My fiance and I have been putting off the entire wedding largely because we are both pretty shy, introverted people. We're both are very anxious about being the center of attention. Besides cutting down the guest list, do you have any brilliant ideas for how we can pull this off without getting ulcers from stage fright? -Anwen

If you're terrified about your ceremony, the key is going to be having a great officiant. Someone who can absorb all that stage-fright for you, and really take command over the space. Someone, maybe, who might even speak about zombies.

Also, keep your vows super short and sweet. Instead of memorizing them, have your officiant do "repeat after me" vows.

You may also want to do what we did and schedule some time just the two of you immediately after the ceremony. You can read more about this in my book.

Avoid having either of you make formalized speeches, and do what you can to keep the number of toasts low. Ask two friends or family members to do toasts and then stand up and say "Thank you!" and turn up the music so it's clear the time for toasts is dunzo.

Keep the tone of the wedding light and casual: less formal = less cause for freak-outs.

Also, make liberal use of what I call "The I Love You Break." Here's how it works:

Continue reading "Weddings for shy people" →

The offbeat bride: Claire, Operations Manager at a non-profit

Her offbeat partner: Bobby, Comedian, Puppeteer and Giant

Location & date of wedding: Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. July 12, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was subversively quirky. We both went back and forth about certain traditions and our families had some say in that. I was in a big pouffy white dress with a veil for the ceremony and the boys were in tuxes.

But! Our attitudes were not traditional, which made the whole day wonderful. I didn't care about being a bridey-bride and just wanted everyone to have a blast. We chose to focus on the quirky funny details and on us starting a new partnership together.

To start, we had a 29 year old male flower girl. My wedding party walked down the aisle to Raider's of the Lost Ark and we walked out to the Ghostbuster's theme song.

My husband is a puppeteer and made each wedding party member a puppet to match them as our gifts to them. The wedding party entered the reception with their puppets, and our flower girl even slow danced with his at one point.

Continue reading "Claire & Bobby's puppet wedding" →

Both of my (still married) parents want to walk me down the aisle but my partner and I are so shy that we want to avoid an aisle all together. How can we, 1) avoid an aisle 2) still somehow start the ceremony off meaningfully? and 3) How can we include both sets of still married parents? —Jessie

To help me answer this question, I decided it was time for another episode of DUELING OFFICIANTS! See, every now and then I pull on the expertise of two wedding officiants — my parents! They're both Internet-ordained ministers, and between the two of them they've married dozens of people, often helping couple craft their ceremonies from scratch. They have different styles of officiating, though, so you'll get differing views.

Continue reading "Aisle-free ceremony" →