Sandy's colorful, crafty, hip-but-won't-scare-grandma wedding

Well, that didn't take long! As seen on OBB yesterday, here's the full scoop on Sandy's colorful wedding and her Christmas ornament bouquet.

The offbeat bride: Sandy - high school secretary/craft maniac

Her offbeat partner: Josh - middle school social studies teacher/musician

Location & date of wedding: 3/15/08 at Butler's Courtyard in League City, TX

What made our wedding offbeat: We wanted the wedding to reflect us as a couple and be memorable, but we also didn't want to alienate any family members or make them feel uncomfortable along the way. We wanted to express ourselves while still making everyone feel welcome. We chose a rather traditional venue, but it still had enough character and history (we both majored in history) to make us fall in love with it. Also, the owners seemed to really be on board with any and all ideas we had, so that made it excellent.

The color scheme came about through my sheer indecision. I couldn't decide on one theme or one color combo that I wouldn't get bored with - I kept picturing ridiculous moments of breakdown over "OMG this is daffodil yellow, not lemon yellow!!!" and figured I didn't want to start hating yellow. Also, I have a theory that every color goes with every color in some way, so why not just put them all together?
Same thing with my gals' dresses and the different styles... Are they naked? No. Are they comfortable? Yes. Do the colors look rad together? Yes. Sweet.

I never really loved the idea of real flowers (especially for the bride's bouquet). It just didn't seem like an area we wanted to put a lot of money into, so I thought crazy paper flowers were the way to go. I wanted something sleeker for myself and got the bright idea to use Christmas ornaments. I kept the 93 flowers afterwards and I'm currently working on making them into a huge piece of wall art for the living room.

Josh actually composed the instrumental song I walked down the aisle to. That was incredibly meaningful for both of us and made me cry like a baby while walking out. We were also very into the creation of the reception playlist and made sure it had all our favorite happy, danceable songs. It included everything from The Smiths to Rick Astley to The Zombies. We also downloaded string versions of some of our favorite songs to be played before the ceremony as guests came in. Those who recognized the song loved it! Those who didn't never knew the difference... ha!

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was trying to block out all the outside opinions and to trust that we'd know when to compromise and when to stand our ground.

My parents paid for the whole thing, so we were somewhat bound to their desires. However, it was very hard to ignore things like, "Josh is writing the song?? But people EXPECT you to walk in to 'Here Comes the Bride!' It's not a wedding if you don't!" and "You want a purple dress?? But people EXPECT a bride to wear a wedding dress! It's not a wedding if you don't wear a wedding dress!"

Incidentally, I (obviously) caved on the white dress thing. And, although I dig my dress, I always wonder if I'd have been happier in purple.

...I'm glad we didn't cave on the song.

My favorite moment: Josh and his fellas did an impromptu "Young Guns"-style lip synch/skit/mime to Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory." It was hysterical and we're dying to see the video! The pictures are excellent, though.

My offbeat advice: Try to keep as much of the offbeatness to yourselves as possible. We eventually found that if you remain tight-lipped, it's easier to ignore their suggestions. They'll love the end result. I promise!

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: You must, must MUST go spend some time with these 650 photos. You must check out the Martha Stewart pom-poms, the bride's sparkly blue shoes, the colorful cake, and of course the bride and groom's special buttons:

PS: If you're looking for even more info about Sandy's wedding, head on over to LiveJournal.