We're in the last few days of our 2010 reader survey, and I'm hoping each of you will take 5 minutes to go fill it out. Since I'm focused full-time on Offbeat Bride these days, I've got lots of ideas brewing and plans scheming, and I want to make sure I've got y'all's input so that I can keep the ship steered in the right direction. This survey is your chance to help me steer!

Next week, once the survey is over, I'll be sharing some of the results with y'all. Maybe it's just because I'm an old sociology geek, but the demographics of offbeat bride readers are totally fascinating.

Oh and a tip based on some feedback I'm getting: when you're on offbeatbride.com, look at the top left of your screen. See that little bar with all the little icons? When you mouse over it, you'll get links to not only twitter and facebook, but also the OBT/forum, rss, and email subscriptions! That little bar is your friend if you're looking to get connected to the site!

So now: GO TAKE THE SURVEY!

I've been scheming on this forevar, and thanks to jmdodd (my webdev) and offbeat megan, it's finally happening: Offbeat Local! No, it's not local vendor listings. For now, I'm leaving that game to every other wedding site on the web. Offbeat Local clusters the posts from our most popular cities onto pages so it's easy to browse regional wedding porn:

New York · UK · Seattle · Portland · San Francisco · Los Angeles · Austin · Las Vegas
Chicago · Toronto · Washington D.C. · Vancouver, BC · Australia · Hawaii

If your location isn't listed — never fear. We've covered hundreds of weddings from all over the world, and chances are good that if you search for your city, state or region using the search box up there in the top right, you'll find something. That said, we'll also be slowly rolling out additional Offbeat Local pages in coming months.

For those of you upset by the recent RSS change, my webdev and I spent some time this morning working out a solution …

Continue reading "Put down the pitchforks, the RSS feed has reverted!" →

For those of you who read Offbeat Bride via RSS (which includes those of you who follow on Facebook or LiveJournal), you'll notice a change in the the way posts appear. Longer posts are now clipped, with a link to click through to read the full post here on the site. It's the same as the way longer posts appear on the homepage — you get a teaser on the homepage, and then a link to continue reading and then comment. Shorter posts will appear in full.

This was a change I thought a lot about — I do all my blog reading via RSS, and I know what a pain truncated feeds can be. But over the last few months I've notice that, with full posts showing up all over the web, discussion was getting super dispersed. For many posts, there are multiple conversations happening in parallel — the comments here on the site, comments on Facebook, and then sometimes comments on LiveJournal!

Ultimately, this here website is my focus — I'm not running a Facebook page or a LiveJournal community. My hope is that by clipping syndicated posts, conversations can flow a bit better and stay on the site. I realize this may not be a popular decision — I'd ask y'all to give it a shot for couple weeks and let's see how it goes.

So, I had my baby and stuff! Many thanks to Megan & Shrie for keeping things running smoothly while I've spent the last 3 weeks getting to know my son, Octavian. Maternity leave has consisted of a lot of feeding uponst his soft pudgey newborn cheeks. So deliciously nom-able. I could live on a steady diet of the flesh of infants!

Tavi is a remarkably mellow little guy, and I'm better rested now than I was through the last months of my pregnancy. What does this mean? More Offbeat Bride! More Offbeat Mama! More offbeat scheming for 2010! It may take me until January to get fully back up to speed, but I'm slowly re-acclimating. Thanks to each of you for your patience as I get my shit back together.

Just a brief interruption in the wedding wonderfulness to bring you this news: Andreas and I are likely having a baby today.

Continue reading "Offbeat maternity leave" →

For those of you who are truly obsessive about the site, you may have noticed that the "Author" button up in the top right of the site recently became "About." This is because honestly? I'm not running this site by myself, and I wanted to recognize the offbeat elves who are making the magic happen…

Continue reading "Behind the scenes stuff" →

Well, it's official: Offbeat Mama is fresh out the womb! Just like Offbeat Bride, Offbeat Mama will be packed five days a week with features, photos, and shopping for women who are doing things their own way … only this time it's families instead of weddings.

I realize that many of y'all aren't into the family planning phase — but if you have ladyfriends or family who are, won't you share Offbeat Mama with them?

And, just as I know there are folks who read Offbeat Bride who aren't planning weddings, I hope that Offbeat Mama's FUCK YEAH, FAMILY! stance will still be interesting to those who aren't at the kid phase yet. For instance:

• Did you know that goth russian couple I featured a while back had a baby, and she's about the cutest thing EVAR?
• Ever wondered what's it like to birth a baby you're giving up for open adoption?
• Who knew there was such a thing as steampunk baby booties?
• Are you a second generation weirdo? Read one woman's ode to her offbeat mama.

Oh, and that's just the beginning. Go check out Offbeat Mama, and please oh please let me know what you think!