Thanks to OBB reader Danielle for sending us this great piece of writing from the perspective of the people that help us find our dream dresses…

Photo courtesy of Romana Klee.

One of the things I love about Ariel’s vision for Offbeat Bride is her effort to make it a “snark-free” zone. I love all the positive energy, all the everyone is accepted vibe. Well, everyone but one person, I’ve noticed. There is one person its okay to snark about, one person who is simply contemptible. Don’t know who I’m talking about?

Why, it’s that lady in the bridal salon! You know, that symbol of everything that’s wrong with the whole wedding industrial complex. The one who, it seems, does nothing but make brides feel bad the moment they step in the door. That horrible person who tries to sell you an overpriced white frou-frou dress when all you wanted was a simple dress in your price range. They’re evil, evil people right?

The only problem I have with that is that I used to be sales person in bridal salon.

Continue reading "The other side of the veil: one bridal shop employee shares her perspective" →

OBT member Sandy and her partner made these amazing Save The Dates. They're planning a pirate wedding and they wanted their STDs to convey the pirate wedding theme to guests early on. I think these messages in bottle topped with jolly roger wax seals do a pretty damn good job of that…

For the maps, I did a print screen of the San Diego area in Google Maps and traced over it in a transparent layer in Adobe Illustrator – then deleted the original map, used a bunch of filters, and added the border, gridlines and location names. The X roughly marks the spot of the wedding/reception location. The compass rose was clip art. I scoured the web for pirate fonts until I found ones we liked.

We bought all our materials online. Here's some vendor info for anyone looking for referrals (we were really happy with everyone we ordered from):

Continue reading "Piratey "save the dates" are floating ashore!" →

Academic Librarian, Copyright Specialist and OBT member "Mollyali" has written an impressive post on copyright issues and how they relate to your wedding photos. Read on and learn!

I'm really excited by the amazing success we had negotiating with our wedding photographer around copyright, and I wanted to share what we did with OBB.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I'm a librarian with a background in publishing who frequently does outreach and education about USA copyright issues. None of this is legal advice, etc.

Okay. So before I explain what our photographer is doing for us, you need a very very abbreviated introduction to copyright. (I'm sorry, I'm a librarian, I have to teach you things, I can't help myself)…

Continue reading "Copyright, Creative Commons, and your wedding photos" →

OBT member Derek Kyle Noel made, yes MADE, these incredible Ouija board save-the-dates for his upcoming Halloween wedding.

For more photos and information about how he made these puppies, head over to his post about them on So You're EnGAYged where Derek also blogs about his upcoming "Gay Boy Halloween Wedding."

Ah Geek Week, you keep producing such gems…

Take a gander at OBT member Lara drew and designed their invitations, giving nods to Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, and Zelda: The Wind Walker. And even if you're not geeky enough to get the references… they look freaking AMAZING! (As you view them keep in mind that the three images are supposed to sit next to each other.)

Continue reading "Japanese inspired, "Geeky love" wedding invites" →