The offbeat bride: Molly, business owner and teacher

Her offbeat partner: Laurie, business owner/dog adventure guide/writer

Location & date of wedding: Guemes Island, WA overlooking the water and mountains on October 25th, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: Some details of that made it ours….

Rather than sending STD cards or standard invitations…we put together a CD (I love music) and sent it to our guests. We sent the CDs 10 months ahead of time (and even with no Save The Date) it worked out great – people loved the CD and still talk about it. The CD had our website on it, which was all people needed. It set the tone for fun and expecting the unexpected. (In hindsight, it also served as the ‘favor’).

Guests were asked to participate in many ways. During the ceremony we had a Community Support section where guests were asked to publicly declare their support to our commitment. We also had a Ring Warming during the ceremony where the rings were passed around and guests were asked to take a moment to hold them, infuse them with their physical, emotional, and spiritual warmth. And we had a wedding certificate made that our guests signed with us after the ceremony. We got a lot of response at how much people enjoyed being a part of it all.

Continue reading "Molly & Laurie's Island Outdoor Lesbian Yes-We-Can Wedding" →

Tinywater Photography recently posted about Jocelyn & George's Piedmont, California wedding … and it features a few of my favorite offbeat labels … a dress by Wai-Ching, and boots by Fluevog. In fact, I have these same boots in black, and those bitches are HAWT, and even more important for me: super comfortable.

(Budget note: I was able to find the boots for almost half-off a while back on Amazon … but it doesn't look like they're available any more.)

But Jocelyn & George's wedding was about more than just fashion. The bride and groom are both avid birdwatchers, so the whole event was bird-themed including this shot of the bride and groom with their bird-watching binoculars. So cute!

To see more beautiful shots from Jocelyn & George's beautiful bird wedding, head on over to the Tinywater Blog.

We all know I love Wai Ching wedding dresses — but I've never seen an entire wedding party decked out in Wai Ching. It's hot!

Even the groomsgirl got her own coordinated dress:

Continue reading "Wai Ching wedding party – with a dress for the groomsgirl!" →

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:

Continue reading "Everything you need to know about having your wedding dress custom-made" →