Leslie & Emory's Los Angeles Natural History Museum Wedding
Posted by Offbeat Elves · Real Weddings: Western US

Okay! We got the full scoop on the Natural History Museum wedding that Ariel first introduced you to back in March! Read it and learn…

The Offbeat Bride: Leslie, sculptor of little monsters and OBT member "LPage"

Her Offbeat Partner: Emory, clerk-typist for The Man

Location & date of wedding: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County — 3/21/09

What made our wedding offbeat: The museum means a lot to us as a couple, so having the wedding there was the most defining element for us. We designed little dinosaurs for the invites and used them on the cootie-catcher programs as well.

The ceremony from the POV of a T-Rex.

We decided early on to avoid a religious ceremony and build our own from the ground up. With the help of our friend Paul, who got certified by the state and officiated for us, we came up with a ceremony that involved readings from children's books, our special song ("Safe Home," by Anthrax) performed by our friends' folk duet during the ring warming ceremony. And a coin toss to determine who would read their vows first.

At the reception, we set up the game Rock Band instead of dancing, and I made some special Beastlies for the top of our cakes!

Our biggest challenge: I don't remember very many big challenges.

Some seriously creative guests contributed to their seriously creative guest book.

I can only think of small challenges, like when our first caterer dropped out, or when we found out we'd have to transport the cakes ourselves, in coolers full of ice (Buttercream frosting apparently doesn't handle warm weather gracefully), or when things ended up costing more than we had planned.

This is how I dealt with pretty much everything: I imagined the absolute worst that would happen if the particular thing I was planning completely exploded. Like if the cakes melted into goo, or the programs didn't get folded in time, or something we had our hearts set on was way too expensive to buy. And for just about every scenario, it would have been okay. We still would have had a good time. Knowing that helped me relax.

The bride & groom playing Rock Band at their reception.

My favorite moment: Emory's favorite moment was when our friends performed our song during the ceremony. That was pretty special to me too, but I think my very favorite was when, as soon as the ceremony ended, we ran off into the North American Mammal Hall to have a few moments alone. It was just a couple minutes of quiet to hold hands, talk, and look at the animals like we did when we used to come to the museum years ago.

My advice for other offbeat brides: I learned that there's something to be said for sticking to what's important to you WITHOUT being stubborn. Let your awesome ideas evolve. About half of the stuff I came up with at first wouldn't have worked very well, and my initial instinct was to hold fast to every single idea. I think it's because when you're following your own little offbeat path, and you get people doubting all the nontraditional stuff, it's easy to start defending everything equally (regardless of actual merit). You may have to let a few schemes go. But you'll probably think of even better stuff later.

Also, I can't gush enough about how using mostly aritst friends-of-friends, Etsy, and other individual craftspeople for vendors worked out wonderfully for us.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

The bride-made "beastie" cake topper.

• My dress and the flower in my hair are from the fantastic Chrissy Wai-Ching
• The cootie-catchers were printed by Kats Krafts on Etsy
• The cake toppers were made by me
• And the photography was done by Serena, who is not only an amazing vendor but an Offbeat Bride as well (Her wedding is in November, and it sounds awesome)!

(If anyone wants to know where I got anything else, I'd be happy to share)

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!: