The fallacy of offbeat trends
Reader Mail, Wedding trends
By
on December 10, 2008
61
I'm confused by the "trends" that have been emerging with Offbeat Bride. To me, it feels like the concept behind the book and the site are supposed to be "Offbeat = Personally Expressive," but lately it's been more of "Offbeat = Red Dress, Birdcage Veil, & Sneakers."
The message seems like it's getting lost. Instead of people getting swept up in mainstream insanity and wedding ideals, they're doing the exact same thing with the "Offbeat Wedding," like they're trying to fit into the trends. -Anonymous
Hoo-boy! This is something I think about a LOT actually, and it's way bigger than offbeat bride and wedding trends, although that's a part of it. Please, allow me to put on my sociologist hat and pontificate for a moment ...
Subcultures can often fall victim to their own uniforms. When I first started going to raves, I clearly remember my first moment of looking around and thinking "Everyone looks so different ... in the exact same way!" At the time I thought it was awesome, like a badge so that you could recognize your peers on the street thanks to their phat pants and baby-doll tees.
But as I've gotten older, it's something that's worried me more and more about my beloved subcultures. The first year I went to Burning Man (1999) it was this fabulous chaos of survivalists and club kids, anarchists and gun freaks, aging hippies and SF dot com yuppies. By the last year I went (2003) I was starting to recognize what one friend termed "the Burniform." The fake dreads, the big boots, the guyliner. The Burniform has since evolved, but there's still a lot of uniformity considering it's an event dedicated to radical self-expression.
The same thing happened with hula hoopers, another one of my favorite little subcultures. Within a few years of hooping increasing in popularity, it went from this goofy thing that we did in the park with friends to hearing people say things like, "Oh, I'm not really into hula hooping — I look terrible in booty shorts and fuzzy legwarmers!" I kept trying to tell people, "No no no — hula hooping is fun for everyone! Not just hot chicks in short shorts!" Suddenly, it wasn't fun for everyone ... many everyones seemed to feel like they didn't get to be in on the fun.
This is all to say, dear anonymous, you're not the first to notice (and be a little concerned by) the distinct Offbeat Bride trends. I mean, that's why I was able to recognizably dress up as an Offbeat Bride for Halloween, right?
Some of this is just larger wedding trends: birdcage veils are popular in weddings all over the place. Offbeat Brides don't exist in a complete vacuum, and some things (like cupcakes, converse, and bikes) show up in the context of Martha Stewart weddings. Which certainly does NOT mean there's anything wrong with them — it just means that some trends are much larger than Offbeat Bride.
Some of it too is just the nature of things when you have a community sharing ideas and being inspired by each other. With any cultural niche, there's bound to be some micro-conformity — especially if part of your subculture revolves around defining yourself in reaction to dominant cultural influences (ie, Wedding Industrial Complex). When you're pushing against some larger institution, people seem to need more of a visual reassurance that even though they're weird, they're weird together. Hence, trends popping up in the offbeat wedding world. It's sort of a visual badge: "We might be strange, but at least amongst each other we feel safe."
That said, some of this is definitely my fault: my red wedding dress obsession probably got the best of me, and despite my own hippie/raver/burner leanings, a lot of offbeatbride.com readers (and therefore photo and wedding submissions) seem to fall towards the rockabilly, goth, and punk side of the spectrum. I totally recognize that those aesthetics aren't everyone's scene, and I'll step up my efforts to bubble up more weddings the likes of which you've never seen before.
The last thing I want to do is inadvertently enforce some sort of offbeat cultural homogeneity.
Because you're right, dear anonymous reader: Offbeat Bride is about encouraging everyone to find their own personal expression, and the LAST thing I want to do is inadvertently enforce some sort of offbeat cultural homogeneity.
So while I love that we're all inspired and learning from each other, I encourage each you to see through the styles and gowns and decor and find inspiration in each other's spirits and creativity.
