The Offbeat Bride: Kat, Desktop Publishing Specialist, Musician, and Semi-pro Crafter

Her offbeat partner: Mike, Operations Ninja and Writer

Location & date of wedding: Thorpewood, Thurmont, MD — 01/17/2010

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was very much about expressing our geeky, crazy love. When we decided on a winter wedding, we stumbled upon the idea of the “Midwinter Night’s Dream” theme, and tried very hard to make it whimsical, light-hearted, and above all fun, without being too over-the-top with the faerie or renfest theme. I’m also a crafter who loves DIYing everything, so pretty much everything we COULD make ourselves, we did.

Continue reading "Kat & Mike's whimsical "Midwinter Night’s Dream" wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Anke

Her offbeat partner: Dave

Location & date of wedding: Las Vegas, Nevada, A Special Memory Chapel — October 21st, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: First, excuse me for my bad English, we come from germany.

My hubby and I didn't ever want a "normal" wedding with a meringue colored dress and those embarassing games with our wedding party. In fact, we never wanted to marry because everlasting happiness can be there without certificates.

Continue reading "Anke & Dave's rock-n-roll, Las Vegas elopement… with Elvis" →

The Offbeat Bride: Pinkee, video marketing

Her Offbeat Partner: Pony, manager of adult store

Location & date of wedding: Forest Lawn Cemetery/Rec Center Studio, Los Angeles, CA — 11/01/09

What made our wedding offbeat: Firstly, we planned the whole thing ourselves. We utilized our amazing group of talented friends for photography, DJing skills, coordinating abilities, and helping hands to help us hang lights and set up tables the morning of. Our tribe pulled through for us and made it spectacular, and we couldn't be more grateful.

Continue reading "Pinkee & Pony's Dia De Los Muertos, cemetery bash" →

H'okay… thanks to Offbeat Mama reader and mommy blogger Laura who passed this on to Offbeat Shrie, who sent this on to me! Whew.

This colorful bride is Megan (love the name) at her rainbow themed wedding in a public park in Nevada City, California. Megan tells me that it was all planned and carried out in a matter of three weeks. And that's from proposal to wedding!

Megan sez: "I LOVE colors, as you can see from my photos. I made my dress 100% from scratch all by myself. I wanted it to be very colorful and ruffly so that's what I did. I also made my little top hat because I didn't really want to make a veil, as my hair was already colorful enough and I didn't want to cover that up."

And I am absolutely in love with Megan's hair, by the way. Also, her friends seem kind of awesome as well.

Well, basically there's a lot of crazy and wonderful stuff about this wedding. So head over to Megan's Flickr page if you want to see more photos from Megan and Ryan's outdoor rainbow wedding.

The offbeat bride: Diane, Domestic Violence Counselor

Her offbeat partner: Taren, Mental Health Advocate

Location & date of wedding: North Park Lodge, Pittsburgh PA — 10/3/2009

What made our wedding offbeat: The groom and I are both members of Arn Draiocht Fein (or ADF for short), an international Neo-Pagan Druid Fellowship. Despite honoring many deities, the one consistent thing about ADF is its liturgical format. We based our ceremony on that format while still adding elements of our own.

Continue reading "Diane & Taren's Pagan/ADF, Druid, fall-fest wedding" →

Wow, we've been teasing this wedding for quite a while now… Remember the "Yay!" flags, made by OBT member Michele, that everyone loved so much that we made Michele give us an "how to" post? And then remember the awesome steampunk groom fashion post? Well that was all from the same wedding and we finally have the whole scoop!

The offbeat bride: Michele – interior designer (and OBT member)

Her offbeat partner: Matt – character animator

Location & date of wedding: The James Ward Mansion, Westfield, NJ — October 9, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: The decision to throw a Steampunk cocktail party came early, so we decided to address every detail by making nearly everything to create the wedding of our dreams.

Continue reading "Michele & Matt's steampunk, cocktail party wedding" →

I'm a bridesmaid in a close friend's wedding this summer — R is transgender, and she's struggling to find a dress on a budget. R is a gorgeous woman who gets her curves from her post-transition hormones and her shoulders from her pre-transition adolescence. Dresses that look gorgeous on a model online look totally different when she tries them on, and she doesn't have the budget to have something completely hand-made. Since you did such a great write-up about finding suits for FTM transgender dudes and butch women, I was hoping you might be able to help us out a bit. -Beth

Thanks for writing, Beth — and congratulations to R on her engagement! I've got opinions a plenty, but I figured I'd bring in some experts to help me answer your question. I shared your email with four of my favorite independent wedding dress designers, and here was their advice…

Continue reading "Finding the perfect wedding dress for a transgender bride" →

Hey, remember the pirate wedding porn that I promised would knock yer boots off, and then it totally did? Well Mollie was kind enough to drop the details for us!

The offbeat bride: Mollie, Digital Alchemy, Graphic Designer & waitress extraordinaire (and OBT member "themolliellama")

Her offbeat partner: Scott,  Digital Alchemy, Web and Graphic Designer

Location & date of wedding: Pirates Ransom, Clearwater Beach, Florida — October 31, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: Complete pirate wedding. Guest were not allowed on the ship without costume. We even had back up cheesy costumes if someone dared, but everyone really did it up! The whole wedding and reception was on the pirate ship (three hour tour, lol) and then we went to the bar at our hotel.

Continue reading "Mollie & Scott's "Piradical" High Seas Wedding Adventure" →