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.

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" →

How can you resist these green heels with the hearts on the bottoms from OBT member LucyLu's full-color March wedding in Oregon?

These heels are called "Wicked" by Luichini. The hearts on the soles make me wet my pants a little. I declare these my favorite shoes of the 2009 season.

But the pee-inducing shoes were just the tip of the iceberg on style from this wedding … the photos from Jessica Watson Photography are like sticking a designer lollipop in your eye-ball. So much color and sweetness and style! See a full slideshow below…

Continue reading "Green wedding shoes & so much wedding style" →

OBT member Jessica made these deer cake toppers that are so adorable they make me want to puke, in a good way.

Jessica writes, "The one with the excess flowers is "me" and the one with the top hat is my darling FW, in case it wasn't obvious. It even turned out that her's is a teensy taller than mine, just like real life. hehe."

Oh those tiny little flowers just kill me. 

Continue reading "Jessica's Handmade Deer Cake Topper" →

I've been meaning to put together a reading list of OBB-approved books for ages, and last weekend I finally got off my butt to make it happen.

I'm featuring books that Offbeat Bride readers love and have reviewed on the OBT … there are a few that absolutely didn't make the cut because readers consistently didn't like them (*cough*Anti-Bride*cough*) but if there's a book you think I missed on the list, leave a comment here with your review and I'll try to get it added!

As many of you know, I team with Nearlyweds to offer hosted wedding websites complete with exclusive, non-froofy offbeat templates created by indie wedding invitation designers.

Some of the exclusive Offbeat templates include the gothic one with the crows, the vintage one with the clock gears, the dark neo-Victorian one from the likes of Royal Steamline.

Now I've just added several new designs from Modern Girl Invitations and Claire Hammond … including a Peacock-perfect woodsy design, dramatic red & black damask design, a bubbly retro orangesicle one, and several others … all of which have matching paper invitations available!

So, if you need a wedding website that isn't all lace and roses and doves and ribbons, one that gives you tools like blogging, online RSVP, push-pin guest-mapping, and tons of other stuff — go give it a try.

(Yes, you can change your template as many times as you want, and it's free to start building your page!)

Oh and PS: we'll have a new template design coming soon from Royal Steamline, based on this Alice in Wonderland tea party invitation