This might mean pausing for a second when your first reflex is to blurt "WHERE'D YOU GET THAT BAD-ASS DRESS!?" and instead consider asking, "Where'd you get that bad-ass attitude?" Because inevitably, that's the more interesting story.
...Because there's more to learn from each other than just how to dress and throw a party.
... And because I truly and genuinely believe that the best offbeat communities can share attitudes and enthusiasm and inspiration without having to wear any sort of offbeat uniform.
About Ariel Meadow Stallings
Author of Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, Ariel acts as the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire websites. She lives, loves, and dorks out hard in Seattle, WA.
Roxie said
I think that the very vast diversity of Offbeat Brides is much more apparent in the OBTribe. On any give day you can see photos and hear stories from weddings ranging from fairly normal but with a red dress, to hippies barefoot in the woods, to a halloween costume extravaganza, quiet courthouse ceremony with with a small restaurant dinner and more. Of course, Ariel and the Mods can only showcase a small number of these, so I think unless you are part of the Tribe, the diversity of what is offbeat might get lost.
Marquesa Jen said
Hear hear! Well said!
Cassie said
I love this post. And I feel kind of guilty admitting that when spending time on OBTribe, I've had thoughts ranging from "I guess EVERYONE is doing peacock feathers?" to "Wow, sure are a lot of strapless sparkly dresses from David's Bridal, and weddings with all the traditional trimmings…how is this all offbeat, exactly?"
I think it also goes back to the advice that your wedding is not a competition. We shouldn't be worried about trying to increase the offbeat factor by changing from a red to purple dress if red is truly our fave, and we ALSO shouldn't forgo the Converses under the dress if that fits our personality perfectly, just to move away from the "trends" in offbeat brides.
The most awesome advice I am taking from this post is:
"This might mean pausing for a second when your first reflex is to blurt “WHERE’D YOU GET THAT BAD-ASS DRESS!?†and instead consider asking, “Where’d you get that bad-ass attitude?†Because inevitably, that’s the more interesting story.
…Because there’s more to learn from each other than just how to dress and throw a party. "
Miss_Moppet said
Who is to say whether or not "personal expression" can't include a choice to be part of a sub-cultural (or cultural) tradition? Going against the grain for the sake of doing so seems as silly as going with it because everyone does.
As someone who doesn't feel terribly creative, I'm not one to necessarily upset traditions with my wild, visionary ideas. Instead I know that a traditional wedding didn't feel right and seeing the other people who are more visionary, lets me broaden my horizons. In every culture there will be the creators and instigators and then there will be people like me, cobbling together a lot of different ideas and putting them together in a way that pleases me. Even if it's been done before.
The difference between OBB and these larger cultural traditions is that (IMHO) there isn't a lot of heavy pressure to wear red (or blue, or prom dresses or sneakers). You are seeing people who do these things but it's without the social pressure.
I hope this made sense. I re-wrote it until I couldn't tell anymore.
Sara said
I love your sociologist hat, Ariel.
I thought this issue was addressed indirectly (but happily) in the post from a week or so ago about the backpacking wilderness wedding. I was happy to see that as an example of a totally mellow, personal, straightforward offbeat wedding – just as offbeat as the theatrical, technicolor, kick-trash weddings we've seen in other posts.
No wedding is better than another, I say! (Well … I've been to some lame ones, true, but I desist.) Everyone's just as married at the end of the day.
Sarah said
I started reading this blog, ironically, at a time in my life that was spearheaded by newly-found singledom. While I'm still nowhere close to exchanging vows, I still love reading this blog because I see weddings as an outlet for couples to express their creativity. This blog has given me SO many ideas for things to do if I ever do get married. To be honest I would much rather see 5 or 10 brides in red dresses than 89435787524895 brides in the same white dress. My Facebook feed is full of people getting married, and I can't help but notice how they all look the same. Even if there is an "offbeat bride uniform" it's nowhere near as cliche as the Standard American White Wedding.
