Stori & Tausha's "Gay 'ol Wedding & Celebration"
Posted by Offbeat Intern · Real offbeat weddings

The Offbeat Bride: Stori, Elementary School Counselor

My Offbeat Partner: Tausha, Peet's Coffee & Tea Assistant Manager

Location & date of wedding: Boundary Bay Brewery Beer Garden, Bellingham, WA — 10.11.2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We wanted an event that was inviting to everyone we loved (who didn't really know each other), and we really didn't want to waste money on things like table cloths, vases, candle holders, place holders, etc. So, with a two month time frame, we found everything we needed at garage and estate sales all over Portland. Even our officiant was gratefully recycled from good friends wedding, as well as our shoes, center pieces, decorations, some art auction pieces, hair piece, vow ideas, one bride's outfit, etc.

We definitely pulled it off, with a budget of my small credit card limit and some talented and gifted friends who helped bring everything together. We tried to reduce and recycle as much as possible. We used our flowers and ruined/distressed table cloths for our thank you notes, we used close friends for photos, food, desserts, and music.

I committed wedding dress blasphemy by cutting my Nicole Miller Dress down to tea length, adding a little tail feather piece and using the left over fabric to have an awesome seamstress, Lindsay Pantano of Magnolia Designs in Portland, create my Bride's vest.

Our biggest challenge: Money, distance and sick mama of a bride. We wanted to get married 300 miles from where we live, since it was where we met. This ended up causing us a lot of problems (lost flowers sent to Portland, when we were 300 miles away, in Bellingham. Thank goodness for Necole the Great, and the local Farmer's market), but it well worth it.

Tausha's mama was admitted to the hospital on the eve of the wedding, which was hard and disappointing. But since we didn't get a honeymoon, it was at least nice to get away from home for such an amazing event and then come home to a fairly clean house.

My favorite moment: We were going non stop 'til we got dressed. Once we were taking pictures with our amazing friend/photographer we calmed down a bit, but we were both on the verge of nervous, pre-game, vow vomiting. So the best moment was getting shots of booze (buttery nipples, of course) with our photo man, Joel Gaffney, while we waited for our playlist to summon us to walk down the isle.

During the ceremony -- smiles all around.

My other favorite moment was our vows. Both were so personal and intimate. Considering I am always the ultimate pessimist, it was the most amazing, positive experience of my whole little life, thanks to our supportive chosen family.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Go with the gut, people. What can you afford? What makes the event completely you? Even silly things, like making sure the cheesiest songs ever are included in your music, or making sure you have little gifts for the people who go above and beyond. Making sure you get to dance to your music, or making sure you get a rad Bloody Mary before the big ol' deal.

We lost a whole playlist because of time, so we made sure to find each other on the dance floor and get a little dirty dancing on with our peeps. It makes all the difference to feel all those little things. We can't stop re-living it all.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn (including some of the cutest "couple photos" I've ever seen):