Those who’ve read my book (which should be all of you *cough cough*) will notice that this wedding sounds awfully familiar. Elisa and I grew up together on Bainbridge Island, and our weddings had a lot in common! I’ve mentioned her wedding before, but here’s the full profile…

The offbeat bride: Elisa, Therapist

Her offbeat groom: Eric, Electrician

Location & date of wedding: My mom’s backyard in a clearing surrounded by Cedar trees on Bainbridge Island.

What made our wedding offbeat: We decided to go low key, fun and DIY! We had a backyard ceremony and I wore the same dress that my grandma and great-grandma wore. It was so special, I’m really glad I did! After the ceremony I changed dresses so I wouldn’t trash the antique one and we danced and hung out all night. I made many of the things for the wedding to keep it cheap and cute, with everything being our colors of bright orange, pink, red, and fushia.

We had Larry’s Smokehouse come cater in their traveling truck and it was so delicious…smoked king salmon, BBQ Pork and Chicken and lots of other choices for vegetarians (highly recommended!).

My mom made cupcakes and we layered them on a homemade “cupcake tree” with a topper I made that were a 1920’s style pipecleaner version of myself, the groom and our dog.

We picked up paper lanterns in Chinatown to cover the tent in our colors and I made table runners with this awesome bright hippy fabric (which became the theme of the whole wedding). We used the fabric as a background to photograph all the guests for our guestbook. For favors, we had a candy bar set up with our colors and big old fashioned glass candy jars.

We also put together a slideshow with pictures of us growing up with our families. We played it on the side of a barn once it got dark, and we’d invited our friends to camp out and have breakfast with us the next morning. Not only could we see more of our friends, but anyone who had too much fun at the keg wouldn’t need to worry about driving home.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was how to have our wedding on our original budget of $5000! We probably went over a bit, but we really did a lot for what we had! I thought it was a ton of money at first, but it’s amazing how things add up. I tried to get creative and make as many things as I could: our invitations with cool fabric sewed onto each one; postcards with cool antique stamps; our caketopper, CD favors with zig-zag stiched edges, table runners, my feather hairpin, our tatoo-style programs, and our cupcakes topped with little paper parasols. We used iTunes and put together a playlist for our music. For flowers, we picked gorgeous dahlias from local dahlia farms and stuck them in glass mason jars. Just be creative and stay true to who you are!

My favorite moment: There were so many favorite moments but I loved having our dog in the ceremony and seeing my husbands face as I walked down the aisle.

My offbeat advice: Have fun, don’t stress, be creative and do it your way. When I got stressed the “bride forum” on The Conscious Weddings website helped. No one really cares about the details in the end — it’s more important to have a good time.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Check out Elisa and Eric’s awesome vintage-style wedding photos, courtesy of Courtney Brooke photography.