VERY newly wed OBTer Maiasaura, aka Laura, posted a quicky tutorial in one of her wedding planning updates about how she made her fully-customizable tri-fold table card centerpieces. The OBT masses loved it! So here we go… Maiasaura's ridiculously simple yet awesome tri-fold table card centerpiece tutorial! Take it away Laura! – Offbeat Shrie

Now that the wedding has come and gone, I finally have a moment to post about one of my favorite DIY projects: our table card/centerpieces! I got the idea from a craft book (don't remember the title, unfortunately) and they came out pretty, effective, and so very VERY cheap.

Continue reading "How to DIY your own tri-fold table card centerpieces" →

OBT member Alaura got some really unique inspiration when it came time to create her STDs.

"I discovered some vintage posters done in the 1930's by the WPA for the National Park system, and decided to take a picture from one of our hikes and turn it into that kind of poster."

Are these not the coolest STDs for outdoorsy type couples? And Alaura and her Joe are exactly that — in fact, their honeymoon is going to be all about camping and hiking in a National Park. So these are so perfect!

Check out OBT member Corinne's hand-drawn wedding maps in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien!

Corinne did this herself using tracing paper over an official park map of her wedding location.

"I love the maps in Tolkien books, so I just tried to emulate that style. Then I found parchment-style paper at the copy store… I actually didn't know I could [do this], but given a sharp pencil and a little bit of tracing paper, there's not a lot I CAN'T do."

Let's hope your guests have an easier time getting to your wedding than Frodo had getting to Mordor!

Sometimes the talent level of our OBBs astound me. OBT member Heather aka. "Hev" made these Victorian duck busts to use as cake toppers for her upcoming wedding.

"The FH and I knew that we wanted ducks on the cake and when I went looking for toppers, I just couldn't find a decent pair of mallards. So the plan was to sculpt them myself as just boring little ducks. But then after seeing the film Fantastic Mr. Fox, it dawned on me that our ducks should be dressed to match our Neo-Victorian, old-timey theme."

They look absolutely amazing. And I had to inquire about HOW she accomplished this. The short story is that Hev is a scenic artist, so she does this type of thing all the time for film, theater, and photography shoots. The long story is as such:

Continue reading "Hand constructed Victorian duck busts as cake toppers" →

Offbeat Bride has talked about how much we love the idea of making your own wedding ring before. So how could we not take this opportunity to show you exactly how OBT member "merryf" and her FH created their own wedding bands.

Last Saturday my FH and I did the most extraordinary thing and made our own wedding rings. Not designed, but actually took metal and, after eight hours, ended up with wedding rings.

My FH found a ring making studio in New York while surfing the Web. It was all his idea, and I went along with it. This was the one thing that he wanted to spend money on for the wedding. How could I say no?

New York Wedding Ring is right in Lower Manhattan, a few blocks from the WTC subway. The goldsmith, Sam, was so nice, and so helpful. He takes just one couple at a time, so all his attention was on us. The nicest thing was that he didn't touch our rings at all — they were ours to make, and he demonstrated what he wanted us to do on a ring that he made at the same time. (Well, at one point he did help me when I got frustrated and threw it down on the table.) At one point I helped my FH and then he helped me, and that's nice to know that my ring has a bit of him in it, and his has a bit of me.

It wasn't all fun — the sanding and polishing almost put me to sleep and for the life of me I could not file the edge in a straight line. And my FH got a "corkscrew" instead of a circle when he bent it in a machine. And it was not cheap — it was about $1,400 and the actual cost of the metal was just a fraction of that, (the main cost was the time we spent there) but we had a lot of fun, and I learned that I can use those sort of tools and I'm not afraid. It's the ultimate DIY project.

And here is how we did it…

Continue reading "Fire! Hot Metal! We made our own wedding rings!" →