Tina & Alex in T&A Productions' Celebration of Love, Friendship and Family

The Offbeat Bride: Tina, Anesthesiologist

Her Offbeat Partner: Alex, Editorial Photographer

Location & date of wedding: Tampa Garden Club, Tampa Florida — 11-01-08

What made our wedding offbeat: Our theme was "T&A Productions' Celebration of Love, Friendship and Family." We wanted the party to be a big "thank you" celebration for our friends and family.

The colors of the wedding were based on limited edition Manolo Blahniks I bought years before and never planned on wearing. The dress was designed by me and made by a local seamstress. All of the fabric was found online. The silk tartan sash was a "surprise" element for Alex.

We had BURMA shave signs welcoming the guests to the ceremony. We had flags created with our logo, which our flag bearers waved during the group shot. A marching band led the guests across the street. The kids at the ceremony introduced the band. The entrance to the reception hall was filled with poster size prints of our family. We choreographed a "story" rather than a dance to the song "Buona Sera." There was a children's room with pinball, skeeball and their own buffet. We created an "official" guidebook to the reception on blurb.com, filled with photos of the guests.

The tents at the end of the night were "flipped" to dessert tents — funnel cakes and crepes. We made the kids dance a choreographed dance to "earn" their dessert. Our giveaways consisted of a "cereal bar" and milk for breakfast and jewelry boxes filled with blank notecards displaying alex's photos.

And finally, I dedicated the night to my mom who passed away in 1994.

Our biggest challenge: For us, the biggest challenge was the invite list. We wanted to keep the guest list below 200. I work in a busy operating room and we both have large extended families, so it just wasn't feasible to invite everyone. Picking and choosing was especially difficult for me because of the possibility of hurt feelings (which inevitably happened).

When it came down to the "maybe" invites, Alex and I came up with the following criteria for those possible guests: Were they there for us during the rough and troubled times before and after we met each other? And, did they have positive energy?

It was tough but using those two criteria, but it helped us narrow down the list.

My favorite moment: Two moments for me:

Getting out of the car and starting up the walkway, realizing that all of our friends and family were there gathered to celebrate with Alex and me.

The marching band surprise and group photo on Bayshore Boulevard. After the ceremony, we didn't want the guests to wait around for photos so we thought "let's just take a big group photo with them." We needed an exciting and safe way to get them across Bayshore Boulevard, a four-lane major street.

So at the end of the ceremony we had three of our brothers bear flags with our wedding logo on them. We asked all the kids to come up front and we had them read out loud the following flashcards: "Welcome! This party is for you! We want a picture with you! So now let's follow the band!" On cue, a marching band appeared playing the theme from monty python, aka. "The Liberty Bell March."

Led by the three flag bearers, the guests proceeded to follow the marching band across the street for a scenic photo-op by the bay. Traffic was re-directed during the photo-op by local sheriffs. 

I got and still get the most comments from guests about that experience!

My advice for other brides: DEFINITELY DEFINITELY DEFINITELY HIRE A VIDEOGRAPHER! Our photographer had a "cinegraphic" video/photo combo, but I didn't realize until afterwards that there was no audio. After all the months of planning and dreaming and fantasizing, that is a major regret for me. Not having the video AND audio to capture the memories for us was especially painful since I spent so much time selecting music for key parts of the day.

IF YOU CAN, DEFINITELY HIRE A SECOND PHOTOGRAPHER! The detail and thought process that goes into each and everyone of our offbeat weddings can't possibly be captured completely by just one person.

THINK OF THE COMFORT OF YOUR GUESTS. We had been to a handful of weddings during the planning stages of our wedding and my memories of the events included such things as: being FREEZING under a tent and seriously thinking of leaving early; having NO SEATS available for two hours in high heels while the couple took photos; SWEATING PROFUSELY at an outdoor wedding with my heels sinking into MUD; STARVING while appetizers ran out; other guests continually asking "when are they going to cut the cake" because they wanted to leave… etc.

I knew from the start of planning our day that we wanted our guests to have plenty of seating, abundant food and comfortable atmosphere. We wanted entertainment for everyone — the wallflowers, the social butterflies, the children. We flooded their senses so that they wouldn't get bored at all.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• photographe & videographer: ryan joseph photography
• gown designer: tina delgado
• seamstress: magali maggiora
• shoes: limited edition manolo blahnik
• headpiece/veil: tigerlilly jewelry
• hair/makeup: colours by linny
• kilts: dunedin scottish
• party rentals/linens/lighting/flowers: showorks events
• catering: lauren balden
• ceremony music: string quintet & american spirit marching band
• reception music: the buzzcatz
• jewelry: green lake jewelry & simayof
• transportation: skyline limo
• invitations: rachel baker
• dance lessons: arthur murray tampa
• officiant: keni lee donaldson
• accommodations: tahitian inn
• photobooth: partybooths.com
• reception books: blurb.com

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!: