Random House photos

The offbeat bride: Krista, Risk Engineer

Her offbeat partner: Rob, Freight Supervisor

Date and location of wedding: Murray's Pond Country Club, Portugal Cove, NL — August 27, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We are fairly relaxed people who love to entertain friends, so it was our goal to make sure that our friends and family had a great time.

Pick a Colour … Any Colour …

We had no set “wedding colours.” I gave the girls free rein to pick out their own little black dresses. My only requirement was that they coordinate their shoes so that they all be brightly coloured, and no two pairs the same. I wanted them to feel as fabulous during the day as I did.

The first look

I wanted a short, funky wedding dress that I could slap on with a cute cardigan and some flats and wear out to our anniversary dinner the following year (and years to come until I can no longer fit into the dress).

Music was a huge part of our wedding planning process. We love '90s rock, and didn't trust a DJ, so we created an awesome playlist over the past year. We threw a “Stereo Love” party with all of our friends that were around at the time to narrow down our wedding playlist, and it was so much fun. I have the original playlist still on my iTunes, and I often play it when I'm looking for a good mix.

Brooch Bouquet

We both have hayfever, so I had an awesome bouquet made out of vibrant brooches. For the girls, I decided on clutches, as I thought this would be more functional and a good excuse to convince my bridesmaids to carry around some essentials for me.

A random sample of DIY Projects

I made all of my invitations and each one was brightly coloured and unique. I also made my bridesmaids' clutches (with the help of my wonderful friend, Val), decorated my wedding cake (with assistance from my friends Val and Kelly), painted several mugs for the centrepieces, made my own hair fascinator, made the gifts for our parents, and the ring-warming holder.

Random Centerpieces

On Guard!

I didn't have favors for the sake of having favors. I collect nesting dolls and love the randomness of each doll. I had some on each table for an extra punch of colour, and if guests cared to take them home with them, it was their choice. I also collected random brightly coloured mugs for use as flower pots to hold some fresh herbs. Guests were free to take home the mugs/herbs as well.

Rob had a groomsmaid. Rob's best friend from university, Sheena, stood on his side at the wedding. But because I love her so much too, there was an understanding that she would stand on his side at the ceremony, but she would partake in all the girly activities with my bridesmaids.

Murray's Pond Country Club

Tell us about the ceremony: We didn't want to be restricted to a formal/by-the-book ceremony, so we had a civil ceremony so that we could write it ourselves. The wedding commissioner started out by explaining that we had been together for 14 years (to the day). August 27th was special to us for so long that we wanted to maintain it as our anniversary. You could call us romantics or you could just call us plain lazy.

Ring Warming Ceremony

We had a ring-warming ceremony. Very few of those who attended our wedding had ever heard of it before. At the beginning of the ceremony the rings were passed around to the audience for them to give their well-wishes, positive intentions, or say a little prayer for us as they warmed the rings and passed them along to the next person. In hindsight, we should have made it clear at the beginning of the ceremony to not stop and take any photos of the rings. The wedding commissioner called the rings up to the front before everyone had a chance to hold the rings. Or, we should have spoken up and said that we would wait for them to make the entire way through the audience.

Here we go!! :)

Rather than being “given away,” we made a point to thank our parents and gave them a big hug and kiss before proceeding with the ceremony. It just seemed right to include all four of our parents, as his have been as big of a presence in my life for the past 14 years as my own parents have been.

Hitched! :)We had our wedding commissioner read “The Art of Marriage” by Wilferd Arlan Peterson. We did sneak in a quick little line in both of our vows to see if anyone would pick up on it. For the vows Rob said to me, we included:

I promise to take you, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in distraction and in focus, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, all the days of my life.

(It is common knowledge that I'm easily distracted and a bit of a scatterbrain at times.)

Included in the vows I said to Rob:

I promise to take you, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sarcasm and in seriousness, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, all the days of my life.

It is common knowledge that Rob is known for his sarcastic nature.

Our biggest challenge: My biggest challenge was probably learning how to delegate. I have a tendency to try to do everything myself and I often get overloaded and overwhelmed. I had nearly a year and a half to figure everything out, so I did a lot in advance. But during the last few weeks I did realize that I needed help, and my sister, Kayla, was willing and waiting for her task list. She was phenomenal those last few weeks. Once the remainder of my bridesmaids arrived in town, they were quick to lend a hand as well.

Martha Stewart Inspired Cake

I have a crazy cake decorating hobby. So from the beginning I decided that I would be making my cake. As time went on, friends offered to help me out. Realizing how much I had on my plate, I agreed to let my friend Val, who loves baking, bake my cake, and my friend Kelly who also decorates cakes to help me cover the cake in fondant. The girls were such lifesavers!

Guest Tree

My favorite moment: Standing on the deck, hand-in-hand with Rob, waiting to walk down the aisle as we listened to “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve playing. It was also a beautifully sunny day (which can be equivalent to winning the lotto in Newfoundland).

Quote of the day!

My funniest moment: While waiting for the photographer to take some photos of the guys, we girls were standing around chatting on the opposite side of the street. When my sister went to adjust her dress, she pulled out the top of her dress, looked down and said “Omigawd! My bra is gone!” Apparently it had shifted down to her waist under her dress but she couldn't feel a thing. We burst into laughter and agreed it was the funniest quote of the day.

Good Talk! Now Let's Eat!

My advice for Offbeat Brides: We thought we wouldn't need a wedding videographer. They're expensive and people are always getting video on their cameras, so there is bound to be someone to take a video.

alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)
A Month of Mixbooks:
As part of our partnership with Mixbook, this couple has been given a free wedding photo book to show off their wedding photos. We'll be featuring some of these Offbeat Bride Mixbooks in a few weeks!

