Yolkai's lighthearted red wedding
Posted by Ariel · Real offbeat weddings

Remember the wedding with cue cards? Here's the full story!

The offbeat bride: Yolkai, Mama, crafter, delicious food maker

Her offbeat groom: Anthony/Ackshawn, Teacher, K-8 Behavior Specialist

Location & date of wedding: Isis Oasis Sanctuary, a retreat center with an Egyptian theme in Geyserville, CA.

What made our wedding offbeat:We did it our way! After six years and a baby together we wanted the public declaration, the fancy outfits, and the big fun party! We chucked most of the mainstream wedding crap and held on to a few sweet traditions. Pretty much everything, from the invitations to the interpretive dance, was an expression of our style, our silliness, and our values.

The look of the wedding was definitely unique and really reflected our personalities. The bride wore red and the groom dyed his hair to match. The groom, our baby, and my older son all wore matching brown suits with red shirts. We didn't want an official wedding party, instead we asked all the guests to wear yellow, orange and brown to compliment our colors.

We wrote our own (very untraditional) ceremony and vows. I thought it would be hard but it was sweet and fun. We sat two to a keyboard and took turns typing. We wanted to have fun and encourage the guests to participate, so we made cue cards for specific parts of the ceremony with words like laughter and applause on them. We also set up an altar and asked guests to bring things to place on it that represented true love to them. We had our dear friend Joseph perform the ceremony and another dear friend Mark played one of his original songs for us.

We did the rest of the music for the ceremony and reception on a series of mixes we made on iTunes specifically for each part of the event (ceremony, dinner, first dance, and several dance mixes). We had several friends on photography duty. In fact the only professional we used onsite was the caterer, and she was an old family friend too.

We handed out copies of the food blessing we wrote together years ago and joined hands in a circle to bless the meal before dinner. Everyone ate, drank and was merry and we all danced our butts off for hours. We had invited our family and close friends to stay the night with us at the retreat center (one of the main reasons we chose it) so we could all celebrate as late as we wanted, then crawl right into bed. It was hilarious to wake up the next day to find a few folks still up (making it perhaps the longest reception ever!)

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was paying for the whole damn thing!

We did our best to cut costs lots of ways, especially by not renting or buying anything we could borrow or make. I designed the invitations on our computer and printed them all on regular cardstock on our home printer, the same for the song list for our favor CDs, and the food blessing cards we gave to the guests.

We borrowed enough dishes and cutlery for 100 from my sister-in-law, freecycled enough wine glasses, and borrowed dozens of pint glasses from my brother who had bought them for his own wedding. I saved clear wine bottles and laboriously scraped the labels to use for vases.

Friends made us a wedding arch with instructions I found online, then we decorated it with $5 prayer flags. Another friend loaned us his awesome sound system. We managed to only rent tables, tablecloths and chairs! I also scoured the net for low prices on those few things we couldn't avoid buying.

My favorite moment: I can't pick just one!

• Finally arriving at the altar and sharing the ceremony and vows we wrote for each other was breathtaking.
• The way our family and friends came together for us was really amazing.
• Also, I loved every moment I got to wear that awesome dress!
• Since we all stayed overnight onsite another favorite moment happened after the party wound down when we all went swimming in the pool in the wee hours. The groom, his high school buddy and our officiant performed an impromptu water ballet for us late night revelers. That type of ridiculousness made our wedding so effing much fun!

My offbeat advice: I know it's been said before, but decide what's important and prioritize! For me it was not having to cut the invite list and having all the people I love there, so I went for yummy, simple, inexpensive food and drinks. I also wanted my dream dress, so I had it custom made, but I bought budget jewelry on ebay and did my own hair and make-up. I had a beautiful bouquet made, but decorated each table simply with a single lily (bought in bulk)… you get the idea.

Most importantly though, it's your wedding – get as close to your dream as reality lets you! Wear what you want, say what you want, and do what you want, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Picture me holding up a cue card that says "Click now!"