The offbeat bride: Maddie - Graphic Designer

Her offbeat partner: Tim - Hydrogeologist

Location & date of wedding: Wedding: New Farm Park, Brisbane, Australia Reception: New Farm Lawn Bowls Club (across the road). 8th October 2005

What made our wedding offbeat: My husband and I dreamed up every aspect of the day so that when we remember back, it may not have been everyone’s idea of perfect but it was everything we could have ever wanted it to be. With very little cash and a whole lot of skilled friends pitching in their skills, this green coloured wedding and accompanying reception ‘on the green’ was a whole lot of fun!

Our biggest challenge: Trying to include everyone. I think we ended up being able to involve all of our family by including our Mums in the ceremony, my sisters in the wedding party, my brother in the ceremony - who ended up giving a GREAT reading and our Dads in the reception with some awesome (and teary) speeches. It was a lot of hard work but in the end, it meant everyone felt a part of the day (I hope!)

My favorite moment: I sang a song unaccompanied to my husband at the reception. Noone knew I was going to do it (in fact, not many people knew I could even sing!) so it was a BIG surprise to everyone but especially my husband. His expression and our kiss will stay with me forever! Plus it gave a new meaning to our ‘wedding song’!

My offbeat advice: Plan for uncertain weather - weather is one thing you can’t control! I had thought it would rain (it actually turned out to be a scorcher!) so in fair weather, we planned for the wedding to be in an outdoor rose arbour and in ‘unfair weather’, we booked the undercover bandstand just in case. Luckily we didn’t need to use it - it was a little too structured for our liking.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: To see more of this green-themed wedding (and the bride’s amazing necklace!) click the photo below: