Kat & James' punk rock handfasting

Members of the OBT already know Kat — she's one of my beloved moderators! Here's the full story on her awesome Solistice wedding

The offbeat bride: Kat, bookseller and OBT moderator

Her offbeat partner: James, writer

Location & date of wedding: My dad & step-mum's house, Lantzville, BC. June 21, 2008, Summer Solstice

What made our wedding offbeat: We managed to pull off a spectacular wedding with a very limited budget and a lot of help from our families and friends. Our visibly offbeat elements included my red dress and glittery Betsey Johnson shoes, the men's Converse shoes and skull ties, my bridesmen, our Buffy & Angel cake topper and our Handfasting.

The real offbeat aspect was that the wedding was 100% a reflection of the two of us. Having a handfasting was really important to me, and my non-Wiccan husband was totally into it. Our ceremony was officiated by two women and I was walked down the aisle by both my parents, elements that reflected our feminist values.

Our biggest challenge: The major challenge during our wedding planning was our budget. Due to the writer's strike and an error at my husbands work he went without pay for about 9 months! This left us with an almost invisible budget. Thankfully our families stepped in and with some great connections, we managed to do it all for pretty cheap.

We borrowed most of our decorations and the rest we bought at clearance or using our 40% off coupons from Michaels! My step-mum had a connection to a caterer so we got fabulous food for $10 a person.

My favorite moment: My favorite part of the whole day was getting our photos taken before the ceremony. I have *HUGE* stage fright so it was really awesome to have some alone time with James before all the craziness of the day began. We met up at The China Steps in Nanaimo for the Big Reveal and James was so excited that he couldn't stop kissing me through the whole photoshoot.

Another memorable moment was when my husband-to-be showed up at the ceremony site in a stranger's car. It turned out that in all the chaos of the day he had forgotten to get gas and ran out on the highway on the way there! Luckily some guy picked him up because all of our wedding guests just drove by in a rush to get to the wedding!

My offbeat advice: Beg, borrow and scheme to get the wedding you want. We didn't let our lack of funds get in the way of having a kick-ass wedding. If you have friends or family members who offer their services — take them up on it. Don't feel like you're taking advantage of them, chances are they wouldn't offer if they didn't want to help you out.

My final words of wisdom: a wedding is not an excuse for renovations! We spent countless stressful weekends leading up to the wedding turning the yard from a trash heap into a fabulous garden.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Really, can you blame James for not being able to keep his lips of his bride? You must go check out all the photos by clicking the shot below: