3489586623 34f3c1b1d5 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)The Offbeat Bride: Alba Margarita, graduate student and profesional procrastinator (and OBT member)

Her Offbeat Partner: Jorge, PC repair technician

Location & date of wedding: Casa Diego, Cupey Alto, Puerto Rico — December 21st, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Being a rebel and all, I decided that I did not want a big cheesy fuss for my wedding, nor did I want a musty traditional one. I did several things that are almost unheard of here in traditional Puerto Rico…

Check out little bros kicks!
Check out little bro's kicks!

I wore a red and black vintage-inspired cocktail dress. My little brother gave me away. Our “padrinos” were my (gay) brother in law and his partner of fifteen years. We had our puppy as our ring bearer. The “flower girl” was a sexy twenty-five-year-old. The wedding march music was from a video game. There was no (gasp!) bouquet/garter toss. The ceremony was 100% secular (the officiant was pagan though). The wedding party members chose their own style of clothing. There was also no first dance (my fiance pleaded me to not make him dance in public!). There were fake mustaches handed out. My ipod was the DJ (ensuring only music my husband and I liked was played).

And all of this was masterminded mostly by myself in less than four months and with a budget of less than $5000. (My mother paid for all of it, yet she gave me free creative reins! Thanks mom!.)

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Our biggest challenge: I seriously expected more roadblocks than what I actually had, seeing that I had very offbeat ideas in a very traditional-minded society.

3489603931 02cac97988 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)The biggest challenge of all was the cake: first, I wanted a chocolate cake, and second my husband wanted NO FONDANT. The person who offered to make our cake (for free!) backed out less than two weeks before the wedding (after not answering our calls for awhile). My sister finally offered to buy a cake from a relative's bakery from back in my home town (I described what I wanted to him over the phone, and it turned out great!).

Another challenge (which was also kind of sad too) was having a cosmetologist friend offer her services as a hairdresser and makeup artist to me as a wedding gift and then having her completely stop her communication before the wedding. Luckily, a friend's girlfriend did my hair, which turned out great, and I did my own makeup (which turned out awesome).

The last big challenge came from my fiance himself. He's divorced, and he already had a big traditional wedding , so he was freaking out about the preparations. Luckily, he had to eat his words!

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My favorite moment: Besides watching the people that I thought wouldn't be able to make it actually arriving at the site on time, my favorite moment was when, one hour into our laid back reception, my new husband turned to me and said: “You know, I'm actually having a lot of fun!” (He's not exactly in love with social events, so this was big, coming from him!).

3490422046 2c90459424 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)My second favorite moment was gathering a bunch of the guests at the end of the reception to sing a loud and chaotic rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” (I was Mr. Mercury, of course).

Hearing from other people that the wedding was so totally us, and so much fun was pretty awesome too.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Really, just be true to yourselves and what you want to accomplish Remember that it's just one day, and it goes by so fast. Why worry about the little details?

3489636871 03dc45d04d m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Also (cliché alert!) always try to do what you REALLY want (within a realistic mind-set). You will be surprised as to how little resistance you might encounter.

Oh, and the Internet is your best friend. Seriously. I planned most of this thing online!

And buy Offbeat Bride, the book! No, really, go buy it, it's great therapy!.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn:

Meet our fave wedding vendors

Comments on Alba Margarita & Jorge’s red & black, Puerto Rico weding

  1. Whoa! I hadn’t logged in here for a while, and I just read the message that my wedding was going to be featured! It was perfect timing, as our first year anniversary was yesterday! Yep, still together, after a lot of events! The main one was that, sadly, my favorite gay couple is no longer together.

  2. This has been one of my favorite OBT weddings for a while — and features (in my opinion) the sexiest Offbeat Bride of all time.

  3. I agree with Jill, this is one of my favorite Offbeat Brides weddings too! It is sad that the cake, and hair/makeup people pulled out at the last minute but I love what you designed for the cake that came through and you look great! You have inspired me to do what is true to me and my guy so that we can look at each other and say, "This is fun! I'm having a great time!" Thank you so much!

  4. What an amazing wedding party! I love every detail here, but I am totally inspired by the lady on the far right in the wedding party photo, and am rushing out to buy myself some red patent leather heels in about… oh, hell, now. Que sexy!

  5. Wow! What a fabulous wedding! It was very inspiring as my wedding colours are black and red, and I too am not having a dance or most of the traditional wedding components. I also hate fondant, and am excited that you had a beautiful cake without it! This gives me some great ideas – thanks!

  6. Aww, I'm happy that you guys think I looked sexy! And Gina, that lady with the red patent heels was my flower girl! She's also a mommy! I'll let her know about this, it'll make her day!

  7. You guys are super cute! Seriously, I want to be a member of your family. For one, you are all stunning, and then, THEN your Dad sings The Greatest Love of All…C'mon! It's like you guys got an unfair portion of the cool genes.

    Congratulations on one year! May the future bring you much happiness together!

  8. Wow, I've never been described as having cool genes, it must be our hot puertorican blood! Thank you for that!

  9. I LOVE this wedding! Our colors are black and a darker red (like a crimson) and silver, so I love seeing the black and red weddings for inspiration!, I LOVE your birdcage veil, I've never seen one made like that, but the link to the etsy vendor doesn't work. Do you know if the vendor still has a shop on there or what their name is so I could try to find them? Happy one year anniversary, btw!

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