Monica said
So funny you posted this today because I submitted our wedding for offbeat porn earlier today but was hesitant to do so because I wondered if it was "offbeat enough". I then remembered that weddings aren't a competitive sport. I think you're doing a great job and I love seeing *variety* in wedding porn. I think there are plenty of offbeat brides who are doing some similar things because they rock (cupcakes FTW!) but are also doing their own thing. But, I hope, and I think they are, doing it because they WANT to, not because as an offbeat bride they are obligated to be offbeat.
Monica said
Er, as an offbeat bride they are not obligated to do anything (including being offbeat?).
Cassandra said
I went through the phase of wondering if I was "offbeat enough", but then reminded myself that my dress may be ivory, but if my wedding was traditional, people wouldn't always be saying,"Oh, that's different, isn't it?" I realized that I didn't need to have a red, or green or any other colored dress in order to learn from OBB, because all that mattered is that we had a wedding that was a reflection of us, and not a reflection of what was expected of us. I think the diversity of the offbeat bride definitely comes through better on the Tribe, where there is a whole spectrum of offbeatness. However, the variety in the bride profiles shows that quite well. Keep it up!
beth maher said
I've been thinking about this recently – for example: A couple years ago converses worn by the wedding party would have weird, but neat to see. A year later that has become a huge trend, and it's kinda par for the course and boring all of a sudden.
I understand that these things happen in our modern day society, especially with the internet involved, but it just worries me a little that I'll come up with some great, really expressive, really personal ideas for my wedding, and within a few months people will be ripping it off, and a year later it will be in Martha, and a few months after that every vendor from here to eternity will be offering it for a steep markup.
It kinda saddens me that an expression of me and my boys own personal love could be exploited and commercialized.
But I guess the only way to avoid that entirely would be to elope. Or at least keep the pictures off the internet.
I definitely agree with your sentiment, Arial. I want a unique an creative wedding because I am unique and creative. When we look at an offbeat wedding we should see more than cute ideas and outfits – we should look to the uniqueness of the individuals who created it in the first place.
Sezzy said
Lots of food for thought here. (I'm going to be a bit long-winded.)
I feel like "being offbeat" is being free to express who you are. For me, that means taffeta. And colored crinoline. And a choreographed waltz. But you'd better believe that I'll be joining the tribe as soon as the ink is dry on my invitations.
I battled a lot with this same issue when I was in college. I'm an English teacher, so that meant that I was a bit of a bystander of the English major crowd. I didn't wear organic clothes, I've never considered being a vegetarian, and clove cigarettes make me cough. For a few semesters I felt out of place, as if I wasn't original enough or bohemian enough or whatever enough to belong. Then I realized, it was about the literature, not my wardrobe and my unique perspective.
It's about the joining of you and your partner. I tell my students all the time- it's not just the words, it's what you bring to them. OBT brides and all of you too, you bring it.
Sara said
I have to say the same thing as others have posted, I put up just a few of my wedding pictures in the flickr pool and was hesitant at that. My wedding was quite traditional to the outside eye but believe me, to my family it was STRANGE. Without OBB and the tribe I don't know if I would have gone through with the Civil ceremony and the black bridesmaids dresses and the gold wedding dress and the little skull details even though these aren't wildly offbeat. There were a number of "black dresses? it is going to look like a funeral" comments. What I am trying to say is that I am a bit miffed at anyone saying that the point of OBB is to do "Your own thing" and that better not be another person's thing.
Sharla said
I don't think you've encouraged ANY type of homogeneity. If there are trends on OBB, is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't see any discussions apologizing for not conforming to ANY trend–offbeat or WIC. I see white dresses as well as black, blue, green and purple; I see flowers and decorations and desserts from every corner of the imagination; I see shoes from sky high heels to flip flops. So the red dress/birdcage/sneakers may be a great combo that appeals to many, I really doubt that any of the OBBs are ditching what they personally wanted in order to fit in with the OBB crowd.
