Hollie & Caleb's cultural mix-up wedding and reception

Her offbeat partner: Caleb, auto mechanic

Location & date of wedding: Grace Covenant Church and Twin Creeks Pavilion, Texarkana, AR — May 8, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: Well, I'm a black bellydancing indie kid and my husband is an old fashioned country boy mechanic. We live in the scariest place on earth for a young interracial couple. A town that stretches across two great southern states: Arkansas and Texas, in a little town called Texarkana. Eh, it's not that bad. But we are the most offbeat thing you will come across on this side of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

We had a cute little private ceremony at our church and then had a huge open invitation, hootenanny of a wedding reception at the Twin Creeks Pavilion in Texarkana, AR.

The very first thing that I declared at the beginning of our wedding/reception planning was that we shall have no flower girl or ring bearer, no cake cutting, smashing of the cake in the face, no weird champagne swapping thing, no tossing of my perfectly good flowers, no wedding party "uniforms" and no boring, traditional boo-boo bridal music.

We shall have The Beatles, drumming, Irish songs, cupcakes, home-brewed beer and all-night dancing instead!

Our biggest challenge: The nay-sayers….. OOOOoohhh the traditionalist nay-sayers.

Home brewed beers!

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? Two days before the wedding I remembered that I forgot to burn the CDs for the ceremony and reception music. I don't have a CD burner so I called up a good friend of mine (an usher and also ex band mate) and asked him if he could please help me. He said he was out of town and the moment but should be able to help. PHEW!! I hurriedly told him what I generally needed and lo and behold he came up with the best mixed CD's I have ever heard. From Johnny Cash to Michael Jackson. The reception turned out to be the non-stop dance fest I hoped for!

My favorite moment: After we all danced down the aisle, Caleb and I grabbed one another, held each other so tight and cried in the church foyer. We were supposed to all walk back down the aisle to be presented but we didn't care. When I wiped my tears away to look around I saw that two groomsmen were standing together with their backs turned to us, blocking people and quietly shooing people away from interrupting our very special moment.

Just a little bar brawl at the reception. No big D.

My advice for offbeat brides: Remember that this is "our" wedding. Not "MY" wedding. He might be a guy, but he cares too. The original plan for our wedding that I came up with was a tropical punk rock porange thing. I was hell-bent on it. My FH never uttered a word about it until he saw just enough hot pink and orange and said, "That's enough!" It hurt my feelings that he didn't like it and I thought he was being a traditionalist jerk at first but then I realized, you know this is HIS wedding too. He's not punk and by-golly, neither am I. So I included him in every single bit of wedding planning after that and never regretted it. He had a lot of good ideas and very valuable input.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? Oh my gosh. Do NOT wait until the last minute! From mailing invitations to planning the honeymoon, it is never too early to start doing anything!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Hair piece: Etsy - Chantal Eveleen
• Photography: Our friend Zack Huggins

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!