Leila Easa's magical mystery wedding tour
Posted by Ariel · Real offbeat weddings

The offbeat bride: Leila Easa, teacher

My offbeat groom: Gavin Murphy, engineer

Location & date of wedding: On Nov 4 2006, The Mexican Bus took us to three San Francisco locations: Bernal Heights Park, Seward Street Playground, and the cave near the ruins of the Sutro Baths

What made our wedding offbeat: We just decided to do something meaningful to us, not our grandparents. To be honest, this was difficult. I wrestled with whether or not we were being selfish. But in the end, we had it our way: a bus adventure, three locations with symbolic meaning, a reception at home, very low costs, no wedding dress, tux or diamonds, etc.

Our biggest challenge: There were some last-minute problems with the bus.. We had given them the route in advance but for some reason they were reluctant to take us as close to some of the locations as we wanted to go. This was tough. At one point they even asked if we could skip a location! It was very stressful–we had activities and readers in each place and didn't want to change things at the last minute. So I just kept holding firm, and eventually it worked.

My favorite moment: It turned out to be a full moon that night, so when we got to the first stop (Bernal Heights Park with an awesome view of the city) it was bright and clear and beautiful. That was our "place of the spirit" where we wrote letters to the people who couldn't be there with us (like my mom) and released them attached to (biodegradable) balloons. I didn't have any idea how beautiful watching the moonlight on the balloons would be.

We just decided to do something meaningful to us, not our grandparents.

My offbeat advice: Totally trite, I know, but we had our $4,000 wedding (including amazing catering and our "costumes") a month or so after a good friend spent 40k on hers. I don't think that, in the end, there was anything less delightful or memorable about ours and we're not in eternal debt because of it. So I guess I would just say that you don't have to blow the down payment on a house just to have a good time.

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