The Offbeat Bride: Michelle Romo – Graphic Designer

Her Offbeat Partner: Jason Betrue – Web Developer

Location & date of wedding: Los Angeles, CA – The Marvimon House — 04/18/09

What made our wedding offbeat: J and I have a ridiculous sense of humor and we wanted to include all of our awesomeness is our wedding. Before he even proposed he asked me if we could have a Robocop ice sculpture at our wedding. My reply was "OF COURSE" and I think that set the tone for the whole thing.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

Continue reading "Michelle & Jason's Silly & Fun Los Angeles Wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Miranda, copy editor

Her Offbeat Partner: Jake, student/IT

Location & date of wedding: San Francisco City Hall — Thursday(!), June 4, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: As a kid, I never really dreamed of "My Big White Wedding." I knew I wanted to marry Jake and I knew my mom would kill me if I didn't have a big party and ceremony, too. So I threw myself into it and tried to make it ours — no white dress, no hairspray, pizza for dinner, "Star Trek" processional, photos at ruins, pawn shop rings, a bouquet made of flowers guests bought at a liquor store or on the street on the way there.

Continue reading "Miranda & Jake's Themeless, Unrehearsed & Heartfelt Wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Shannon, theater actress/web site manager

My Offbeat Partner: Brandon, improv actor/managing director

Location & date of wedding: Lake Forest Park Civic Club on Lake Washington in Seattle, WA (we're not members, anyone can rent it) — 5/4/2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was completely ours. We ran the thing ourselves and enlisted the generous help of talented friends and family to design our invites, print them, set-up, DJ, officiate, work the bar, and make appetizers.

We decided early on to eliminate certain expensive sources of stress to keep the budget and the stress as low as possible. We planned the wedding for about 4-5 months after the engagement to save ourselves a year of stress. Within a few weeks, we'd chosen an inexpensive (under $1K), little-heard-of venue north of Seattle. It's in a lovely spot on the lake but because the building is old 1960's utilitarian, so it's not used often for weddings. We decided the space was too small for a wedding party and we didn't want to deal with choosing dresses and tuxes and favors and coordinating the people (this ended up being our most controversial decision).

Continue reading "Shannon & Brandon's comedic Seattle wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Lani – High School Music Teacher (aka, LAMP on the OBT)

My offbeat partner: Jamie – Aerospace Ph.D Student (Rocket Scientist in training)

Location & date of wedding: Halifax, Nova Scotia – Halifax Marriott Harbourfront – August 9, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: I always knew that I wanted my wedding to be candy-themed. I have been a candyholic since I was a baby (I used to crawl onto the counter and eat straight out of the sugar jar) and my husband thought the candy idea was brilliant!

Our invitations were chocolate bars with the golden ticket inside, our centerpieces were candy jars with flowers (every table was a different candy), I had candy hair clips made from Murano glass candy for the ladies in the bridal party and oh yeah, there were some fake moustaches for the girls too.

Continue reading "Lani & Jamie's "kids in a candy store" wedding" →

You know you're an offbeat bride when…

By Cassie…

…you ask your engaged friend, "What are your centerpieces going to be, and how are you making them?" and she looks at you funny and says the florist is bringing them. Then you remember, oh yeah, centerpieces are traditionally beautiful flower arrangements brought in by florists, not the homemade concoctions made from a combination of dried gourds, vintage buttons, wind-up toys, and mini cast-iron bicycles that you were planning on.

…your relatives think your engagement must be off just because they can't find a wedding website/registry for you on The Knot.

…you ask a bride-to-be what color her dress is and she says, "Like, do you mean ivory vs. white?" and you remember not everyone considers red/purple/rainbow/polka-dotted dresses for their wedding day.

Continue reading "You know you're an offbeat bride when… (by Cassie)" →