Monica & Tony's historic village garden & carousel wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Monica, Market Information Administrator (and OBT member "Monk")

Her Offbeat Partner: Tony, Night Auditor

Location & date of wedding: Faust Park, Chesterfield MO, the historic village garden & carousel — 8/30/08

What made our wedding offbeat: We made decisions based on what we wanted to do rather than what we were supposed to do, which in this day is a total bucking of tradition! Based on that idea, every aspect of our wedding was carefully thought out.

The most obvious offbeat aspect of our wedding was that the reception was held in a historic carousel, but there were a lot of little ways the day was a reflection of ourselves. If we didn't want it we didn't do it. So no dollar dance, flower girl, garter toss, etc. We created our own ceremony by looking at five or six different ones, cutting out the stuff we liked and putting it together. I switched to Chucks for the less formal parts of the day. We had a small parade to the reception lead by a guitarist playing The Darkness' "Do You Believe In A Thing Called Love".

Our biggest challenge: Finding a middle ground that our families would be comfortable in. The groom's family was more familiar with simple ceremonies while the bride's family was more familiar with big celebrations. Although finding a middle ground seemed to make sense, we ended up getting criticism from both sides. Because everyone had an idea of what the wedding is "supposed to be," we had some difficulty along the way. But by reminding family and friends that they only thing we must do is get married, making a few compromises, and by using examples of different kinds of weddings (many from Offbeat Bride), we were able to refrain from losing our minds.

My favorite moment: The day was such a whirlwind that there isn't one event that sticks out from the day of the wedding. However, the next morning I woke up early with a stomach ache and went downstairs so as to not wake the new hubby (we stayed in a penthouse with an upstairs and downstairs bedroom) and got in bed and started watching tv and eating snacks in bed. Tony soon woke up and joined me and we opened cards and gifts in bed and shared memories with each other about the wedding day. We laughed a lot and it was way fun opening gifts together, just the two of us.

My advice to other offbeat brides: Be prepared to make compromises. But it helps to have examples from other people's wedding to support your idea. My mom was against a cupcake wedding cake until I pulled up examples from Martha Stewart online. After that I never heard a peep about it. Oh, and definitely share offbeat wedding porn with friends and family! The more familiar they are with weddings outside the norm the more open they will be to yours.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?: The dress was from David's Bridal but my mom attached the ribbon herself.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: