The necklace I wore at my wedding was designed by a Dori, a jewelry-making artisan friend. When I realized that she’d started using Etsy, the ebay of the indie crafts world, to sell her wares, I asked her if she could share tips for offbeat brides looking to shop for wedding supplies while supporting independent artists.

When Ariel asked me to design her wedding necklace in 2004, it was before the days of Etsy. I was maintaining my own online shop — creating, designing, photographing, tweaking, uploading, coding, promoting… To say it was far more work than I wanted was an understatement. I just wanted to make jewelry — my website was a whole ‘nother job.

Two years later, I’ve dropped the maintenance of my own website in lieu of joining a legion of independent designers on Etsy, a website full of handmade, independent goodness. As one of the many Etsy vendors who’s thoroughly addicted to their forums, I went digging and found a few shoppers dressing up their wedding days with Etsy.

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I wrote in Offbeat Bride about how great it was to work with two independent designers to craft my weird-ass wedding outfit. Obviously tastes vary, but I think that for many offbeat brides, independent designers are the ideal for wedding wear. Not only do you have the joy of having something custom made just for you and your style, but you also get to support an independent artisan. And if you’re going to go spending money on a dress, better to give it to a hardworking indie designer, rather than an overpriced wedding salon!

In that vein, every once and a while I’ll be pimping an indie designer who is worthy of offbeat attention. The photo here shows rock photographer Marina Chavez and her groom Diamond Dave Cooper. Marina is wearing a custom design by Lorna Leedy of Fancy Pony Land. That dress! I am dying from the gorgeousness and already knocking down Lorna’s door to see if I can get more pictures of her custom wedding work. (Just wait until you see the shots from Lorna’s wedding. More on that later.) For one more great shot of this beautiful white and red gown, read on …

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While my sweetie and I DO want to exchange rings, we DON’T want to spend a lot of money on them, and we have no interest in traditional, mainstream wedding rings. We want something simple, different, and not made out of gold. We live in a town that doesn’t have anything like that, so online is our best bet. But once we start looking around for wedding bands, all we find are expensive, boring, overly-decadent gold and diamond style rings… There’s just too much online to know where to start! -Sara

I applaud your decision to go the non-diamond, inexpensive route for your wedding rings. Diamonds are grossly overpriced, and of course there’s that whole blood diamond thing, so you’re so much better off going for either a different stone or no stone at all.

First things first: are you SURE there aren’t any custom jewelry makers in your neck of the woods? There’s nothing more awesome than designing your own bands, and if you find a good jewelry maker they can usually work within your budget. Plus, it’s cool to support a local artisan.

Here’s a first tip: Don’t look for “wedding rings” — they always cost more!

That said, if there really aren’t any around, you’re right: there are TONS of online options. Here’s a first tip: Don’t look for “wedding rings” — they always cost more! There’s this strange phenomenon of somehow if it has to do with a wedding it costs twice as much. Seriously. This isn’t just for rings, it’s for dresses, flowers, suits, chair rentals, everything. It’s a total racket. So when shopping online for rings, don’t search for “wedding bands.” Just look for rings that you like.

That said, here are a few links to get you started:

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I’ve always thought that wedding china was a silly tradition — who wants flatware you’re afraid to use? And I’ve just never seen china in patterns that I actually like.

As a fabulous alternative, Sarah Cihat makes amazing rehabilitated dishware, complete with silhouettes of animals, jolly rogers, rockers, and pin-up girls.

Thanks to cuttlefish for posting this in the Offbeat Bride flickr group!