Carla & Zeb's handmade everything, drumming dance party wedding • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

The Offbeat Bride: Carla, farmer/produce marketer

Her Offbeat Partner: Zeb, farmer/produce marketer

Location & date of wedding: Byzantine Church, and church hall in DuBois, PA — May 30, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: The wedding was a traditional Byzantine wedding which is somewhat offbeat even though its orthodox. Byzantine wedding in western PA; we warned people it would be just like the wedding in the move The Deerhunter.

My dress was gold and the bridesmaids wore white (a little backwards). And we bought simple sneakers for the bridal party to change into afterwards.

We saved a ton of money by doing everything ourselves. I had made paper flowers for the three flowergirls who wore handmade dresses by me, the bride. The groomsmen wore linen shirts and hemp pants with handmade rosemary boutineers made by me as well. We ordered beautiful handmade crowns from Etsy for our ceremony.

The reception was catered completely by us (since we're organic farmers that had long been the plan). The favors were organic grape jelly that we had made the fall before. I asked my African drumming group to come and rock and they did! Everyone got up and danced. It was such a good time. My music-obsessed groom had the whole reception planned on his computer which we hooked up to an amp. Best reception music ever! Also we just asked specific friends to help with serving and bartending as their presents to us. It worked out perfectly.

Our biggest challenge: It was the time constraint. We were determined to do everything ourselves but were also busy with moving and tying up loose ends with business/farming stuff so that we could relax on our honeymoon.

Thankfully our mothers both stepped in and helped us with creating the reception hall. We needed to have good conversation skills to make sure both our wants were met and that we weren't compromising too much. We made a list of things that were important for us to have and just worked around that. That made it easier to filter out time consuming tasks that we didn't care about.

My favorite moment: Dancing with all my friends and family. During the drumming everything got heated up and everyone was on the floor. It was like being at a great concert with everyone i care about.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Don't be afraid to ask for help! It was my experience that my friends and family were enthusiastic about being involved. I only asked each person that helped to do one thing so that they were not overwhelmed. This helped me because I knew everything was covered and they were glad to have a task. Good communication with people went a long way that day!