The offbeat bride: Leila Easa, teacher

My offbeat groom: Gavin Murphy, engineer

Location & date of wedding: On Nov 4 2006, The Mexican Bus took us to three San Francisco locations: Bernal Heights Park, Seward Street Playground, and the cave near the ruins of the Sutro Baths

What made our wedding offbeat: We just decided to do something meaningful to us, not our grandparents. To be honest, this was difficult. I wrestled with whether or not we were being selfish. But in the end, we had it our way: a bus adventure, three locations with symbolic meaning, a reception at home, very low costs, no wedding dress, tux or diamonds, etc.

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The offbeat bride: Janelle, writer

My offbeat groom: Matt, professor

Location & date of wedding: Forest and backyard behind my parents’ house in Battle Ground, WA; July 21, 2001

What made our wedding offbeat: We had a Quaker ceremony. Everyone sat facing one another in a circle, holding silence until moved to speak. In the Quaker tradition, there are no ministers as they believe all are equal before god. This means that everyone at your wedding is considered an officiant — anyone can talk during the ceremony, everyone signs the wedding certificate. [If you're interested in some background, you can read about Quaker weddings over here. -Ed.]

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The offbeat bride: Rei Chee, naturalist

My offbeat groom: Bryan Perez, musician

Location & date of wedding: Backwoods on my friend/reverend’s property in Boston Hills, NY. May 2006.

What made our wedding offbeat: Our wedding was not the ball of the year, but being in the presence of nature & our close friends made it very magical.

My husband & I eloped in my woodman friend’s backyard, which was a huge tract of natural land. He was also our Reverend. We were married between a shagbark hickory (signifying solidity & strength) and a beautiful white pine, the Tree of Peace among the Iroquois Indians. Our invited guests were my parrot, a few special humans, and the Reverend’s pack of border collies in a very whimsical ceremony.

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The offbeat bride: Stacy Streuli, Interior Designer (and Offbeat Bride lab rat!)

My offbeat groom: Oliver, video and commercial editor

Location & date of wedding: Small B&B, White Mountains, NH: 10/17/04

What made our wedding offbeat: The things which made our wedding offbeat were mostly due to my staunch refusal to succumb to my mother’s “only daughter” fantasy of a big traditional synagogue wedding with 250 guests. She was actually prepared to take out a loan to finance it. I never wanted the white wedding fantasy, and I wasn’t prepared to bankrupt my mother over it.

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The offbeat bride: Dana Bos, imaginary girl

My offbeat groom: David Bos, rockstar

Location & date of wedding: Real wedding at The Ruins, Seattle {2.20.05} || Imaginary wedding at the Crocodile Cafe {2.20.05}, Seattle, WA

What made our wedding offbeat: David and I knew we wanted an elegant and intimate wedding, one that was an extravagant enough affair that we couldn’t invite the world. But being actively involved in the music scene (he as a guitar player, me as a music writer), we also wanted to have a big bad rock and roll bash to celebrate our marriage.

So we did both.

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The offbeat bride: Vania Sukola, social worker

My offbeat groom: Joel, PhD history candidate student

Location & date of wedding: July 20, 2006, Toronto Island Algonquin Island Association, Toronto, Ontario

What made our wedding offbeat: I didn’t want to get married ever — while I am committed to my partner, I just didn’t like the politics that went with being married, and especially cringe with traditional weddings where people just do things without knowing the historical context. So, when we decided to do something to honour our relationship, we decided to have a ‘celebration.’ This word was what we used to describe our special day and we wanted to use it as a way to help people realize we were not going to have a ‘wedding.’

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The offbeat bride: Susan Beal, writer (and Offbeat Bride lab rat!)

My offbeat groom: Andrew Dickson, artist

Location & date of wedding: August 7, 2005, Contemporary Crafts Museum, Portland, Oregon

What made our wedding offbeat: We got married by our good friend Diane in the Church of Craft, at a craft museum, and threw a big party afterwards, so it really reflected the two of us! We DIYed everything we could (with a couple of exceptions) but we also did a lot of trading, and between that and some creative math we were able to pull off wine, beer, champagne, and dinner for 150 people, slightly under budget.

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The offbeat bride: Joriel Foltz, writer (and Offbeat Bride lab rat!)

My offbeat groom: Ben Haley, photographer

Location & date of wedding: March 20, 2005, Plant Zero Art Center, Richmond, VA

What made our wedding offbeat: Technically, we didn’t have a wedding. For various reasons we decided not to get legally married. But that didn’t stop us from having a blow-out celebration of our decision to spend the rest of our lives together.

We designed our entire ceremony from scratch, turned an industrial-chic event space into a magical wonderland, and served a homemade vegan buffet that satisfied all but the most maniacal carnivores.

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