Sarah & Todd’s ultra-casual creative Arkansas wedding

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1306793160 8509f9ab79 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)The offbeat bride: Sarah / vintage clothier
Her offbeat partner: Todd / Graphic designer

Location & date of wedding: Clinton House Museum in Fayetteville, Arkansas. August 11, 2007

What made our wedding offbeat: We got married in a little old house by the University of Arkansas campus, where Bill & Hillary Clinton actually got married. Turns out, we were the first couple to get married there since them!

1245028574 c925d7d4c5 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)The next morning we woke up to find ourselves as the cover story of the Northwest Arkansas Times. We even got an official letter from Bill Clinton congratulating us. Kinda funny considering that our wedding was ultra casual (it even said that exact phrase on the invites) and quite non-traditional.

We had a tower of cupcakes as our wedding cake (with Polaroid pictures of us as the toppers) and an airbrushed carnival style backdrop that read “True Love” for endless photo-ops.

1244383529 4c442754df m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)As for food, we went for my husband's all-time favorite – pizza. We continued to keep it low key & carnivalesque with cracker jacks, cotton candy and corn dogs. We just made to have plenty of beer & margaritas since it was on a very hot summer afternoon.

One of our good friends conducted the ceremony, which was the perfect mixture of humor & sweetness. Overall we were very fortunate to have very loving & supportive parents who, at the end of the day, said they couldn't have been happier with the celebration.

Our biggest challenge: The budget. It was very small, but I think it ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to get creative & really make the wedding what it's suppose to be about – us. I feel like our wedding day captured our personalities & love for each other better than I could have ever imagined.

1305821805 f794849415 m alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)My favorite moment: Well, my favorite detail of the wedding was our invitations. A friend of ours is an amazing artist who designs mostly show posters for bands. Since my husband is a musician (and that's how we met), we sent out 24″ x 18″ silk screened posters as our invites. We packaged them in cardboard tubes with matching stickers on the front that read “you are invited.” It's great going to friends' houses and seeing our invitation now as art, framed on their wall.

My offbeat advice: Try to enjoy the actual day as much as you possibly can. Personally, I believe having a non-traditional wedding really allows you to do that. If you set a unique tone to begin with, it's like you have a special pass to skip all of the customs & rules that don't mean much to you, but that people might expect.

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