In the past, I’ve answered advice questions from folks who are like “We don’t want to exchange rings! How do we do a ceremony without wedding rings?”

Well, here’s one more idea to consider: a wedding anklet.

I don’t know much about Russ & Daniela’s wedding other than what I could glean from the photos from Australian photographer Angelina Potapova … but from what I could see, it looks like my kinda shindig.

(Also, I’m a big fan of the bride’s embroidered dress.)

PS: Thanks to Monica for the heads-up on this one.

The offbeat bride: Sarah / vintage clothier
Her offbeat partner: Todd / Graphic designer

Location & date of wedding: Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville, Arkansas. August 11, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat: We got married in a little old house by the University of Arkansas campus, where Bill & Hillary Clinton actually got married. Turns out, we were the first couple to get married there since them!

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You’ll be getting the full wedding story tomorrow, but I absolutely love Sarah & Todd’s “True Love” airbrushed photo backdrop that featured prominently in many of their wedding photos. Someone definitely needs to steal this idea!

From Matt Haughey:

“My cousin Tony and his girlfriend got married this past weekend and as a young couple in Southern California, they’ve been saving for years for their first house. On the occasion of their marriage, they didn’t want to fill a non-existent house with blenders and trinkets but didn’t want to flatly refuse gifts since weddings tend to be a place where people like to help out new couples by giving them gifts, but I think they felt weird asking for money towards a new home purchase.

So they came up with a pretty cool idea. He’s an artist and she’s a writer, and together they collected a bunch of paintings, ceramics, photos, and drawings and put them up for silent auction for several hours before and after the ceremony. Everything I liked had bids into the hundreds of dollars and all told, I bet they raised a couple grand in the process of letting family buy some pretty cool works of art.

I hope my other artist friends and family do this in the future, because I thought it was a pretty cool idea.”

(Thanks to mathowie for the photo!)

My future mother-in-law wants me to do something at our wedding to honor the people who recently died in our family, one of them being her husband. And then she went on to mention that she would like us to honor her mother (who died over 20 years ago). AND THEN she said that I should also mention my two grandmothers, my uncle, and my cousin who all passed away. Um, is it me, or would that make for an INCREDIBLY depressing moment at a wedding? -Sara

Here’s an easy solution that makes everyone happy: get some wedding photo charms (available from Etsy or from photojewelrymaking.com) to hang from your bouquet. You can put photos of all the deceased into the charms, and have them quietly but respectfully dangling from your bouquet for your entire wedding day. That way there’s no need to harsh your guests’ mellow by making a memorial announcement at the reception. Just make sure your photographer gets some shots of the bouquet. Then, you could even get a print of that photo framed special for your mother-in-law.

The result would be something like this photo from hystudio.com:

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It’s officially wedding season, and while many of you might be planning offbeat weddings, chances are good that you have a couple traditional weddings to attend this summer. Here’s one non-intrusive, respectful way that you as an offbeat guest can bring a little offbeat flavor into any wedding:

Conduct your own photo project at the reception
Make a nice sign that says something like “CONGRATULATIONS, JOE & JANE!” Get as crafty as you want with it, or just print out a piece of paper. Then, bring your sign and your camera to the wedding, and during the reception, ask your fellow guests if you can photograph them holding the sign.

You’ll end up with a bunch of photos sort of like these, which you can then print and make a sweet Blurb book for the newlyweds.

This is also a great way to interact with your fellow guests — you don’t have to talk too long to anyone, but can make a point to meet everyone and make them feel a part of something fun.

Here’s the ultimate DIY wedding bouquet idea: as your guests enter your ceremony venue, give each of them a flower. Or you could even ask each guest to bring a flower as their gift!

Then, when you walk to the altar, you can stop to collect a flower from each guest … assembling your community bouquet as you go. This gives you an awesome opportunity to acknowledge and involve each guest — I like this way better than a receiving line.

(Thanks to levinine for the photo!)

These cakes made me start drooling — y’all can keep your fondant-covered multi-tiered cakes. I’m sure they’re delicious! But for me, it’s all about cakes covered in flowers and fruits, like these cakes from Ivonne & Josh’s 2004 wedding.

Oh and Check out Ivonne’s dress! Holy hell.

Anyway, for more info about how Ivonne saved a fortune on her cakes, keep reading.

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