I love this shot of OBT member Emily and her husband Michael doing a little light reading at their wedding in September. Emily captioned this shot Offbeat Bride: Don't Get Married Without It!

Many thanks to photographer Michelle Hayes for submitting these fabulous photos of Liz & Dave's rollerskating wedding to the Offbeat Bride photo pool!

I'm especially taken with Liz's bubbly uber-ruffled pink Betsy Johnson wedding dress — it makes me think of a cupcake or some other sugary baked good begging for some om-nom-nomming:

I'm not sure how Michelle managed to make the roller rink lighting turn so lush and delicious, but the photos are screaming with color and out of this world…

Continue reading "Rollerskating wedding" →

I'm sorry, but some of the stuff on Offbeat Bride is just too weird. Some of the wedding shoes? Ugly. Some of the real offbeat weddings? Kinda tacky. I love Offbeat Bride, but sometimes I just don't get you guys. -Anonymous.

Thanks for bringing this up, Anonymous. And you know what? You're totally right. I don't like everything we feature on Offbeat Bride either — and that's by design.

This website isn't about dictating one vision of taste or aesthetics upon my readers. Sure, we feature wedding trends when we start to notice Offbeat Brides getting obsessed with a particular vision. But part of why I continue to run Offbeat Bride is because it's an excuse to get exposed to a whole big wide range of cultures and styles and people and design outside my daily experience.

If everything on Offbeat Bride was just a reflection of my personal tastes, we'd never see any rockabillies or goths or steampunks or church weddings. OBB would be all West Coast neo-tribal forest weddings like these ones. (Love 'em — but yawn!)

If Offbeat Bride was all about Megan's personal preferences, it'd be all beach weddings, star wars couples, and gamer geeks.

So I say: bring on the "too weird"! Bring on the ugly-to-some-people! Bring on the kinda-tacky-to-some-people! Because our tastes are all different, and when some bride halfway across the globe dares to share her vision with the world and I get exposed to something new and beautiful and amazing and magical … we all win.

With winter and early spring weddings approaching fast, I figure now's the time to indulge in some fabulous bridal boots. So this week's shoe freak-out will be about wedding boots perfect for rain, sleet, snow, or even just a nice indoor venue.

Y'all should know me by now: I like daring (aka LOUD!!) wedding shoes, and I've geeked out a full range of boots here, ranging from spikey heeled boots to my beloved expensive-but-comfy Fluevogs to Doc Martins to rubber wellies perfect for rainy spring weddings.

So put on your shoe whore hats, and let's dive in, shall we?

Continue reading "Bad-ass wedding boots for winter or spring weddings" →

I've written before about the awesome Hello Guest Book concept from my friend Megan Hill of Hello Super 8. Well, here's a brilliant execution of the concept — part photo booth, part wedding film, and a little bit of chalkboard & mustache awesomeness tossed in taboot!

For info on Hello Super 8's discount for Offbeat Brides on the Best West Coast, keep reading!

Continue reading "Keira & Dan's Hello Guest Book (+ special offer for Super 8 services!)" →