Khaki & Carl's tattoo infested wedding in the swamplands
Posted by Offbeat Intern · Real offbeat weddings

The Offbeat Bride: Khaki, photographer

Her Offbeat Partner: Carl, Musician

Location & date of wedding: The Inn at Middleton Place (plantation), Charleston, SC — 4/18/09

What made our wedding offbeat: We got married on a plantantion in Charleston, SC (The Inn at Middleton Place) on April 18, 2009… sounds traditional, I know. But, I wore a black wedding dress and the bridal party wore pin-up style pink dresses by Stop Staring.

Being a photographer, and my husband a musician, we knew we wanted to do things our own way and didn't want to follow all the traditional wedding customs. I don't think anyone was really shocked. It was a smaller wedding (80 people) and everyone knows us so well, and knew better than to expect something very traditional.

Our biggest challenge: The biggest challenge was planning a wedding out of town, and only visiting once. We live in Brooklyn, NY and the wedding was in Charleston so we had to be very specific and detailed with our instructions to the vendors and planners. Unfortunately we had to pick a lot of our vendors blindly, and in one instance it turned out to be quite a nightmare.

To make it short: We hired an event producer for our floral and furniture/decor. In the beginning (eight months prior… before they had our deposit), they seemed great! Then a couple months before my event there were issues that I didn't know existed.

Apparently, the woman assigned to our wedding was no longer working there and my file was totally unorganized. I had a hard time getting anyone to contact me and finally the owner did. She was so totally far from customer friendly. Apparently her employee underquoted us, and so she acted as if she was doing us a huge favor and even suggested I go elsewhere for my furniture almost one month before my wedding. We are still trying to get reimbursed for things that were not delivered.

My favorite memory: Singing and dancing to my favorite songs with my husband and all our friends!

My advice to other brides: Don't let wedding planners sway you into fitting their "wedding mold." Be sure and tell your photography specifically everything you want shot. Eat some food. Don't sweat the small stuff… nothing will be perfect (your fantasy is always much different than the reality, so be prepared for that). Relax… delegate jobs to your friends and bridesmaids.

If you're a control freak, this is your chance to stop being so crazy! Have fun!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• Dress: Morgan LaFey
• Save the Date Illustrations: Avi Spivak
• Photographer: Josh Reeder
• Cake: Lady Fingers Confections
• Venue: The Inn at Middleton

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!: