Remember a few months ago when I announced that I was adding Google AdSense ads to offbeatbride.com? Well, some of you have probably noticed that I’ve started getting more of my own advertisers over the last few months — this is awesome because it means I can justify removing the stupid Google AdSense ads! WHEW. No more “Romantic Luxury Mexico Vacations” in my sidebars!

Unlike AdSense, Offbeat Advertisers are all filtered by me (ie, I don’t accept all the ads I’m offered — I only accept advertisers who fit with the site’s values), and (even more important to me a copywriter and control freak ) all the advertising copy is all written by me. That sound you hear is me putting down the razors that have been perched over my wrists after reading some of the poorly written tripe that has been showing up in my sidebars. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do but seriously: whew.

Thanks to all the Offbeat Advertisers who have made this switch possible by supporting the site and enabling me to keep cranking out Wedding Porn for all my ladies. Yay!

Congrats to Amber Kuhn for winning the set of li’l matching iPods in the recent mywedding.com/offbeat bride contest. She provided suggestions for her perfect wedding planning playlist, based on three themes:

Idealism — Adam Sandler’s “Grow Old With You”
How the heck are we going to pay for this? — Queen’s “Under Pressure”
Maybe we should just elope — James Taylor’s “Mexico”

A few of my other favorite wedding planning playlist suggestions:

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Today is Andreas’ and my third wedding anniversary! (We don’t really tend to think of it as our anniversary since our “kissaversary” is New Years and is much more meaningful to us — it’ll be 10 years this New Years!)

For those of you who’ve read the book, you know how we basically re-throw our wedding every year in the form of an anniversary camp-out. I am pleased to say that after three years, the party basically throws itself and we can just sit back and enjoy it — every bride’s dream, right?

Here’s a picture of us from our anniversary camp-out this past weekend, taken in the same meadow as this shot from three years ago.

Just a little heads-up: I’ve run out of size Medium “Fuck Taffeta” tees. I have more on the way, but just know that if you place an order for a size medium, there will be about a week’s delay. [UPDATE 4/24: All sizes are back in stock!]

… Wait, what’s that you say? You don’t have a “Fuck Taffeta” tee?! Horrors! Get on it, girl! And have I mentioned that they make awesome gifts for the bad-ass bride in your life? It’s true. Every tradition-stomping engaged woman needs a profanity laced t-shirt declaring her disdain of formal fabrics.

Oh and remember that if you already have your own offbeat tee, I’d love to see you modeling it on Flickr.

(Thanks to miz_ginevra for the photo!)

I love this shot of my psychic day-cabbie friend Vera rocking her “Fuck Taffeta” offbeat t-shirt. She’s even got a coordinating apron! So adorable.

Even cuter is how Vera admitted that she had no idea what taffeta even was before buying the shirt. She’s not alone: familiarity with taffeta is seemes to be esoteric knowledge held primarily by those who obsessed over prom dresses in high school, and those who work in textiles/fashion. In the last year, I’ve met one man who was familiar with taffeta, and more than a few women who were like “taffy? feta cheese? what?”

Anyway, for those of you who have purchased offbeat t-shirts, I’d love to see you modeling them! You can either slap your photo on flickr and tag it “offbeat bride” or you can email your photo me.

(Thanks to Verabug for the photo!)

An offbeat bride in DC, has started an offbeat bride co-op aiming a cluster of like-minded women who can compare notes, support each other, and pool their resources, ala Susan Beal’s fabulous wedding co-op concept in my book. If you’re in DC and are interested in joining, check out the LJ community. And if you’re in a different city and want to organize something similar, let me know!