We were so focused on all the details that we forgot to make a point to tell our friends to make sure they take lots of video clips. Our friends were all focused on getting photos that none of them took any video.

At the end of the day, we thought “You know, it would have been really nice to see what that looked like from everyone else's perspective.” Especially considering how much emphasis we put on our music. We have the most fabulous photos from our photographer but it's just not the same without the music. So, we would definitely recommend that you ask a few people to take some video clips throughout the day in order to get a better feel for how everyone else experienced it.

I Gotta Feeling …

So I always get nostalgic with that song…

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? Because our wedding was such a creative process for me, it was a huge eye-opener to see just how much I enjoy being creative on such a large scale. It's been just over three months since the wedding and the whole experience is making me question whether the field of work I'm in is truly satisfying me. I'm still not sure what my answer is, and I have a lot of soul-searching to do before I figure it out.

Get Stuffed!

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Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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Comments on Krista & Rob’s colourful relaxed DIYed wedding

  1. This wedding is so fantastic!! I love the bright colors and how laid back everything was. Excellent job!!! Congrats on marriage 🙂

    • Thanks!! I still have the list on my old laptop. I think I should be able to get the list off of it. I’ve had several people mention they’d like to see the list. I should see if Offbeat Bride would be interested in posting it as I haven’t had much time to log into the Offbeat Tribe, post-wedding.

  2. I can totall relate to your final ‘lesson learned’ comment. It’s awesome to learn a thing or two about yourself in the process of planning your super awesome wedding. All of your hard work looked beautiful, congrats!

  3. it’s been such a pleasure to be krista’s hairstylist for 9 years.. she blows me away with her artsy fartsy spunk…she did a amazing job planning her wedding and I bet this isn’t the last time you hear from krista Gates Guy…. congrats to a wonder woman and wish you all the happiest days with your lovely husband rob !!!

    • Thanks Amanda! Such sweet words from one of my favourite peeps! 🙂

  4. Great DIY wedding! Loved all the little touches and thank you for the heads up on the ring warming ceremony. We’re doing that as well and we’re concerned about how long it will take to go around to everyone. Congratulations to the happy couple!

  5. Oh, wow. This is so completely radtastic all the way around. The color! Nesting dolls! Missing bras! NEWFOUNDLAND! Congratulations. Cheers!

  6. I love the idea about wearing your dress again! Congrats 🙂

  7. Congrats girl! Your wedding looks beautiful! As a fellow Newfoundlander, I totally squeed when I noticed this post! Offbeat weddings don’t seem to be common in our province 😛 I’m also planning a Newfoundland wedding and I hope I have as much luck with the weather as you! 🙂

    • Thanks!! Yay Newfoundland! 🙂 Remember all the rain we had last year? I think there was a three week period in late August where we had nice, warm (non-wet) weather on the weekends. That was it. Our wedding just happened to fall in the middle of those weeks. We were lucky. Hopefully this summer is a little drier for you. I’ll keep my fingers crossed! 🙂

  8. What a lovely wedding and a precious cake!

    Do you have a tutorial for those clutches? I’m dying to make clutches for my bridesmaids!

  9. Have to say I fell in love with this wedding. So many colours but it all works so well! To anyone thinking along the same lines and taking on board the advice offered by this beautiful bride they could consider perhaps organising a rota for friends videoing the wedding and then letting a professional company edit it? Still a big saving on hiring a professional video company and with the personal touch but guessing you’d get some beautiful footage with memories to treasure … including things you didn’t see on the day. (Companies offering this service worldwide pretty much now so not just a personal advert LOL.)

  10. GORGEOUS! I love all of the bright, bold colors, and all of the touches of DIY.

  11. yay for east coast canada! (nova scotia here). Wedding looked great and relaxed and very fun . Congrats!

  12. Yes! I’m also planning to wear my wedding dress for our 1st anniversary date 🙂
    And I love the bright colors.

  13. Im also considering this venue for my future wedding. any venu specific advice about murrays pond? we are concidering a fall wedding… so no out door ceremony for us i dont think. the weather dosn’t co-operate with me too often here in nl anyways. how did you find the long tables? would you reccomend round tables? about how manny did you seat for dinner? I like your style, you did a great job. i too find it hard to let go & not take on too much myself. thanks for sharing your special day. congratulations

    • Hey Laura! Murray’s Pond was fantastic! We went through several wedding planners at Murray’s Pond until their bar manager, Lisa, took over and actually did a fantastic job! If the weather is nice, a fall wedding at Murray’s Pond could be fantastic! I can just imagine the sun setting on the water and how lovely it would look from the inside. I actually preferred round tables but we then realized that they would take up more space and feel more cluttered. …. and we would have to rent them ourselves and it just seemed like an uneccessary cost, effort and loss of space. I can’t recall off the top of my head, but I think we had 6 or eight at the table. I feel like it was eight. Including the wedding party, we had just under 100. Good luck with the wedding planning and if you are talking to Lisa, tell her I said hi! 🙂

  14. I am so excited to find a NL wedding on this site! I’m currently planning my wedding for next May and during the process I have found that NL is still very traditional when it comes to weddings, unless you do most of the work yourself. Its a lot of work, but if its going to mean that we get the day we want, than its all worth it!
    Congrats Krista!

  15. I just have to tell you that this is such a beautiful wedding! I’ve never heard of the ring warming ceremony but it sounds as beautiful as everything looks. Amazing!!

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