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: Jen, Artist/Library Aide

My Offbeat Partner: Doug, Artist/Museum Officer

Location & date of wedding: Lingrow Farm, Leechburg, PA — 3/22/2008

What made our wedding offbeat: I think one of the things that made us so "offbeat" was how laid-back we all managed to stay about everything! We'd been friends for twelve years and partners for seven when we got engaged, and up until that point I had never really envisioned what I wanted in a wedding.

When we sat down and talked about what we absolutely had to have, the list was actually pretty short: a red wedding dress, good vegetarian food, a venue with some character, and we end up married when it's all over. Once we established that, it was pretty easy to compromise on the rest of the stuff and let go of what wasn't really important.

Continue reading "Jen & Doug's Wabi-sabi Barn Dance Wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Christie, Social Worker (aka RedDress on the OBT)

My offbeat partner: Phill, Marketing Student & Sith Lord

Location & date of wedding: Verona, Ontario, Canada in my Mum's 150 acre backyard. – October 12th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We knew before anything else that we wanted our wedding to be our way and made a vow to not budge one inch on anything… and we didn't! And you know what? People loved it! and we didn't compromise even once. No one died, no one suffered. No one even complained.

Continue reading "Christie & Phill's Red Dress Nature Wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Lolo, Nurse Practicioner

Her offbeat partner: Kevin, Good Ol' N'Awlins Musician

Location & date of wedding: St. Anthony of Padua (ceremony) and the Benachi House (reception) in New Orleans, LA on October 11th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Not my first time around but his and he's in the music biz and almost 50! So it HAD to be a production. Balloons, pinatas, rubber duckies in the 100 year old fountains…

Continue reading "Lolo & Kevin's N'Awlins/NYC Wedfest" →

The offbeat bride: Sarah Creagh Horth, writer

Her offbeat partner: Roland Horth, Mechanical Engineer

Location & date of wedding: Marine Parade of Napier, New Zealand on December 16th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We didn't tell anyone and ran away to another town to get married. We love our families but as they live in different countries and due to timing constraints, we just decided to get on with it.

Continue reading "Sarah & Roland's Art Deco Elopement Wedding" →