Category Archive

Features

When we want to get more thoughtful, this is the spot for our feature articles. Sometimes we talk big-picture philosophies, other times we discuss wedding trends, and every once and a while we just go ape-shit over a wedding WTF?!

8554448156 0e00b65819 b alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Are photographers going to start offering discounts for unplugged weddings?

In my almost-eight years of running Offbeat Bride and working with wedding photographers, I’ve heard of photographers offering potential clients discounts for all sorts of things: discounts for destination weddings, discounts for LGBT-identified couples, discounts for sci-fi weddings or elopements and all sorts of other niche weddings. But yesterday was the first time I saw a photographer who’s offering a discount for couples doing an unplugged wedding. Is this a new thing?

Bridal Dalek says lets talk about weddings as fandoms alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Wedding as fandom? (It might be more likely than you think!)

Since my last rant against all the “helpful” lists and articles on weddings, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I was getting so offended by them. Why I’ve been getting so offended about everything negative and wedding-related. When’s the last time I got this worked up over something that I took so damn personally, and that everyone else took so personally too? And then last night, when I was reading about Dashcon, I realized it. Fandom!

Photo by JKCaliff alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

The 3 dark wedding industry secrets I unearthed at a mainstream bridal show

Shortly after my engagement, a friend who was also planning a wedding gently dragged me to a big bridal show in Atlanta. I knew it wouldn’t be the most exciting experience for me. Still, I figured what’s the harm? Maybe I’ll find a booth that inspires me. Maybe it’ll be a little fun, expand my horizons. Maybe there’d even be free champagne? There was no free champagne. And it wasn’t fun. Instead, there were three big secrets I unearthed about the wedding industry from the one and only big bridal show I attended…

alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

The top 5 post-wedding feels that have completely blindsided me, and what I’m doing about them

Or: “Mary goes through it so you don’t have to!” Or: “Married life is way less thrilling than I was anticipating so I’m going to write a post as if I’m giving someone else advice about the situation I happen to find myself in.”

5454769535 4c98f7be23 b alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

When family tragedy strikes during wedding planning

To every cloud there is a silver lining — and the silver lining to my father’s stroke and the fear that we were going to lose him was that when, five months later (six months until the wedding), my fiancé’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. I was much better equipped to understand what he was going through. And I was better able to support him. In those first few days after she died we talked about many things, some trivial and some very important…

Jump the broom break the glass alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

I’m Jewish, he’s an atheist: Intermarriage, and what I have to leave behind

I’m the daughter of a rabbi and a cantor (and the stepdaughter of yet another rabbi!), sent to Jewish day school as a child, raised Conservative, and while I’m unsure about my personal beliefs, my identity as a Jew has always and will always be super important to me. Just my luck the love of my life turned out to be an atheist…