Andrea and Pete are combining two different kinds of awesome into one fabulous wedding: they're trying to pay for their low-budget summer 2010 wedding by recycling 400,000 aluminum cans. In a move that it's both uber-eco-friendly as well as budget minded, they're scouring their city of Spokane, WA to find cans to recycle. I cornered Andrea with a few questions about the project, and she told me all about their motivations, goals, and trebuchet bouquet toss…

Andrea, what made you decide to do this?

Continue reading "Spokane couple aims to recycle 400,000 cans to pay for their wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Ariel, computer security engineer (and OBT member "Ariel (but not that one)")

Her offbeat partner: Andrew, computer game programmer

Location & date of wedding: MIT Chapel and Faculty Club, Cambridge, MA. — October 3, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: We started with a riot of medieval-inspired color: sapphire blue silk dress, purple-and-black-velvet groom, attendants in their choice of dupioni silk color and outfit style. (We ended up with pairs purely by coincidence.)

We built our custom ceremony around what we felt was most important in marriage, with our eight vows reflected in handfasting cords and the ingredients in a shared cup of ceremonial hot chocolate. The ceremony was gender-neutral and religion-free, but captured the sacred and important feeling we wanted. Dragons have been a symbol of our relationship from the beginning, so our attendants carried stuffed dragons from our collection. (The guys wore finger puppets.)

Continue reading "Ariel & Andrew's dragons & Lego-filled, sword-fighting wedding" →

Happy almost-Halloween! Today marks our final post in our month-long celebration of Halloween weddings.

The Offbeat Bride: Steff, Copywriter and Braille Transcriber

Her Offbeat Partner: James, Geo-technician, Armourer and heavy metal drummer

Location & date of wedding: Spookers, Kingseat Hospital Grounds, Kingseat, New Zealand — 1 November 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: James and I met on an archaeological excavation five years ago, when I happened to look over my shoulder and notice a really cute grey amorphous blob (I'm legally blind) wearing an identical Iron Maiden shirt to mine. It took two years swapping our favourite metal albums and me running away from him before we eventually started dating. When we decided to get married, everyone knew it wouldn't be the usual sort of white roses affair.

Continue reading "Steff & James' Viking Heavy Metal Halloween Wedding of Epicness" →