The Offbeat Bride: Isa, Museum Mistress (and OBT member "Isa")

Her Offbeat Partner: Clinton, student and drummer extraordinaire

Location & date of wedding: Mount Majura bushland, ACT, Australia — April 11, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: Clinton and I decided to get married over the phone while I was in Tonga working as a volunteer, and I planned the whole thing from overseas. Perhaps the thing that made our wedding most unusual was how EASY everything was! It all just fell into place, with minimal stress and effort.

Continue reading "Isa & Clinton's easy-peasy, eco-friendly bush wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Sarah, Social Worker and student

Her Offbeat Partner: Paul, Web Developer at Minnesota Public Radio

Location & date of wedding: Minnehaha Falls Park and our back yard in south Minneapolis, MN — September 20, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was offbeat for several reasons. First, we had a short engagement (four months) and we stuck to a very reasonable budget. Second, we kept everything really simple, we had a small wedding party of my sister and Paul's best friend.

Continue reading "Sarah & Paul's simple and fun outdoor wedding" →

The Offbeat Bride: Jeannette, belly dancer, violinist, and daytime accountant

Her Offbeat Partner: Cliff, software engineer

Location and date of wedding: Ceremony: Arizona State, Reception: Jeannette's parents' back yard — September 13, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: We always knew we wanted a very small wedding. We decided to skip a bunch of the usual built-in drama and leave out bridesmaids, groomsmen, ringbearers, piles of doves, etc.

Continue reading "Jeannette & Cliff's small, anti-conventional wedding with a surprise reception" →

OBT member Rodrigues left this message on the OBB facebook page:

I am glad to see you touching on subjects of marriage and tradition/values rather than just "wedding detritus." I think its really important to steer the focus away from stuff whenever possible, especially since its so easy to become obsessed with it while you are planning.

It's only been three days since I got married and already the "stuff" we had at our wedding seems frivolous — the best and most important parts were the ways in which people we loved were able to participate, seeing so many friends and family travel across and country and across continents to see us exchange vows, and the actual vows themselves.

Amen, girl. Oh and by the way? Your first dance looks like heaven…

I've written before about my decisions around calling the pictures of real weddings that I feature on this site "Wedding Porn." I consider the phrase a harmless, non-sexual twist on the voyeuristic thrill many folks planning their weddings get out of seeing other people's wedding ideas.

That said, I'm going to come out and admit that there IS one component of wedding porn that starts to feel just as unhealthy as typical porn: that's when lusting after some fantasy of what you could have starts to interfere with the reality of enjoying what you've got.

I see this when brides buy a dress, and then find another dress, and then pick a third dress because they keep seeing dresses they like online. I see it when people come up with five different wedding themes over the course of two months, and still can't quiiite decide. I read it between the lines of commenters who's enthusiasm for someone else's wedding starts to slip over the edge from inspiration ("ooh, I might want to integrate something like that in my wedding") to duplication ("I MUST HAVE THOSE EXACT SHOES WHERE DID YOU GET THEM TELL ME NOW NOW NOW!")

It worries me a little…

Continue reading "When to stop looking at wedding porn" →