A few of the most common questions about Offbeat Bride, cheekily answered by the site's founder.

What do you mean by offbeat?
The dictionary defines offbeat as "not conforming to an ordinary type or pattern." To me, offbeat isn't about rebelling or showing the world how weird you are. Rather, it's about questioning all the wedding visions you've been fed and striving to create an event that's an authentic reflection of you and your partner. Offbeat Bride isn't a judgment against traditional weddings — I've gone to traditional weddings that were beautiful expressions of the couples' backgrounds and beliefs. I aim to support brides all along the spectrum of tradition.

Why is your site called Offbeat Bride? Why exclude men?
Well, the simplest answer is that the website is named after my book, Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, which was published by a women's press. The more complex answer is that while I work to make Offbeat Bride inclusive … I just can't do it all! Men are welcome, but ultimately my mission has always been to create a community to support women. That said, I do have a whole category of posts dedicated to grooms and some offbeat grooms have started their own community.

The Offbeat Bride blog (offbeatbride.com)

Where do you find the weddings you feature on offbeatbride.com?
Real Offbeat Weddings are all submitted by readers via an online questionnaire. Wedding porn often comes from the Offbeat Bride photo pool on Flickr and reader submissions.

How can I submit my wedding to be featured?
Fill out the offbeat bride questionnaire and get your pictures on Flickr! Please know that while we receive waaaay more submissions than we can feature, we love reading every single one.

How can I submit someone else's wedding to be featured?
Email us with a link to where we can learn more about the wedding. If the photos are on a site that requires a log-in, we won't consider them out of respect to privacy of the couple.

If you're a wedding photographer, please read this great advice before emailing photos of a client's wedding, and know that the quickest and best way to get your work featured on Offbeat Bride is to become a sponsor.

How do you pick which weddings to feature?
We like to feature weddings that people haven't already seen on other wedding blogs, and that show off the true range of offbeat styles. Here's more about how we pick which weddings to feature.

What can I expect to find on the blog?
Most of my content aims to be easy to digest and empowering. I feature a lot of photos of offbeat weddings running the gamut from hip but won't scare grandma all the way to Star Wars theme weddings. I profile at least three offbeat weddings every week, and provide a potpourri of advice, opinion, interviews, features, and perspectives written for people planning offbeat weddings. I'm not especially focused on vendors, and you won't see many high budget weddings on the site. I strive for diversity and (as the product of two gay families) love featuring offbeat lesbian weddings. Since I'm in Seattle, I mostly focus on North American weddings, but I do lots of UK, Australian and New Zealand weddings too — and have featured weddings from all over the world!

Do you do giveaways?
Only as part of paid advertorial campaigns. For more about that, click here!

Why do you do Offbeat Bride?
I got married in 2004, so why am I still running a wedding website? Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I don't particularly care about weddings. But I love wacky, wonderful people who are madly in love with each other. I love seeing the way non-traditonal people chose to celebrate their commitments, how they come together to honor love and their values. I like learning about new corners of culture … puppet-makers, steampunks, psychobillies, happy goths. I love the way brides and grooms express themselves through fashion and art, and I am a huge sucker for exciting wedding photography. Plus, I genuinely enjoy supporting smart women as they question and challenge the massive cultural expectations that come with weddings and marriage.

What's wedding porn, and why do you call it that?
Wedding porn has nothing to do with sex. It's just photos from other people's real weddings that may inspire you in your own wedding planning. I use the term porn as a play on "images that inspire desire," rather than "images of naked people engaged in sexual activities." I wrote more about my appropriation of the word porn over here.

Aren't some of the weddings you feature sort of, um, tacky?
Honey, it's not just some of them — they're ALL tacky!

Where can I buy that thing I saw on your site?
Chances are that I don't know. Although I occasionally feature specific items for sale that I've found around the web, for the most part Offbeat Bride is not a shopping blog — it's an inspiration blog. I'm not here to tell you what to buy, I'm just sharing ideas that may inspire you. Furthermore, often the items you see on Offbeat Brides are DIY, custom-made, or otherwise not available to purchase anyway … so I encourage you to release the "MUST HAVE EXACTLY THAT!" reflex and instead consider it all as inspiration for what you might create yourself.

Offbeat Bride Tribe (tribe.offbeatbride.com)

Why is the Tribe private?
Wedding planning can be a difficult time, and the community is closed to the public so that members have a safe space to deal with the challenges. While anyone can view the homepage of the site, the rest of network is visible only to members.

Who can join the Tribe?
The network was designed for couples who are actively planning their weddings — as in, couples who've picked a date, have a budget, and are actively making it happen within the next couple years. The network's features are not designed for vendors, officiants, journalists, casting agents, wedding enthusiasts, wedding party members, those hoping to become engaged, those planning hypothetical weddings, etc.

How do you decide which members to approve?
We don't care if your wedding is traditional or weird: if you meet you're actively planning your wedding and you take the time to thoughtfully answer all the questions in your application, your membership will likely be approved. The most common reason we decline memberships is incomplete/short-winded profile responses. For TONS more details, read this post.

How long does approval take?
Since each application is manually reviewed by a real live person, it can take up to a week. Please be patient with us!

Why so exclusive?
The volume of people interested in the Tribe has threatened to overwhelm the network's usefulness, so we've been forced to be more stringent about memberships.

But I run a wedding business and can't join — how can I reach offbeat brides?
Consider purchasing a text ad on the Offbeat Bride Tribe. Prices start at $10/week.

Ok, so I'm planning a wedding … but am I offbeat enough to join?
Yes. We do not care how "offbeat" you think you are or aren't — we only care that you're half of a couple actively planning a wedding, and that you take the time to fill out your registration form thoroughly. Again: we do not ask about or care about your offbeat-ness — this isn't a contest, and we have never declined a member for being "too traditional.

I've been a member of other wedding communities and found them mean-spirited — is the OBT like that too?
No. The Tribe code of conduct is very clear that the network is focused on pro-active, constructive communication. There are plenty of online communities where you can bitch about weddings. The Tribe isn't one of them.

Why is the Tribe so confusing/hard to join/messed up/etc?
Because from the very beginning the OBT has been an experiment … and experiments don't always work smoothly. It's also been a victim of its own success, with the number of members overwhelming the network's usefulness at times. Oh and also? It's free, and you get what you pay for!