OBT member Jessica made these deer cake toppers that are so adorable they make me want to puke, in a good way.

Jessica writes, "The one with the excess flowers is "me" and the one with the top hat is my darling FW, in case it wasn't obvious. It even turned out that her's is a teensy taller than mine, just like real life. hehe."

Oh those tiny little flowers just kill me. 

Continue reading "Jessica's Handmade Deer Cake Topper" →

If you're looking for the perfect green/recycled wedding invitations for your eco wedding, you must go check out the custom handmade 100% recycled paper, invitations, thank you notes, and guest books from Indiana's super-green indie-biz, Twisted Limb Paperworks.

It's hard to beat Twisted Limb's eco-pedigree: their textured papers are made using recycled office paper, grass cuttings, organically grown ferns, and water recycled. They work out of a carbon neutral facility near Bloomington, Indiana in a woodland studio. Over a fifth of their profits are donated to environmental and community groups. Added bonus: I kind of want to be best friends with the whole staff!

All Twisted Limb's invitation styles are offered in three forms–DIY Kit, You Assemble, and Fully Assembled. They have a ton of wedding invitation options (they claim "literally four trillion combinations!") and also do other wedding stuff like guestbooks, favors, programs and menus.

Not only are they greener than green, but they explain, "We acknowledge with reverence and revelry every celebration of love and commitment and enjoy working with both straight and same sex couples." They also have a whole section of their website dedicated to great green wedding ideas.

So if you want your wedding invitations to be sustainable and eco-friendly, and crafted by sweet, eco-friendly artisans in Indiana instead of malnourished child-slaves in some factory somewhere in Asia … get thee to Twisted Limb Paperworks!

The offbeat bride: Tanya, Nursery Teacher

Her offbeat partner: Gavin, Technical Officer

Location & date of wedding: HMS Warrior – Portsmouth, England on March 24th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We had been together for a while and decided to do the wedding thing our way. We wanted a small ceremony and we weren't tied to any religious buildings, so after a quick search we decided on a ship.

Continue reading "Tanya & Gavin's Wet & Windy Ship Wedding!" →

The necklace I wore at my wedding was designed by a Dori, a jewelry-making artisan friend. When I realized that she'd started using Etsy, the ebay of the indie crafts world, to sell her wares, I asked her if she could share tips for offbeat brides looking to shop for wedding supplies while supporting independent artists.

When Ariel asked me to design her wedding necklace in 2004, it was before the days of Etsy. I was maintaining my own online shop — creating, designing, photographing, tweaking, uploading, coding, promoting… To say it was far more work than I wanted was an understatement. I just wanted to make jewelry — my website was a whole 'nother job.

Two years later, I've dropped the maintenance of my own website in lieu of joining a legion of independent designers on Etsy, a website full of handmade, independent goodness. As one of the many Etsy vendors who's thoroughly addicted to their forums, I went digging and found a few shoppers dressing up their wedding days with Etsy.

Continue reading "Wedding shopping on Etsy.com" →