Megan & Aaron's shark-tastic beach wedding
Posted by Megan · Real Weddings: Western US

A few weeks ago, I put the call out for a new intern to help me keep the Offbeat Empire running smoothly. I was flooded with applications from people who are all so awesome that I wanted to have them all over for drinks, but ultimately I could only pick one … and so I picked Megan. Those of you on the OBT may know her, but I figured the best way to introduce her to the rest of the world was with … well, her bride profile!

The offbeat bride: Megan, photographer

Her offbeat partner: Aaron, sound engineer

Location & date of wedding: Keawakapu Beach, Maui, HI – 10/10/08

What made our wedding offbeat: Well, it all started because of a shark attack. We got engaged after Aaron was almost eaten!

We decided to celebrate the "attackiversary" by getting married on the same island where Aaron was almost killed a year later. Our wedding became more of a 3-day long celebration of life than a wedding.

a soaking wet aaron coming in on the canoe

The groom, Aaron, made a grand entrance by coming into the beach wedding site on a canoe that was being rowed by our friend's rowing team. We had 12 conch shell blowers who also sang for us in Hawaiian. We were married by a local Hawaiian man who added chants and the Hawaiian language into our ceremony. All our guests gathered around us in a circle as we got married instead of sitting on chairs. I had a "man of honor." And we also had a "shark ceremony" after we exchanged our vows to thank the shark for letting us have Aaron and for leading us to this day.

during the ceremony, surrounded by friends, family & conch shell blowers

My DIY cupcake stand!

At the reception we made sure there was no extra crap that was going to bore our guests. We focused on eating and drinking and dancing, rather than speech making & wedding party introductions. We used a polaroid guest book which people had a lot of fun with. I bought huge pieces of fake coral and spray painted them bright orange to use as our centerpieces, instead of wasting money on expensive flowers. We asked a local mom to bake cupcakes for us a couple days before the wedding and they were the BEST cupcakes I've ever tasted.

For our first dance we did something I'd never heard of before — Aaron surprised me by choosing the song (We Dance by Pavement) and I didn't get to know what song it would be until we were standing there together. It was super romantic and made me cry, it also was a very unusual song choice which embarrassed my parents. And "man of honor" played a song on a ukulele for his speech.

The "Shark Fin Soap" wedding favors

Our wedding favors were "shark fin soaps" — the purchase of said soaps gave money to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to help in the fight against shark finning. And we also gave out cool buttons — white "Shark Angel" ones for the girls and black "Sea Shepherd" ones for the boys.

We're just a couple of nerds who love Maui and hate making "big deals" out of things. So our wedding was as laid back as possible and everyone had an amazing time.

the wedding party complete with "man of honor" & funky plaid shorts

Our biggest challenge: Getting my mom to accept that we don't have to things "just because that's the way things are done."

The orange coral invitation.

It started when I told her I wouldn't be carrying a bouquet, which blew her mind. Then she wouldn't speak to me for a week when the invites weren't addressed to "Mr & Mrs Man's First & Last Name." She kept begging me to not have a guy as a bridesmaid up till the ceremony. My mom & I got into fight after fight because we wanted to have a wedding that wasn't a huge traditional structured presentation and that's just not "how things are done" in my mom's fancy social scene. It was the only stressful part of a wedding that would have been otherwise completely stress free!

I solved this problem by compromising where I could and then not backing down when we couldn't compromise. For example, when I wrote the wording on the invitations without including all the formal crap she got really upset. But there was no way in HELL that Aaron and I would ever "cordially invite" anyone to anything, plus filling up the invites with my parents full names and his parents full names was going to give people the wrong impression of this laid back, hippy wedding. So I compromised with her by letting the RSVPs be sent to "Mr & Mrs Dad's Entire Name III" and that offered just enough stuffy tradition to make her happy.

signing our marriage certificate on a plastic bin

My favorite moment: My favorite part was signing our marriage certificate. Our officiant actually forgot about it and left and then came back & stopped us as we were going to our reception venue. So we plopped down in the grass where we stood to sign the certificate. My cousin happened to be walking by so we flagged her down and she became a witness and when we needed one more witness we used our photographer!

It was such a silly last-minute cluster-f*** over something that's supposed to be so structured and it was exactly how our life is.

the last dance at the end of the night

My advice for other offbeat brides: Never take yourselves too seriously. The moment you start taking things too seriously you stop having fun with it. I know that marriage is a serious thing and all, but you've probably already thought about/discussed/stressed over all that serious crap before and after you got engaged. Have fun with the wedding! It is really just a big party that you're throwing for yourselves.

I went into planning this wedding knowing that I wanted it to be as laid-back and fun as possible. When things started to not work out the way I thought it should I adopted the mantra of "eh, whatever." And reminded myself that as long as on our wedding day Aaron and I are there with an officiant and we end up married, then things turned out perfect!

Some of our vendors: It was super important for us to try and buy local as much as possible in order to support the island economy…

• Hair & Make-up — Raina Antle, she's amazing, she usually does rock stars and famous people for magazines, but she's a friend of mine so she hooked me up!
• The invites — Bella by Karah, I can't gush enough about Karah, the designer. She single handedly restored my faith in wedding vendors with her prices and her amazing attitude. Plus he can custom design anything for you!
• Photographer — Benja Iglesis
• Reception — Five Palms Beach Grill
• Cupcakes — You know, they were made by a local mom, she doesn't have a business, so email me for her info.
• Leis — www.mauishoppingnetwork.com
• The dress! — Tamara Catz, an incredible local Maui designer.

Enough talk — here's my wedding porn:

oh, and bonus points if anyone can identify what famous indie rock band the best man plays drums for!!!