The offbeat bride: Deana Weibel, assistant professor of anthropology (and Offbeat Bride lab rat!)

My offbeat groom: Glen, historian (independent scholar) and self-employed bookseller

Location & date of wedding: The Alumni House, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan. October 6, 2006.

What made our wedding offbeat: We had a subtle, spacey, moon-and-stars theme because my husband Glen is a cold war historian with expertise in the space race (and because we’re both space geeks). We walked each other up the aisle, our only attendants were our two brothers (his was Best Man, mine was Man of Honor).

My dress (while not a salwar kameez as I had originally planned) was off-the-rack from Marshall Fields and Glen helped me pick it out. He designed and built our centerpieces (inflatable planets on stands), I did all the flowers, he created favors (star-shaped boxes containing meteorites) and so did I (five different CD mixes with songs like “Fly Me to the Moon” and “You are my Lucky Star”).

Glen designed our wedding rings with a jeweler and they each contained moissonite, iron meteorite, and tiny, tiny pieces of lunar and Martian meteorite (hard to find and pretty expensive). We also served green cheese at the reception since the moon is made of green cheese (it was sage darby, the green came from the sage). Oh, we were married by a judge who is the husband of the woman who is the chair of my anthropology department. Oh, and photos were done by one friend, the cupcakes (which were beautiful and star covered) by another, and another did the music during the ceremony. We pulled it off, including the rings, for under $6K.

Our biggest challenge: I just asked Glen and we can’t think of anything. Sometimes the caterer (who came automatically with the site) was hard to get in touch with, but we persevered.

My favorite moment: The wedding took place outdoors during sunset, and during the ceremony as the sun set, the full Harvest Moon (okay, it was a day before it was technically full, but it was pretty darn full) rose. As we recessed, one of the guests called to us “Look at the moon!” and there it was, bright and round in the sky. We made our exit walking toward the full moon after a ceremony filled with moon and stars imagery. We knew it would be full that night, but didn’t know if it would be visible, rain, snow or what. So a clear sky with a full moon was awesome.

Have a long engagement so you can learn new skills and implement them for the wedding.

My offbeat advice: Have a long engagement so you can learn new skills and implement them for the wedding. I knew nothing about flowers, but managed to make my own bouquet, eight boutonnieres and three corsages because I had ample time to practice. Oh, and if you’re not afraid to see your groom ahead of time, take pics BEFORE the ceremony.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Deana’s wedding night gallery

Tell me all about your offbeat wedding!