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" →

The offbeat bride: Tasha, Customer Service

Her offbeat partner: Andrew, Art Gallery Director

Location & date of wedding: The Balcony on Dock St., Wilmington, NC — 10/25/2009

What made our wedding offbeat: We made our wedding offbeat by keeping the decorations simple, but with tons of personal touches. We actually had three beach houses on N. Topsail Beach for everyone to stay in for the entire weekend. We made our own invitations, programs, favor boxes, centerpieces and cupcake toppers. Everyone close to us contributed in some way. My bouquet was made by the Maid of Honor, out of hand sculpted and painted birds. We made the groomsmen handkerchiefs with a variety of mustaches for them to wear.

Continue reading "Tasha & Andrew's fun, elegant, mustache extravaganza 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.

The Offbeat Bride Arroxane, Technical writer (and OBT member)

Her Offbeat Partner: Mike, Techie, inventor, and business owner

Location & date of wedding: The Max recording stage in Dallas, TX — January 18, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: From the theme to the attire to the food to the entertainment, it was about what we liked and wanted. OK, there was some "make the folks happy" and crowd-pleaser elements, but 90% of the wedding was creative expression of our love(s).

Continue reading "Arroxane & Mike's celestial, multi-cultural ceremony of matrimony" →

Offbeat Megan snagged this awesome idea straight outta the OBT and we both knew it would be a fab DIY post. It's so super-duper unique and, well… celebratory!

Michele (congrats on the recent wedding!) put this simple how-to together to share with all you OBB lovelies. You can customize them any way you want… so get printin'! (and show us pics of your own special celebratory flags!)

"Yay!" Celebratory Flags
By Michele

I made these “Yay” flags for our wedding, intending for people to wave them for us as we walked away after the ceremony. They ended up being such an integral part of the evening, with everyone waving and shouting “YAY” every time we walked by! And since I added our names and the date to the back of them, they also served as the only favor we had for our guests. It is a quick and easy project- I hope you enjoy it!

Continue reading "How to make your own "Yay!" celebratory flags, by Michele" →