The Offbeat Bride: Elli Bonner – Stylist
Her Offbeat Partner: Jason Bonner – musician
Location & date of wedding: Trinity Family Worship Center in Hampton, GA. It's a very mod church that used to be chicken house! — August 1st 2008
What made our wedding offbeat: To start, the two of us had more tattoos than all guests combined! [Editor's note: check out the bride's amazing back piece!] We really wanted our wedding to be "us", and we did everything we could to infuse the decor, music, and dress with our own twist.
Jason and his groomsmen arrived to the ceremony in choppers and hotrods.
We designed a set for our ceremony, to make it feel more like a rock concert than a wedding ceremony. Music was really important to us; I walked in to "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice, and we exited the ceremony to a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club song, "Ain't No Easy Way."
A 100% Italian friend from our church created an authentic Italian menu for our reception.
Because not everyone would be drinking at our wedding, our friends created minibars in the backs of their vintage hotrods in the parking lot!
Guitar picks were scattered on the tables as part of the decor.
After we exited in a 1975 Pontiac Catalina, we headed to our house for an after-party with dozens of friends — most of them crashed at our place afterward.
Our biggest challenge: We had to do a last-minute alteration when the junior bridesmaid's dress was misfitted. My friend created a corset-lace to cover the gap where we couldn't zip her dress all the way, and no one knew the difference!
My advice for other offbeat brides: We did almost everything ourselves, with help from friends and family. For that reason, we scheduled our ceremony for evening so we would have PLENTY of time to set up and get ready with no stress.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- Photographers: www.almasyphoto.com
- Hair: www.bobsteele.com
- Guy's Clothing and Accessories: various places, including Stefan's, French Connection, and Metro Park
- Girl's Accessories & Clothing: David's Bridal
- My choker from e-Bay
- Flowers: www.eagleslandingfloral.com
Enough talk — here's the wedding porn:
Click the photo below to bask in the all the shots!

















Comments on "Elli & Jason's Bad-ass Rock & Roll Inspired Wedding"
11 responses to this entry · Leave a comment · Comments feed (RSS 2.0)
Andrea
April 27th, 2009 · 7:57 AM · #
Awesome!
Sinh
April 27th, 2009 · 9:28 AM · #
oh my gods I love it!! Now if only I had the confidence to do it!
Bri
April 27th, 2009 · 10:46 AM · #
This is pretty much the visualization of everything I've planned for our wedding in Sept! How great to see it in action! GORGEOUS, guys! Congrats!
Wedding Skulls
April 27th, 2009 · 2:31 PM · #
Love it – totally rock n' roll! And Elli's back piece is gorgeous. I'm always in awe of the beautiful painted ladies we see on OBB.
Heather
April 27th, 2009 · 5:58 PM · #
Oh goodness!!! Where did you find those personalized guitar picks?!?!
Offbeat Intern
April 27th, 2009 · 6:03 PM · #
@Heather – Ha ha! I've already got the question out to her about the guitar pics. They were apparently a surprise from her MIL and she's going to try and find out where they came from for us!
desaray
April 27th, 2009 · 6:14 PM · #
a ponytail bride!
Mary Ann
April 27th, 2009 · 8:10 PM · #
OMG– SO CUTE! Love the guitar pick favors!
Chelsea
April 28th, 2009 · 12:10 PM · #
Wow – epic <3
Claire
April 28th, 2009 · 1:44 PM · #
OMG! I have GOT to get those guitar pick favours!!! What a brilliant idea!
Was going to have matchboxes but these kick ass!
chelsea
April 29th, 2009 · 9:21 PM · #
This is my favourite wedding on here, hands down. And your photographer is genius.