Mandi & Neil's Castle, Cupcakes & Tequila Wedding
Posted by Offbeat Elves · Real Weddings: Global

The Offbeat Bride: Mandi, Marketing Manager

Her Offbeat Partner: Neil, Tabletop fantasy and futuristic battle-games retail assistant!

Location & date of wedding: Cooling Castle Barn, Kent, UK — 4 December 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We had a few ideas about what we wanted; normal for us — not so normal for others it seems We had a few setbacks during our year of planning, so we stripped right back to only the things we really, really wanted. We encountered a bit of resistance from people along the way but on the day, we had what looked like a very traditional wedding from the outside but a little bit different once they were all tarpped in the room with us!!

We designed and made all our invites, painted our red tealight holders and chose red and purple for our flowers (minimum flowers and tons of candles) and a red and black colour scheme overall. We gave candy canes, wooden Christmas decorations and chocolate coins to our guests as favours, and covered our tables with candles, roses, stars and hearts. I came down the aisle in my red dress, to Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters," complete with my stripy socks and sparkly red shoes!

At the reception we chose beautiful black and red cupcakes instead of a wedding cake, had our first dance to Everlong, by the Foo Fighters and then toasted our guests with a tequila slammer (they had a choice of pink champagne, tequila with us or sambuca — even our elderly aunts got into the spirit!) Our confetti shot was in the dark which made a very cool pic!

At the end of the night we had a snow machine just before we left which ended up a bit like an ibiza foam party

Our biggest challenge: Like every couple, we struggled with family wanting to be involved. People wanted to help but we knew if they did, we would meet trouble along the way with our choices. In the end, we picked a few little things that people could help with so that they would butt out and leave us alone with everything else! The choices were ours and ours alone.

My favorite moment: The beautiful words of the Metallica song that I entered the room to, the fact that my hubby wore his beautiful long hair down for the day, escaping for twenty minutes after the ceremony, our speeches and tequila moment and gazing into each others eyes as we danced (for the first time ever)!

My advice for other offbeat brides: Shop around. Ebay is great!

Offbeat Bride is great for ideas and visit the wedding websites — you will find loads of other couples wanting a day that is different from the norm. You would be surprised how many "traditional" brides have some way out and wacky ideas.

Get your dress made by a dress maker if you cant find what you want. Local dressmakers are often far cheaper than bridal boutiques.

And finally, check that your venue is okay with your offbeat ideas. Ours was slightly surprised (but fine in the end) about us not using their music and ordering 100 shots of tequila but they had rules against doing other things that we had wanted to do.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• Cakes: Crumbs and Doilies
• Dress: Psychomoda, Edinburgh
• Photos: Perceptive Photography

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!: