I’d like to reach up mywedding.com’s dress to fetch its garter, because they’re Offbeat Bride’s sponsor for the month of August! I’ll be poking around mywedding.com this month and writing about my adventures, this week looking at their local wedding planning guides.

The only problem with running a national/international wedding blog is that sometimes it all comes down to location, location, location. When someone emails me asking about help with venue ideas in Santa Barbara or an offbeat caterer in Houston, I have no idea what to say because, well, I live in Seattle and I don’t know shit about Houston. Or Santa Barbara.

But not so with mywedding.com! They have a local wedding planning guide for dozens of American cities, ranging from the biggies you might expect like a New York and Los Angeles, but also Kansas City and Raleigh.

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This amazing sapphire ring totally had me at hello. I love the way the sapphire dangles from the setting. So incredibly cool! There are tons of other amazing styles over here, and a very special thanks to Brklyn Bride for bringing them to my attention!

Special sloppy kisses and inappropriate reception dance floor fondlings to mywedding.com, Offbeat Bride’s sponsor for the month of August. I’ll be poking around mywedding.com this month and writing about my adventures, starting this week with their free wedding websites.

Most of us Bride 2.0 types make wedding websites (aka wedsites) packed with totally TMI for confused and curious guests. But let’s be fair here: just because you’re a geeky bride doesn’t necessarily mean you want to host and build a fucking website. Who has the time to muck around with CSS and javascript when you’re trying to put the beat down on pushy vendors who insist that no, no you simply MUST have cake: no one serves pie at a wedding? Enter mywedding.com.

Just because you’re a geeky bride doesn’t necessarily mean you want to host and build a fucking website

Now, there’s no shortage of wedsite options out there, but way too many of them are are grossly pink and frilly. The first thing I always look at is the templates — are they all roses and curly-qs and scary white ruffles? It gives me great pleasure to report that mywedding.com’s free wedding websites offer definitively non-sucky templates. I mean sure: I saw a couple floral themes and curly fonts. But as I was poking around with their tools making a test page, here are a few of the offbeat templates I found …

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Another gorgeous wedding dress from Fancy Pony Land, this one worn by Fiona, a dancer from New Mexico.

I’m just madly in love with Fancy Pony Land’s stuff — did you see Lorna and Fancy Pony in the current issue of ReadyMade? Yes I’m biased, but Lorna’s custom made wedding dresses are really something else. They’re definitely not cheap, but they’re gorgeous.

Here’s another shot of Fiona in her dress.

(Thanks to Lorna and Fiona for sharing the photos!)

I just got this email from a friend, and I’m guessing some Seattleite offbeat brides might be interested …

From Seattle photographer Victoria Renard:

I’m beginning a new leg of my business to include unique, rock & roll style and alternative lifestyle wedding and couples photography. For one thing, I understand that a lot of people get married (especially in the summertime) but not everyone wants their ceremony to look like some sort of Disney/Pixar fairy tale complete with Vaseline on the lens vignetting and white dresses. I also understand that not everyone plans their event a year in advance or has $5,000 to spend. So, I am starting a new budget-savvy photography service for people who are looking for something different.

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