Ally & Jake's quirky, rainy-day wedding and barn party in the mountains • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

The offbeat bride: Ally, Grad Student

Her offbeat partner: Jake, Engine Mechanic

Location & date of wedding: Three Sisters Park, an outdoor meadow in Evergreen, CO and then a local barn for the reception — June 13, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: We did things our way, and man, we caught some flack for it! But, we pulled off exactly what we wanted and couldn't be happier. We are outdoorsy, snowboarders who got engaged on the slopes, so we wanted to keep everything laid back and fun in the beauty of the mountains.

We got married in the middle of June, but the weather was typical of the Rocky Mountains- unpredictable! The temperature stayed below fifty degrees and it was raining off and on throughout the day. Because it was so chilly, I wore a green sweater that matched my bright green shoes perfectly (my mom thought it was appalling). We kept the ceremony family only (except for our four-person wedding party) and walked out to a field without music, chairs, or props.

We had a simple, short, heart-felt ceremony. Then it was off to party! We found a nearby barn that the owner had built and turned into an event center, so we created our own barn-party. We served BBQ and a dessert buffet (no cake for us). We didn't want the garter toss, bouquet toss or cake cutting, but we did want to dance! We spent most of our time dancing and it was awesome.

I DIYed everything: I bought all of the blue/green/white old-fashioned vase centerpieces from thrift stores, picked the flowers from a green-thumb friend, painted signs, created scrabble eye-candy, found quirky frames from thrift stores and printed off pictures to fill them, and put my brothers in charge of the DJing the playlist we selected for the reception.

All in all, we spent $9,000 on the wedding, which left us plenty of money to party in Costa Rica for the following two weeks! I would not change a thing about how I did my wedding.

Our biggest challenge: My parents are very traditional and paid for the wedding, which resulted in many “discussions” about how I wanted to plan my wedding vs. what they were/were not paying for. As a student, I have very limited financial freedom, so their support was much appreciated, although their input was rarely needed.

My favorite moment: I was humbled at the amount of support and love from those who know Jake and I. It was extremely intimidating to see everyone who surrounded us, to support our marriage and wish us well in our new lives together. But, I think my favorite moment was walking down the aisle, seeing Jake waiting for me and noticing him crying… a lot. He was really emotional and I was just beaming. It was precious.

My funniest moment: When I was walking down the “aisle” (a hiking trail that led to the meadow), my family was trying to get everyone to quiet down. Because there was no music, every spoken word could be heard. My stubborn grandma is not one to be told what to do, so she yelled, “I will NOT be quiet!!!!” So much for serenity. 🙂

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? I really wasn't sure how our MC would do; he is Jake's crazy uncle, who is very unpredictable and outrageous. Aside from bringing his bird along with him to the wedding and reception, he pulled off the role remarkably smoothly!

My advice for offbeat brides: Choose your battles. As much as I did not want my family or friends dictating how I planned my wedding, their opinions still carried enough weight to make me reconsider some of my ideas. I had to decided what I really cared about and what I was willing to let slide for the sake of personal sanity.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? Keeping it simple doesn't always mean low stress.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

Saphire Pebble Set rings: Etsy from SingleBBeautiful
Dress: Amanda's Bridal in Arvada, CO
Hair pieces: H&M
Green cardigan: Target
My green ceremony shoes: Miz Mooz from Nordstrom
My fancy reception shoes: Bandalino from Macy's.
Picked my flowers from a good friend's backyard
Made the rest of the decorations from many thrift store trips.
Photographer: Sarah Lee Welch Photography, she was awesome and she really captured the feel of the whole day.
Venue: The barn that we used was the perfect venue and the owner was incredibly kind and warm, which was refreshing to find after dealing with many money-hungry event centers.