Krista & Rob's colourful relaxed DIYed wedding • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.