Jen & Grant's Duke blue wedding with skulls

You may remember, almost a year ago, when we featured OBT member Jen Han's pretty DIY skull projects. Well, here's the whole scoop on the entire wedding!

The offbeat bride: Jen, Microbiology graduate student (and OBT member "jen han")

Her offbeat partner: Grant, Chemistry graduate student

Location & date of wedding: The Hampshire House, Boston, MA — 07/10/09

What made our wedding offbeat: My fiance and I each picked one of our obsessions and made that the theme of our wedding. His obsession is Duke University Basketball and my obsession is skulls.

We enjoying deceiving people (in a good way!) so we wanted a wedding that, on the surface, looked really elegant and fun, but if you looked a little closer would give a little shock and show our personalities.

We went with a Duke blue color scheme and subtle skulls incorporated anywhere possible. Some of my favorite things were the clay skull pins I made and attached to every escort card, the secret Duke Basketball garter I had hidden under my dress, and our table names which featured our favorite adult cartoon couples.

Leela + Fry forever!

Our biggest challenge: Duke blue (cobalt) was difficult to work with. Our venue was a mahogany colored library and I was very nervous the Duke blue was going to contrast severely. My solution: just ignore the problem. The one thing that I think helped a lot was adding as many Duke blue decorations I could find so that the color didn't seem random and drowned out.

The color itself was not very popular among wedding decorations so I had to be creative. I was hoping to use pre-cut wedding invitations but they weren't offered in our color so I ended up buying card stock and making them myself.

My favorite moment: My favorite moment from our wedding was walking into the reception and noticing that EVERYONE put on the skull pin! I was so honored and thrilled. I thought for sure most of the family members would be too conservative, or just think it was a souvenir to take home, but every single person pinned it on and so they all looked a little offbeat.

My offbeat advice: I think the major piece of advice I would give to all offbeat brides is to never give up! Whatever you are imagining is possible in some way or another. You just have to think hard and exercise your creative muscle.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• Photographer: Heather Parker
• Dress (yes it had pockets!): J. Crew
• Bridesmaid dresses (with pockets): David's Bridal

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: