Megan & Alex’s baby-postponed DIY hitching of two gamers

The Offbeat Bride: Megan, Registered Nurse (Operating Suite)

Her offbeat partner: Alex, Systems Analyst (IT)

Date and location of wedding: Northern Pavilion/Heather Garden at Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens – Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia — July 28, 2012

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: First and foremost: colour! I’m not into the traditional white dress, so I glammed it up with a fantastic bead and feather-adorned prom gown.

Origami flair: I didn’t want to spend money on flowers, and since I really love origami, I pain-stakingly spent weeks folding origami cranes (and a few doves) to use for decoration, and as a garland/boutonniere instead of a bouquet. I also featured a kanzashi hair piece as my “something blue.”

No cake: This was absurd for me, as I love cake-decorating. However, having a newborn gave little time for this craft of mine, so instead, using some ideas from this very site, we had a fondue bar! I bought a cheap chocolate fountain from eBay, and had three fondue sets with differing chocolate types and offered a selection of fruits and confectionery. Sided with a hot drinks station which offered a kettle full of hot chocolate, and various yummies for sprinkling, this was a popular alternative and no-one asked “Where’s the cake?”

The location: I love the Blue Mountains in NSW, I spent many, many days of my childhood roaming those gardens and it was a special location where Alex and I went when we starting dating, so naturally it was a perfect choice for us.

Family-only: To keep numbers and cost down, we only invited immediate family/near cousins and kept our guest list down to twenty. This meant we were able to book the log cabin on site in the gardens and held our reception there to keep things intimate.

I cooked for our wedding. A few weeks prior to our wedding I spent my baby-free hours cooking soups, dips, and anything else that I could freeze. Several days prior, I cooked and prepped non-stop.

Tell us about the ceremony: We kept our ceremony simple. Alex and I asked our celebrant for “short and simple!” which she did. It was only twenty minutes long.

I walked down the aisle to a string quartet rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” on the mp3 player. We chose this because The Wedding Singer is one of our favourite movies!

We chose a reading each; Mine was “A Lovely Love Story” by Edward Monkton and Alex chose one piece of script from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which read:

“You want a question that goes with the answer for 42? Well, how about what’s six times seven? Or how many Vogons does it take to change a lightbulb? Here’s one! How many roads must a man walk down? Because my head is filled with questions and I can assure you no answer to any one of them has ever brought me one iota of happiness. Except for one. The one. The only question I’ve ever wanted an answer to – is she the one? The answer bloody well isn’t forty-two, it’s yes. Undoubtedly, unequivocally, unabashedly yes.”

We ended our ceremony by walking down the aisle to “Your Personal Penguin” sung by Davy Jones.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was having to cancel our first wedding! Alex and I had planned a trip to Thailand in October 2011, and had booked a Buddhist wedding ceremony (I’m a Taoist) during that time in Chiang Mai.

There was a problem with that plan however — in July of that year I became very ill and I decided to take a pregnancy test. Well, blow me down: two lines. Two pink lines. I was pregnant! With this new joyful information came waves of sickness, bed-ridden sickness. Alex and I were left with no choice but to cancel our Thai wedding. We had to then reschedule another wedding for after our daughter was born.

My favorite moment: I have two. Having our gorgeous daughter in the flesh, all puffy and princessy at our wedding is a glorious one.

I was unable to have my maternal grandparents at our wedding as they had unfortunately passed on, however I included a photograph of them at the reception adorned with two origami peace doves.

My funniest moment: We chose to write our own vows. Alex gloriously themed his with pigs (my favourite animal), likening us to “two pigs in mud” when together, and I managed to so gracefully slip into my vows a fart joke. We couldn’t stop bursting out with laughter!

My advice for Offbeat Brides: Shop around (eBay has great bargains on dresses like mine!), and shop AHEAD of time, as the cheap stuff can take at least a month to arrive. Try to prep as much as you can if you cater yourself. Finally, prom dresses make great (and cheap!) alternatives to wedding gowns.

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!

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