We've featured tons of non-floral bouquet alternatives, but here's one alternative I think we'll be seeing more of in the future: Rachael's bridesmaids carried red glass lanterns instead bouquets … and the result was stunning…

Rachel had a TON of a great details at her red & black wedding. Check out all the photos here, and be expecting a full profile in the near future! Oh, and if you're inspired by the lantern idea, you can find a few here.

I wrote in my book about the tiny white spider I found in my bouquet on my wedding day, but I love this idea:

Virginia added a small crystal spider to her rose bouquet. I love this as a way to add a subtle and playful accent on a more traditional floral arrangement.

And jeez who knew that there were so many options when it comes to crystal spiders.

How's this for the ultimate bouquet alternative for a vintage-loving bride? This bouquet, made by Studio del Fiore in Portland, OR, is crafted from roughly 75 vintage brooches, earrings, and rings. As portlandneatsheet.com notes, this is "a sweet way to incorporate meaningful family gems and jewels into your wedding day." Lots more information over here, and special thanks to *tara for sending this in!

Andrea and Pete are combining two different kinds of awesome into one fabulous wedding: they're trying to pay for their low-budget summer 2010 wedding by recycling 400,000 aluminum cans. In a move that it's both uber-eco-friendly as well as budget minded, they're scouring their city of Spokane, WA to find cans to recycle. I cornered Andrea with a few questions about the project, and she told me all about their motivations, goals, and trebuchet bouquet toss…

Andrea, what made you decide to do this?

Continue reading "Spokane couple aims to recycle 400,000 cans to pay for their wedding" →

Offbeat Bride Carolyn Cambell has a great spin the mustache wedding trend:

As she says:

When I was making the programs/fans, I didn't know what to put on the back, so I thought about what I wanted to see when I looked out at the crowd. Of course! My aunt with a mustache.

For more photos of Carolyn's "Schwartz + Campbell = Schwambell" wedding, head on over here.

OBT member Gypsy Marie, aka. Cutiebookworm, and friends, have created some old-timey carnival cutouts for their October wedding. They used a book of circus art for inspiration and came up with these babies…

 

To tie in some themes from their wedding, the conjoined couple is wearing outfits similar to their wedding clothes, and the werewolf is holding a rubber ducky since they asked guests to draw a duck on their RSVP's.

OBT members can check out the original post by clicking here.

Forget rice! OBT member Michele has created a more colorful and fun alternative for guests to show their enthusiasm…

Michele explains, "So when all the guests are seated for the ceremony, the four members of our bridal party will pass out the 'yay' flags so everyone can wave them as they wish."

"I wanted to do them out of fabric and print the designs, but time did not permit. Instead, I used some old and slightly sun-faded construction paper and ran it through the printer. This way I was also able to include our names and the date on the back. And instead of gluing them together, I ran them through the sewing machine."

And I say, YAY for these Michele. And YAY for your wedding this Friday!

OBT member "Zephyr" created ring books as an alternative to ring pillows — and the book loving, English major in me is freaking out over them! Luckily for all of us book lovers, she gave us the details on how to make them yourself…

Being the book geek that I am, I couldn't resist bringing books into the wedding! Here's the step by step creation of my own ring bearer books…

Continue reading "How to make a Ring Book" →