Christa said
I had the same issue as anonymous. I started using OBBT more and reading OBB blog less. It's not that I don't love red dresses and bird cage veils, but I wanted to see more. My friends and I have a running joke on whether it was going to be a red dress, a mini top hat, a heavily tattooed bride, or pin up hair featured next.
Kate said
"Offbeat Bride is about encouraging everyone to find their own personal expression[...]"
Thanks for the awesome post. One area I've noticed this personally in is wedding budgets, and it's been weighing on me for a while. Spending $20K+ does not equal unnecessary opulence, and I've noticed a lot of hostility towards the idea of spending more than $X. Our wedding is more traditional than most of the weddings on here, but I joined OBT because I liked how people put THEMSELVES in their wedding, no matter what they felt passionate about. For us, the perfect location came with a hefty price tag, as did the great caterer who is doing our food. But we're doing that because we want to, not because Plantinum Weddings tells me I have to. I didn't think being "offbeat" meant you have to spend under a certain amount of money (although I've most certainly seen some great inexpensive weddings).
pepperedmoth said
I'm over on the OBBT too, and I had the same issue as anonymous and Christa!
I'm not punk or goth or rockabilly, and I'm also not wearing a big white dress and walking down the aisle. I've stopped reading hanging out at the OBBT as much, and until recently I'd TOTALLY stopped reading the blog.
I'm glad you're going to step up the diversity, though! That makes me happy.
Rebecca said
Offbeat Bride has encouraged me on so many levels, coming as I do from a family of neo-Puritans. I believe Ariel has done a superb job of highlighting beautiful, unique weddings, and, more importantly, the people who made them. Trends are trends, and people will end up wearing similar things, but who cares? As long as it makes you happy, and it's an expression of what makes you tick, it doesn't really matter if someone else wears or trends it.
Maddie said
I love this post, Ariel! I admit I've also had my worries about my pseudo-offbeat wedding/party/glorified ho-down.
I agree with all the other comments and also wanted to add this (from my Communications undergraduate degree): The medium is the message. The problem with trying to embody offbeat weddings within the scope of a blog is that unfortunately blogs are visual media. I agree wholeheartedly with Ariel that reading the book is a completely different experience. Since blogland is a visual culture it's only natural that what ends up happening is content progresses toward brighter, more saturated weddings that are easily identified as offbeat by their visual markers.
It'll be hard for me to express visually the off-beat wonder that is going to be the "group hug" we make our guests do. It's just not going to translate well in a picture. But that is where a thousand words is actually much better than a picture. And Ariel's book actually supplements her blog very well. They are not carbon copies of the other. I'm glad I found the site AFTER the book because having read the book, absorbing the advice, I really felt like I wanted to see OBBs in action.
So I think the moral of this overly long post is that so many of us (the blogs included, and not just Ariel, but all of the wedding blogs) is we end up feeling like "OMG THE PICTURES!" and a lot of the time we forget about "OMG do you remember when…"
The other moral of the story is go buy Ariel's book.
*This commenter is not a paid sponsor of OBB the book or any other Ariel Meadow Stallings products.
Ashley said
I think people should think twice before they start to insult an trend. It's kind of hurtful to people who may be doing that. Like…maybe someone who wanted Chuck Taylor's might now feel like it was lame, because it's "played out" or "boring".
OBB & The Tribe are places where we get to pick whatever we want, not for the level of trendy it is, but because we just like it.
Plus, when you look at a persons super hot wedding porn, it's kind of hard to NOT SAY omg, I want that too. Because before we came here who had ever even SEEN a red dressed birdcaged veiled bride?
Alexzandra said
I think that a unique wedding is based on the couple. I have seen weddings on this website that I think are so "normal" and "uninteresting," but others I am envious of.
A wedding is truly unique when it reflects the couples personality, although I wore a big white dress and my husband wore a tux, it was because we wanted to be us in a more fanciful way. IDK, I just think that the site has focused less on individualism lately.
