Emily & Jay's beer-themed Denver courthouse and brewery wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Emily, Judicial Assistant (and Offbeat Bride Tribe member)

Her offbeat partner: Jay, Systems Specialist

Date and location of wedding: Denver County Courthouse and Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery, Denver, CO — October 16, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

Jay and I met as volunteers at the Great American Beer Festival, so by default, our wedding was beer-themed. We collected beer bottles from the different craft beers and microbrews we drink and filled them with flowers. A local bakery made beer-flavored cupcakes for us out of local craft brews.

We held our ceremony with a small group of family and close family friends at the Denver County Courthouse. We then headed off to our reception in pedicabs. Our goal for the reception was to have fun. We didn't have any assigned seating, we had a food truck provide the food, we had a live band come and play, and we held the reception at a microbrewery in downtown Denver. It was a blast.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our ceremony was about 10 minutes long and perfect for us. The best part of the ceremony was the fact that the judge I work for performed the whole thing, which made it so much more personal.

Our biggest challenge:

Our biggest challenge was planning this off-the-beaten-track wedding. Our parents were pretty supportive of our ideas, but we had no guidelines to follow. Most "to-do" lists and wedding planning checklists just didn't apply to what we had in mind. Our venue was amazing but they had never hosted a wedding before, so we had to try to cover every single thing before the actual day. We were able to overcome any potential problems by planning as much as we could and thinking of any possible issues that might arise. I turned to Offbeat Bride and the other Tribesmaids for support and ideas and anything we might have missed. Offbeat Bride helped make our wedding what we wanted it to be.

My favorite moment:

I didn't realize how emotional I would be over just seeing Jay for the first time in our first look. I just caught a glimpse of him when I stepped off the elevator and burst into tears. It was awesome and powerful.

Another awesome part of the day was just having guest after guest come up to us and tell us how much fun they were having. That's all we wanted!

My funniest moment:

I am Irish and compete in Irish stepdancing. So, we substituted the traditional first dance with an Irish dance. When we first asked guests to join us on the dance floor, they all just stared at us! It was until my husband stepped onto the floor and declared, "I have no idea what I'm doing either," that all the guests decided to join in.

Vendors

• Photography: Brandy Swanson
• Dress: a wedding consignment shop, Green Bride Denver
• Petticoat: ReSashay
• Veil: Sara Gabriel
• Shawl: Honeybee Bungalow
• Venue: Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery