not your thing.

Our biggest challenge: We were extremely lucky to have very little trouble during the planning of our wedding. However, the morning of, we had decided that Chris would take the guys to get old-fashioned straight-razor shaves, and the barber more or less shredded their poor faces. I didn’t know until after the party started (they didn’t really look too bad), though my mother did come around once asking for my concealer for the guys. In my pre-wedding haze, it didn’t even occur to me to worry, and it became a great source of comedy as the wounds healed.

My favorite moment: We wanted the party to start right away, so we took all the pics before, meaning that Chris and I saw each other well before the ceremony. This allowed us to hang out, with our wedding party, in the front room of the B&B as we waited for the guests to get settled so we could start the ceremony. It was so nice, and relaxed, to just hang out with some of our best friends and family before the festivities started. A filmmaker friend of ours made a wonderful film that included a few minutes of footage of us in that front room, being goofy, enjoying each other.

My offbeat advice: Know what’s important to you and fight for it if you have to (choose your battles!). But also know what’s not important, and be willing to jettison it completely, or let someone else who does care make that decision. And above all else, don’t let anyone (family, friends, wedding industry shills) make you feel that you SHOULD be concerned about things like tablecloths and whatnot, if that’s not your thing.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: kodakgallery.com (login with username corrinandchris@yahoo.com and password athens)