Ty & Paul's "Loving Day" wedding celebration

We gave you a little taste of this gorgeous weddin' when we introduced the first monday montage. Here are the rest of the deets on Ty & Paul's wedding or "Loving Day" celebration! -Coco

Her offbeat partner: Paul, Stay At Home Dad

Location & date of wedding: Chapel Dulcinea in Austin, TX — June 12, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: From the very moment Paul proposed I knew that we'd be married on June 12. We choose this date because it is Loving Day. Loving Day commemorates the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the United States.

I had a date but I had no idea what kind of wedding I wanted. After spending nearly two years trying to figure it out I realized that the most important things to me were A) exchanging our vows in front of the people we loved and B) having lots of photographs. So we decided to buck tradition, ditch the reception and have a ceremony only affair. The day was especially awesome because we were able to get all the friends and family closest to us together in one place for the first time ever.

Tell us about the ceremony: In college I was introduced to the poetry of Nikki Giovanni and I feel in love with her poem "Resignation." I surprised Paul by reading it to him as a part of our ceremony.

We incorporated the African tradition of jumping the broom at the end of ceremony into our wedding. It was totally foreign to Paul (no pun intended) but after I explained it to him he was very excited about us getting to do it.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was getting everyone together. His parents live across the country from us and we got married in a place that is over 200 miles from where we and most of our friends/family live. We did our best to give everyone as much notice as possible so that all their travel arranging could go as easily as possible.

My favorite moment: Our ceremony was composed and officiated by my best friend. Paul and I gave her free reign to put together whatever she thought fit. Without any input from us she managed to compose a ceremony that totally fit us and that we both utterly loved.

The most meaningful part of the day was what she said before we exchanged our vows:
"In movies and stories, the love that gets celebrated is most often young love, first love, love that is as perfect, shimmering and ephemeral as a unicorn fart (and nearly as realistic). But looking at Ty and Paul, I'm reminded of a saying from those great thinkers, the Southern Baptists. The saying is "True Love Waits," and I think it's a good one. Because true love doesn't just come to us when we're dewy-eyed teenagers; true love waits for us to be ready for it. It waits until we are wise enough to appreciate it, caring enough to honor it, whole enough to build the kind of relationships in which it can dwell. True love waited for Ty and Paul and guided them to this day."

My funniest moment: The funniest part of the wedding was the varied reactions in the crowd to our officiant saying "unicorn farts."

My advice for offbeat brides: Opinions are like anuses, everyone has one and they all stink. You will likely get more input about your wedding than any other event in your life. Do your best to keep focused on what will make you and your spouse happiest on your day and try not to be too swayed/bothered/overwhelmed by all the opinions being hurled at you.

I found that clearly defining the "must have with no compromise things" really helped me to figure out what I wanted my day to be and how I wanted it to go. So I'd recommend starting there.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Dress: David's Bridal
• My Shoes: Crocs
• Rings: His - Ring Ninja and Mine - Zales
• Wedding Photography: Magic Spoon Productions

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!