The offbeat bride: Brit, Admin

Her offbeat partner: Cecilia, Accountant

Location & date of wedding: Historic building outside Boston, MA, October 13, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat: We made the decision early on that we would keep whatever traditional wedding elements we liked, and ditch those we didn’t! This meant the white dress was out, along with “tossing” of anything, but the ceremony and reception with all our friends and family were in. We had a modest budget, and incorporated lots of DIY. I made all of our paper products, centerpieces and my bouquet. We also used rented audio equipment and mix cd’s for the music and did all the decor ourselves. Other things that puzzled our families included walking down the aisle together, not having a bridal party and planning the entire thing ourselves.

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The offbeat bride: Liz, Marketing Communications

Her offbeat partner: Laurie, German studies scholar and language teacher

Location & date of wedding: The Night Kitchen restaurant at the Montague Book Mill, Montague, MA

What made our wedding offbeat: Probably the most “offbeat” aspect of our wedding, aside from our gayness and my burgundy gown (are those things even offbeat anymore? Please!), was our dress code: we specifically instructed our guests to Outshine the Bride. It was right there on our website and in the invitation, and our guests did an amazing job!

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Really, you must check out the entire set of photos from Sam and Julia’s wedding. Thanks to Closed Circle Photography for the shot!

So, here’s an experiment for you — instead of writing my advice, I decided to try just doing it via video. Lemme know what you think of the format.

My fiancé’s family (mother, father, brother etc.) are protesting our wedding. They say it is not because of us, it is because they do not believe in gay marriage (ass-holes!) How do we go about filling in the holes? we are both very close with my family and they will be playing major roles in the wedding. We are having a hard time incorporating my family without putting a huge red spotlight on my fiancé’s lack of family. For clarification, my fiancé considers herself the Groom, and me the Bride, which only matters in terms of roles her family would have filled. -Lara

Offbeat Bride Advice #1 from arielmeadow and Vimeo.

Holy hell. My brain almost exploded from the gorgeousness and sheer amazatude of Aly and Elroi’s stunning wedding in Atlanta. Let’s start with their wedsite, which has one of my favorite wedding party pages of all time. The descriptions are hilarious and I love the ushers’ hand signal discussion.

Then there’s the wedding photography, which was done by Our Labor and Love and must have cost a fortune because it’s stunning. Sadly, the online gallery is built from flash, so I can’t directly link to individual photos, but go look at them all and check out the bridesmaids’ hair (love the feathers!) and the amazing portraits of the couple, and the ceremony photos and and and … oh my god.

Just spend a while looking at all the pictures — they’ll take a while to load because the galleries are huge. You’ll be inspired by Aly’s handmade blue dress, and the bad-ass wedding party, Elroi’s smile, and the officiant, and the bird-topped cake that matches the bride’s dress, the vegetarian menu, and and and…! Just go. Just go look. It’s one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever seen, gay or straight.

Also, check out Aly’s write-up on Kvetch. I got all misty. And then there’s this article about the whole shebang, which was documented by a television crew for a reality show on Logo.

Who says you need to stick with combos like white/lilac or chocolate/pink or ivory/mint? I vote for more dramatic wedding color themes, like the sage/orange combo that Tony and Melanie rocked at their amazing 2004 wedding in California.

The entire photoset is pure magic. Colors are just the beginning of the great inspiration you’ll find over here.

(Thanks to skyvillain_events for the photo!)