The offbeat bride: Danica

Her offbeat partner: Mike

Location & date of wedding: Newcastle Island, Canada - August 8th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We kept it simple. I made all the cupcakes for the guests (all ninety! WHEW! Transporting them was a BITCH). We had our talented photographer friend Aki walk on stilts.

I’m double Offbeat! Pregnant, tattooed and I wore white!

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This weekend I attended the wedding of my brother-in-law Chris in Missoula. He and his fiance, Sacha, had intended to get married in September … but when they got the word a couple weeks ago that Chris’s mother’s cancer was back with a vengeance and her time is limited, they moved the wedding up by four months.

The wedding was positively beautiful, and lead to me to think about how in many ways wedding planning will expand to fill as much time and/or money as you want to throw at it. If you have two weeks to prepare, you strip it down to the most important things and the result is deeply meaningful. In the case of this wedding, the top priority was that the mother of the groom be present. And she was.

My pictures of this backyard Montana wedding are over here.

The offbeat bride: Elaina B., Marketing Coordinator

My offbeat groom: Matt S, Computer Programmer

Location & date of wedding: Victoria, British Columbia - March 10, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat: We eloped to British Columbia. He didn’t propose, but we decided together to get married. This was a huge part of our philosophy: marriage not as a theatrical event, but as a discussion where we are both equal partners.

We wanted to elope, because we didn’t want all the commercial/plastic stuff that comes with weddings now-a-days. Plus, we are both pretty shy people and hate having spectacles made of us.

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The offbeat bride: Rei Chee, naturalist

My offbeat groom: Bryan Perez, musician

Location & date of wedding: Backwoods on my friend/reverend’s property in Boston Hills, NY. May 2006.

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was not the ball of the year, but being in the presence of nature & our close friends made it very magical.

My husband & I eloped in my woodman friend’s backyard, which was a huge tract of natural land. He was also our Reverend. We were married between a shagbark hickory (signifying solidity & strength) and a beautiful white pine, the Tree of Peace among the Iroquois Indians. Our invited guests were my parrot, a few special humans, and the Reverend’s pack of border collies in a very whimsical ceremony.

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