The offbeat bride: Laurie, Admin. Asst.

My offbeat groom: Santiago, Quality Control Engineer

Location & date of wedding: April 1, 2007. Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, MA for ceremony / Springstep dance & arts complex in Medford, MA for reception

What made our wedding offbeat: We had a very DIY wedding, with tons of help from friends. I wrote our ceremony. We had a potluck reception with better food than many catered affairs I’ve attended. We bought flowers online and arranged them ourselves. I am Jewish, he is Catholic; we decided to have a secular wedding with elements of each tradition, with a hefty dose of science fiction/fantasy geekery thrown in.

We used Star Wars for musical inspiration, processing to “The Throne Room” and recessing to the main theme. A remote-control R2D2 was our flower droid. Our JP started off with, “Mawwiage!” from The Princess Bride. We included poetry by Christina Rossetti, but also used “A Declaration of Principles” from Babylon 5. After our vows, we chirped, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” a la the seagulls from Finding Nemo. For our reception, the tables were named after galaxies and space vessels from various science fiction books, movies, and shows. Our chuppah bearers gave us a light saber arch when we entered the room. And then, after our first dance, we had a first duel…with light sabers!

Our biggest challenge: I think our biggest challenge was handling all the last-minute stuff that suddenly added heavily to our expenses in the final few weeks prior to the wedding. We had to save money pretty aggressively and call on friends and family to keep us sane. That, and cutting and arranging the flowers on the Friday before the wedding, when it suddenly became apparent that we had a metric assload of work to do and very little experience or idea of how to get it done. Again, friends and family members really stepped up and helped us get it done in time. They were great at smiling and nodding and letting us rant, and then reassuring us that it would be fine.

My favorite moment: Our light saber duel!

My offbeat advice: DIY weddings are awesome if you can count on friends and family to help you pull it off. So, my tip is to have amazing friends and family who are totally behind your vision. Also — and this isn’t just for nontraditional types — make sure you talk a lot *with* (not *at*) your spouse-to-be about wedding planning. Ideally, you should both be logistically and emotionally invested in the planning, so that you both feel like you get the wedding you want. That’s good practice for your marriage. Remember, the wedding will be over, but the marriage will have just begun, and you’ll have to know how to discuss and plan things together! Oh…and set up an ING Direct account for saving money. They have great interest rates and it’s good practice for sharing finances.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: If you just want more info about the wedding, go here. If you’re ready for over 700 photos, then head over here

Tell me all about your offbeat wedding!