Rebecca Bolte is a Seattle area photographer looking to shoot more offbeat weddings. Being a bit of an offbeat bride herself ("I'm having a vegan wedding in Alaska on August 3rd!" she told me) she's looking to cater her photography to couples with offbeat style.

And to prove her commitment to nontraditional couples, she's offering FREE engagement photo sessions to Offbeat Bride readers!

When I talked to Rebecca about her interest in offbeat weddings, she explained, "I'm a vegan feminist DIY rocker girl who's pulled herself up by her bootstraps, so I have a deep love and respect for people trying to make their own life while maintaining their uniqueness."

For the details of the engagement photo giveaway, keep reading!

Continue reading "FREE engagement photoshoot from Rebecca Bolte" →

First, you should feast your eyes on Aerin & Jeremy's wedding profile. Then you should feast your eyes on the new Alice in Wonderland-tinged template Aerin just did for my wedding websites.

If you've already got a wedding website with me 'n' Nearlyweds, and you're looking at this new design and love it as much as I do, remember that you can change your template at any time and as many times as you want. And of course, if you like the new template, you can order the matching invitations.

(And yes: this is one of those things that I desperately wish had been around when I was getting married in 2004. Back in my day, we had to design our non-froofy wedding websites from scratch! And manually coordinate with our designers to make the invitations match! And walk uphill to the altar barefoot in the snow! You 2009 brides don't know how easy you've got it…)

I'm madly in love the invitation aesthetics of Aerin's Royal Steamline designs … which are a little dark, very vintage, and full of intoxicating little details like anatomical hearts, tentacles, and the most non-cutesie butterflies evar. With Royal Steamline, the issue for me isn't "Which of these designs might make a good wedsite template?" but rather "Which design should I beg her to convert into a template first!?" Because really, they're all winners.

So, you tell me: which of Royal Steamline invitation design would YOU next like to see available as a wedsite template? I'm leaning towards Tell Tale.

Oh, and if you don't have a wedding website yet: RUN DO NOT WALK and start designing yours. It's free to dive in and start tinkering and your slightly dark Alice In Wonderland-themed wedding website could be up 'n' running in about 10 minutes. Go get started!

PS: If you're an indie invitation designer, I'd love to feature YOUR work too.

Meet Stinkerpants Designs, where everything is insanely cute — even the name!

Stinkerpants founder, Sara, is an an illustrator from San Francisco who does custom drawings for wedding invitations, save the dates and thank you notes.

Sara does all kinds of personalized stationary and custom illustrations — you must go browse the cuteness of her work for prior wedding clients.

Although Stinkerpants is mostly focused on custom illustrations, Sara also has wedding greeting cards that are adorbs. I mean really: weren't we just talking about thank you cards?

To learn more about Sara's custom illustrations, head on over to stinkerpants.com, friend her on facebook, or follow @stinkerpants on twitter.

…And tell that cutie Sara that Ariel sentcha!

The handmade invitations and RSVP cards from OBT member Hurricane Me (aka. Kate) just blew me away. Here are the pictures and her explanation taken from her wedding planning update.

I sat around stressing out over what kind of image I wanted … I knew I wanted to do it myself but had no idea where to begin stylistically. But I finally buckled down and did the block print of the hands, and as soon as I lay the ink on I knew I had my design. I couldn't decide on a color. So I didn't.

I just put cardstock through the photocopy machine at Kinkos to make the text and the RSVP inserts, then cut the smaller block print stamps of bicycles and letters, and started stamping.

Continue reading "100% homemade, recycled paper wedding invitations, by Hurricane Me" →

What happens when a crafty offbeat bride doesn't like cake but doesn't want to miss out on the aesthetics that a "wedding pie" just doesn't quite provide?

She crochets one…

Wow. OBT member Corinne is responsible for this amazing wedding creation (as well as the fabulous crocheted flower embellished bouquet from last week). This crocheted cake has all the beauty and drama of an offbeat wedding cake without all the expense and the possibility of cake in the face.

(OBT members can see an even larger version of the photo here.)

I just discovered a fellow wedding blogger Sabrina and OBT member Blablover5's amazing talent for re-creating wedding dresses on canvas!

It all started when she realized "the most expensive piece of clothing I have ever owned was sitting in the closet, I decided to create a painting of it." And she did a phenomenal job.

She then started doing paintings of other people's wedding dresses and groom's suits, much to the delight of the brides. And that's when she realized that she had a good thing going here and opened an etsy store.

Now Sabrina's hobby can turn into wonderful and unique way to commemorate your wedding day!

Continue reading "Sabrina's Amazing Wedding Dress Paintings" →