A while back I ranted about how I think brides are best off having their wedding dresses custom made — you’ll get a better fit, exactly the design you want, and won’t have to suffer the attitudes and obscene prices of a bridal boutique.

There was some grumbling in the comments about “Ok, fine: but how do you find a custom dressmaker?” My best advice is start in your immediate circle and work your way out &mash; do you know any seamstresses or amazing sewers? Do any of your friends or family known any? If not, search online or in the Yellow Pages for someone locally. Being able to do fittings in person is a big bonus. If there’s no-one in town you like, then start looking online for seamstresses with styles you like who will work with you via email.

The ladies of the OBT came to the rescue with lots more tips on picking a custom dressmaker, as well as specific dressmaker recommendations:

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Prepare yourself for some guh-guh-guhmazing wedding porn from One Love Photo, based here in my homeland of Western Washington.

When photographer Heather Gilson contacted me about advertising, I went to go peek around her website to see if she did work I thought my offbeat brides would enjoy.

And what did I see? Amazing mod garden ceremonies. Grooms in chucks. Wai Ching dresses. In other words: quintessential offbeat brides.

Want to keep feasting your eyes? (Nyom nyom nyom: wedding porn!) More One Love Photo shots below!

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Wai-Ching’s wedding dresses are the stuff of legend here on offbeatbride.com — but what about Chrissy’s OWN wedding, exactly a year ago today?

The offbeat bride: Chrissy Wai-Ching Fashion Designer/Fiber Artist

Her offbeat groom: Vasili Zolotov, Software Engineer

Location & date of wedding: The Gallery Inn, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, 12/31/06.

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was offbeat because I made and designed my own gown, the groom’s outfit, my mother’s dress, and my mother in law’s dress! We had the wedding in the courtyard of an art hotel.

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The offbeat bride: Katie / corporate whore (currently looking for something more fulfilling, like talking to plants)

My offbeat groom: Lindsay / sporting goods

Location & date of wedding: Mom and stepdad’s yard on the Tulalip Indian reservation by Marysville, WA

What made our wedding offbeat: I think two things really set the tone for our offbeat wedding: 1.) Save the date magnets with ketchup and mustard bottles holding hands and smiling with, “some things just go together! Please save the date for our wedding” and 2.) A quote by Thornton Wilder on our (very lovely) invitations: “my advice to you, is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it is on your plate.”

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The offbeat bride: Ginevra, Six Apart-er

My offbeat groom: Alex, dj/student/tutor

Location & date of wedding: May 28, 2007 in a backyard … in Paia, Maui

What made our wedding offbeat: We wanted to have a small wedding that reflected not just who we were as people and as a couple, but how much our family and friends meant to us by dragging them halfway across the world.

We decided on Hawaii because we both grew up in DC, lived in San Francisco for a long time, and have settled in Boston — there was no way everyone wasn’t going to have to travel someplace, so why not to paradise?

Plus, being a destination wedding kept what I call Drunk Aunt Edna incidents to a minimum. Everyone who attended was someone we wanted to be there.

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Thanks to all of you who made it to my reading last night in Los Angeles, and to the folks at Tangier for hosting. And for Heidi for being a great sport. And to Andreas who stood up and read his sidebar, despite my heckling.

My book tour is over. And really, I couldn’t have hoped for a better “end of the road” event than LA. The reading was so much fun, the house perfectly packed, and I even managed to drag Andreas on stage to read his sidebar. Then I dragged Heidi on stage to embarrass her over her antics at our wedding reception. And then I cut up a penis cake that somehow managed to be even more obscene than the penis cake at the book release party, way back in February … which seems like a lifetime ago. So long ago that I can hardly remember why penis cake became an offbeat party staple. Who the fuck’s promotional idea is this? I bookended my book tour with penis cake and a Wai-Ching dress on both ends. I’m not sure what that means.

Lots of photos over here, including shots from most of the other places I toured.

UPDATE: Oh and yes, for those who noticed, this does mean that my Portland reading on June 11th has been canceled. Sorry I didn’t announce that — I didn’t think anyone would notice, and I guess I was wrong.

(Thanks to leahpeah for the photo!)

For those uninterested in princess wedding dresses, prepare to have your head explode from the innovative gorgeousness that is indie-designer Chrissy Wai-Ching Leung’s dress line. Hailing from Seattle via Chicago, Hong Kong, and Nice, France, Chrissy specializes in making custom silk wedding dresses that fly (or in some cases float) in the face of over-brocaded poofy white wedding wear. Using hand-dyed silks, each dress is custom made to meet the needs of the bride’s tastes and curves, ensuring that your wedding dress is truly one of a kind.

Chrissy caters to brides all over the nation via her website, but if you happen to be looking for a Seattle wedding dress, you owe it to yourself to visit her cozy Pioneer Square loft studio where, if you’re like me, you’ll want to fondle the samples and pet the silk-ribboned pillows for a couple hours. Forget the “white blindness” so common at bridal boutiques — at Wai-Ching you bathe in rich blues and reds and greens.