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The offbeat bride: Sarah, collection agency service clerk

Her offbeat partner: Cody, foodservice/seeking IT work

Location & date of wedding: First United Methodist Church of Mountain Home, AR & 11/10/09 =D

What made our wedding offbeat: I think the big tipoff that this wasn't going to be a cookie-cutter wedding was when people realized that I was serious about wearing purple.

4165722022 63acde3111 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)At the same time, I still had the dreams of the big beautiful church and being “Princess for a Day.” So we decided to walk a middle road–we did the traditions we wanted to do, and skipped anything we felt was silly. The end result was a wedding that placed us in the area that Ariel once referred to on the site as “Offbeat Lite.”

I wore knee-high Chuck Taylors under my dress. The Maid of Awesome had her hair dyed purple the morning of the wedding and wore a purple lipring to match our colors. The bridesmaids didn't match each other. Instead of walking me down the aisle, my father played the organ for us. We served pizza at the reception. Instead of rice, we passed out sparklers for people to wave as we left the reception. There wasn't really an overall theme that just screamed “offbeat” but all the little things we did were just “one off” from tradition.

4165711124 9ec63c882d m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was the origami flowers. The Saturday before the Tuesday wedding, I had something like sixty-seventy folded flowers, some wire stems, some green and silver cellophane, some ribbon, and no idea if it was actually going to work. It took some trial-and-error, but the finished product came out beautifully. (Thank God for hot glue!)

My favorite moment: As soon as we were out of the church, Cody swept me into his arms and gave me a kiss that was…well, shall we say, a little hotter than the one he gave me in front of everyone else! That moment of “OMG, we did it!!” was pretty awesome.

Also the carrying on over the garter was funny. Cody had never been to a non-courthouse wedding, and he kept asking things like “I get to do WHAT now? In front of everyone? Your dad's not going to kill me?” Then one of the groomsmen caught it, and proceeded to put it on!

Edit14My advice for offbeat brides: My extended family bristled at some of my ideas, but I just had to bear in mind that they were used to the cookie-cutter weddings (they run rampant among our family!). They couldn't see how it all looked together in my head. Once they were at the wedding, no one thought it was ridiculous that I was carrying paper flowers, and no one complained about the delicious pizza.

Always think about or research the feasibility of an idea before tossing it aside–and possibly, before you mention it to anyone. The pizza, when first discussed, got rejected by my family as too expensive and too informal. Then Cody and I stumbled across a new Italian restaurant, started going there regularly because it's the most awesome restaurant ever, and the idea kept haunting me–we asked, and they were willing to do large pizzas for six dollars apiece! Suddenly it was way easier to get people on board with the whole idea.

4164955505 4820eb484a m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

  • Dress: PJ's Bridal of Mtn. Home, AR (I showed her messy sketches and inspiration pics from the internet and she made the dress of my dreams)
  • Pizza: The Mob restaurant
  • Tuxes: Lil's Bridal & Formal Mall
  • Cake: Rachel Z. (She's a friend of a friend trying to start a cake business, no website yet, sorry!)
  • Shoes, jewelry, and lingerie and custom stickers for Hershey Kisses: eBay was my best friend
  • Maid of Awesome's dress: She had it custom-made in a different color scheme, and couldn't have been happier with her dress.

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Comments on Sarah & Cody’s eclectic purple wedding

  1. Congratulations! You rock for not worrying too much about what your extended family would think about breaking traditions and doing things your way – you’re “offbeat lite” wedding was super-awesome (love your dress!)!! 🙂

  2. How refreshing that your partner had never been to non-courthouse weddings. The WIC skipped over him! Congratulations and you look beautiful!

  3. YAY for Sarah, Cody, and the fabulous purple wedding! You two look so happy! Congrats!

  4. OMG, between all the purple, the shoes, and the uniqueness of the whole wedding, this is pretty much my dream wedding. LOVE IT!!!

  5. I’m wearing XX Hi Chucks, too! I bought white ones, and FH is going to paint them for me. 😀

    I’m so glad someone else has done it, too.

  6. Love these pictures! I too am planning on a purple dress and non-floral flowers, so it was awesome to see pics of such a successful event. You look so happy!! Congrats!

  7. Thanks, everyone! I’m SO stoked to be featured! This has seriously MADE. MY. WEEK.

    The Chucks nearly didn’t happen–they were ordered last-minute since we weren’t sure the budget would be there. (The backup plan was custom Chucks in the wedding colors from Converse.com–amazingly, that would’ve cost only about half as much!) I am SO glad we were able to do it–it’s what people seem to remember the most, lol. And yes, I HAVE worn them again.

    The idea to not have flowers was one of the first things we decided on–real flowers are just so ridiculously expensive considering what a short time they last, and I’m not a fan to begin with (Cody’s never brought me flowers, lol). It took a couple of iterations before we figured out what would work, but I love the final product. (My bouquet is sitting on our dining room table in a crystal vase we got as a wedding gift. ^_^)

  8. She’s an amateur friend, who really needs to start her own studio. =)

  9. fabulous dress! it looks great on you. happy marriage to you. 🙂

  10. Beautiful wedding everyone seems to be having a good time, did I read it right that your wedding was on a tuesday night?? Pretty wedding colors of purple and silver too, was your bouquet mostly foil paper or was it just colored paper?? Congrats to the couple!!!

    • Thank you!! =) Yes, it was on a Tuesday night. =) We liked our date a lot–11/10/09.

      The bouquet was indeed foil origami paper (colored foil on one side, plain white on the other).

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