Lily said
I've been in the same boat as anonymous. There are a ton of amazing girls planning amazing weddings, but at some point they all just started running together for me. The blog post have also started running together to me. For a while I felt that the site basically fell into three types of posts: Punk/rockabilly wedding porn mixed in with vegetarian green wedding profiles, and sponsored vendor posts for photographers that would have charged 1/3 of our total budget.
I'm really happy that you are evaluating this Ariel! I love your writing, and even married girls want a reason to keep checking in
.
Offbeat Intern said
As someone who often chooses what brides to profile, and sees all the profiles submitted for choosing, I have to say one of the issues with diversity is not in what we post but in the choice of content submitted. This community attracts people who like similar things, to a great degree. Therefore, the profiles submitted tend to be along those lines. If you want more diversity ladies… give us more diverse content!
Devin said
If people reading OBB/OBT are upset that brides on there all seem to be the same [ie, red dress/birdcage/etc..] – don't get pouty and leave looking for more "diversity". BE THAT DIVERSE BRIDE. We read OBB and blog on OBT because of that reason – there are women/men like us who want the same things for their weddings and we can find support there when society/friends/our families just don't understand. But these same amazing people will love you if you want your ringbearer to be your llama, if you want the big poofy white dress, or if you think birdcage veils are dumb. Yes, there are trends in Offbeat Weddings, but does that make it wrong? No. My wedding is offbeat to my family because I don't want punch and sandwiches cut into triangles. I just want different foods than the normal tradition of weddings. and I get support about dealing with that from my girls on Offbeat Bride Tribe. Don't knock us down, join us and make us better. Give your ideas that aren't the offbeat trend of the month. Sitting around and bitching doesn't help the situation any.
It's like these people are saying – now the offbeat are not offbeat enough? Apparently our weddings are a contest now.
rodrigues said
Wow, a lot of negative comments came out of this post!
I grew up sort of floating around different social groups- the punk kids, the girls that could be referred to as the "plastics", the band kids, ravers, goth, hillbilly, latin, black, etc. I was both bothered and envious at an early age at the sort of uniformity of these groups. Bothered because, as someone who never appeared outwardly to belong to any of these groups, I was sort of treated like I could not possibly be a part of them, and envious because, at that age, it seems so comforting to have a "crowd". I know my wedding, as others on here have said, probably looks super boring from the outside. I'm getting married in a Catholic church, for crying out loud. (I was going to say "for Christ's sake but that may have confused my meaning.) But like many others on OBT, every day I hear something along the lines of "you're not doing that at your wedding? But you have to!" And, to keep being a chorus, there are probably things that, if I didn't have OBT as a reference point of other people who successfully fit their weddings to their wishes, I would have already caved on a few really big ones.
My wedding might be "so normal and uninteresting" to people who are getting married on a dogsled on the Iditarod or having a witch doctor perform their vows underwater, but at least on OBT, and I would hope in the world of non-traditional weddings at large, we can happily have a sounding block of people who are supportive of people having the wedding they want, keeping it to themselves if its not the wedding they'd want for themselves. I wouldn't wear a red dress or have my guests dress up in costumes at my wedding, and I wouldn't go 100% traditional either, but what does it bother me if that is what someone else does, and shares the details? We, as a couple, are making choices in planning this thing that will make it 100% ours… we are certainly not here to impress offbeat people of the future or wrack our brains for the most outstandingly different thing we could do just for the sake of doing it or shock value.
Heather said
Ariel, I don't think you have anything to apologize for. I see a wide variety of people and their weddings showcased on this site. Also, in case I'm horribly mistaken, these real weddings are submitted to you… you're not fabricating weddings on a soundstage in the desert and then uploading the photos to your blog in order to create some "standard" we're supposed to conform to.
People who think Offbeat Bride isn't weird or unique enough need to stop taking themselves so damn seriously!