I'm a little overwhelmed with all my projects this week, so Offbeat posting will be lighter than usual. To keep you entertained, here are some photos from my weekend, totally unrelated to weddings in any way:

For Christmas, my husband gave me a getaway at La Push, on Washington's Olympic coast. We went this weekend, and it's absolutely one of my favorite places on the planet, to be sure … and I was thankful that despite figuring prominently in the Twilight series, the area hasn't been too sullied. You can see my photos here, and my husband's over here.

Last month I invited y'all to tell me a bit about yourselves via my first ever Reader Survey. Close to 2000 of you took the time to answer my questions — THANK YOU! The exercise was truly enlightening on many levels, and I figured I'd take the time to share some of the results with you all…

Continue reading "Reader Survey results" →

Ladies, I have been working on this for months, and I am so excited to announce that I am partnering with Nearlyweds.com to offer wedding websites with exclusive offbeat design templates!

Because really: where else but Offbeat Bride are you going to find wedding websites with rockabilly, goth, peacock, or steampunk themes?

We're totally keeping it in the offbeat family, too: many of the exclusive offbeat templates were designed by Aerin of aeiou design, who's wedding I ogled a few months ago. If there's anyone who truly gets offbeat wedding aesthetics, it's an offbeat bride herself! (PS: Indie designers, here's how you can submit your templates!)

I've also featured Nearlyweds on Offbeat Bride before — of all the bazillions of wedding website services I've tested out, I love love love them the most. I'm a big fan of their web 2.0 features like guest mapping, and I love how if you like your wedding website template, you can get paper invitations that match. They've got online RSVPs, blogging, unlimited photo uploads … all the stuff you'd want, wrapped up in a nice well-designed package. (They're also a Seattle company, and I like my hometown geek-heroes!)

So, enough talk from me … it's time to get started designing your new wedsite! You can sign up for a free trial below. If, after two weeks, you love it as much as I do, you pay $49 … which covers hosting for as long as you want your site up! As a bonus, if you use the promocode offbeatbride, you'll get 10% off.

I hope to be adding new designs regularly, and I'm doing a poll to hear which wedding website templates you'd most love to see:

Continue reading "Wedding websites for people who aren't into froof" →

I officially launched Offbeatbride.com on January 1st, 2007, so it seems fitting to relaunch the site on its two year anniversary.

The design should feel pretty familiar. I'm keeping the general structure pretty much as its always been … the biggest change you'll notice is the addition of illustrations from Donna from Butterflies Kiss, who you may remember me featuring a couple months back.

I decided that Donna's images were so perfect for Offbeatbride.com that I had to get 'em on the site permanently, and Donna even made me a custom illustration — that's me on my wedding day up there on the "Author" button. Many thanks to Donna for her awesomeness … and she's doing that 10% discount for offbeat bride readers!

Another big change is that the tags for each post have been moved up to be front and center. The tags are those words off to the right of each post. If you see a subject that interests you, just go ahead and click the tag to see all the posts on Offbeat Bride that have been tagged with the same words.

I've also added a couple pages to help folks find their ways in the offbeat empire … a page for the newly engaged, and a Frequently Asked Questions page addressing Offbeat Bride, offbeatbride.com, and the Offbeat Bride Tribe.

There may be a few bugs here and there — lemme know if you come across anything on the site acting wonky!

Hey, everyone! We've got almost a foot of snow here in Seattle and it's Christmas and all I want to do is go for walks with Andreas and Sassafras and eat cookies and nap (well, AND I'm working on an offbeatbride.com redesign and a new partnership launch and some other stuff for the new year) so I'm taking the rest of this week off from posting. Happy Holidays to all of you … and remember to bundle up!