The Offbeat Bride: Taryn, Public Servant

Her Offbeat Partner: Craig, Public Servant

Location & date of wedding: Gothic Church and Wine Bar in Windy Wellington, New Zealand — 20 June 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: Every little detail was perfectly us! We made a whole heap of compromises to keep family happy, but they were easy things to do because we love our families. However we also pushed back on things that were really important to us. Craig's cousin Jessica is his best friend, and it was really important to him to have her in his groom's party, even though that upset some people. My family is traditional South African Indian Seventh Day Adventist and Craig's is pure Kiwi Party Animal so it was always going to be a delicate balancing exercise.

Continue reading "Taryn & Craig's Silly, Fun-Filled, New Zealand Winter Wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Tracy, Editor (and OBT member "Tracy")

Her Offbeat Partner: Aaron, Building Engineer

Location & date of wedding: Peace Valley Park in New Britain Township, PA. — October 25, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We had a self-uniting ceremony, which means we had no officiant. We kept our vows pretty traditional, but we led ourselves through them.

Continue reading "Tracy & Aaron's small, self-uniting wedding" →

You caught a peek at Aerin's style last fall … now here's the full story!

The Offbeat Groom: Jeremy, Designer & Musician

His Offbeat Partner: Aerin, Creative Director & Invitation Designer

Location & date of wedding: Portland's White House, Portland OR — 09.20.08

What made our wedding offbeat: Neither of us had really thought about what type of wedding we'd want until we were actually engaged, but there were definitely a few things we knew for sure… Churches were out. The white dress was out. Hundreds of guests were out. And then Aerin found a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and everything began to fall in place.

Continue reading "Aerin & Jeremy's Neo-Victorian Haunted Museum Wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Kristi, pre-school teacher at a German Immersion pre-school and a previous example of why rainy day weddings = gorgeous weddings!

My Offbeat Partner: John, IT guy at a middle school

Location & date of wedding: Columbia Manor, Minneapolis, Minnesota — May 10th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We really tried to make our wedding "us" in every way that we could and also fun!

We had a very limited budget- which worked out okay because I'm all about DIY or getting someone to do it for you for cheap!

Continue reading "Kristi & John's Crafty Rainy Day Wedding" →

The offbeat bride: Molly, business owner and teacher

Her offbeat partner: Laurie, business owner/dog adventure guide/writer

Location & date of wedding: Guemes Island, WA overlooking the water and mountains on October 25th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Some details of that made it ours….

Rather than sending STD cards or standard invitations…we put together a CD (I love music) and sent it to our guests. We sent the CDs 10 months ahead of time (and even with no Save The Date) it worked out great – people loved the CD and still talk about it. The CD had our website on it, which was all people needed. It set the tone for fun and expecting the unexpected. (In hindsight, it also served as the ‘favor’).

Guests were asked to participate in many ways. During the ceremony we had a Community Support section where guests were asked to publicly declare their support to our commitment. We also had a Ring Warming during the ceremony where the rings were passed around and guests were asked to take a moment to hold them, infuse them with their physical, emotional, and spiritual warmth. And we had a wedding certificate made that our guests signed with us after the ceremony. We got a lot of response at how much people enjoyed being a part of it all.

Continue reading "Molly & Laurie's Island Outdoor Lesbian Yes-We-Can Wedding" →