Alba Margarita & Jorge's red & black, Puerto Rico weding

The Offbeat Bride: Alba Margarita, graduate student and profesional procrastinator (and OBT member)

Her Offbeat Partner: Jorge, PC repair technician

Location & date of wedding: Casa Diego, Cupey Alto, Puerto Rico — December 21st, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Being a rebel and all, I decided that I did not want a big cheesy fuss for my wedding, nor did I want a musty traditional one. I did several things that are almost unheard of here in traditional Puerto Rico…

Check out little bro's kicks!

I wore a red and black vintage-inspired cocktail dress. My little brother gave me away. Our "padrinos" were my (gay) brother in law and his partner of fifteen years. We had our puppy as our ring bearer. The "flower girl" was a sexy twenty-five-year-old. The wedding march music was from a video game. There was no (gasp!) bouquet/garter toss. The ceremony was 100% secular (the officiant was pagan though). The wedding party members chose their own style of clothing. There was also no first dance (my fiance pleaded me to not make him dance in public!). There were fake mustaches handed out. My ipod was the DJ (ensuring only music my husband and I liked was played).

And all of this was masterminded mostly by myself in less than four months and with a budget of less than $5000. (My mother paid for all of it, yet she gave me free creative reins! Thanks mom!.)

Our biggest challenge: I seriously expected more roadblocks than what I actually had, seeing that I had very offbeat ideas in a very traditional-minded society.

The biggest challenge of all was the cake: first, I wanted a chocolate cake, and second my husband wanted NO FONDANT. The person who offered to make our cake (for free!) backed out less than two weeks before the wedding (after not answering our calls for awhile). My sister finally offered to buy a cake from a relative's bakery from back in my home town (I described what I wanted to him over the phone, and it turned out great!).

Another challenge (which was also kind of sad too) was having a cosmetologist friend offer her services as a hairdresser and makeup artist to me as a wedding gift and then having her completely stop her communication before the wedding. Luckily, a friend's girlfriend did my hair, which turned out great, and I did my own makeup (which turned out awesome).

The last big challenge came from my fiance himself. He's divorced, and he already had a big traditional wedding , so he was freaking out about the preparations. Luckily, he had to eat his words!

My favorite moment: Besides watching the people that I thought wouldn't be able to make it actually arriving at the site on time, my favorite moment was when, one hour into our laid back reception, my new husband turned to me and said: "You know, I'm actually having a lot of fun!" (He's not exactly in love with social events, so this was big, coming from him!).

My second favorite moment was gathering a bunch of the guests at the end of the reception to sing a loud and chaotic rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" (I was Mr. Mercury, of course).

Hearing from other people that the wedding was so totally us, and so much fun was pretty awesome too.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Really, just be true to yourselves and what you want to accomplish Remember that it's just one day, and it goes by so fast. Why worry about the little details?

Also (cliché alert!) always try to do what you REALLY want (within a realistic mind-set). You will be surprised as to how little resistance you might encounter.

Oh, and the Internet is your best friend. Seriously. I planned most of this thing online!

And buy Offbeat Bride, the book! No, really, go buy it, it's great therapy!.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• Centerpiece topiary
• Dress
• Wooden roses bouquet/groom's boutonniere
• Head piece/birdcage veil
• Wedding party brooches

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: