I’d like to reach up mywedding.com’s dress to fetch its garter, because they’re Offbeat Bride’s sponsor for the month of August! I’ll be poking around mywedding.com this month and writing about my adventures, this week looking at their local wedding planning guides.

The only problem with running a national/international wedding blog is that sometimes it all comes down to location, location, location. When someone emails me asking about help with venue ideas in Santa Barbara or an offbeat caterer in Houston, I have no idea what to say because, well, I live in Seattle and I don’t know shit about Houston. Or Santa Barbara.

But not so with mywedding.com! They have a local wedding planning guide for dozens of American cities, ranging from the biggies you might expect like a New York and Los Angeles, but also Kansas City and Raleigh.

Each local wedding guide is broken down by categories of services … including florists who might be able to help you with that tuber rose/asparagus centerpiece you’ve been dreaming of, and photographers who are totally into hiking 8 miles with a tripod to capture your mountain-top vows.

I perused through the listings for several locations and was impressed by the number of independent vendors and service providers — small-time local vendors who are the preferable tiny, indie cogs in the massive scary Wedding Industrial Complex. Think globally, shop for wedding vendors locally.

Thanks again to mywedding.com for sponsoring this month. Offbeat Brides, please oh please show your support for offbeatbride.com by giving mywedding.com some lerv.