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The Offbeat Bride: Amy, Web Marketing Manager
Her Offbeat Partner: Steve, Paralegal
Location & date of wedding: Stern Grove, San Francisco, CA — 06/27/2009
What made our wedding offbeat: Brian and Helen, some of our best friends, were planning to get married around the same time. We came up with the brilliant idea to have a psudo-double wedding; two ceremonies, one big party. It seemed to make perfect sense — our guest lists were essentially identical, except for our immediate families.
The result was an amazing wedding. We all saved a lot of money, and split all the work in half.
While friends were concerned about the possibility of two strong-minded brides butting heads, we girls actually had the time of our lives planning and shopping together.
We did it all “our way”. We had non-traditional clothes, mostly made by local designers. We enlisted friends to DJ. Two bridesmaids got together and made 200 cupcakes!
We are very community-minded people and this was truly a community event!
Our biggest challenge: The plans involved two couples, rather than just one. This meant there were potentially a lot of people to make happy; we had four mothers and a step mom!
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Thankfully both brides have run many events and been camp mother of some very large Burning Man camps. We're used to making big things happen and ignoring drama.
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My favorite moment: The four of us had a head table together. We sat down to eat and just looked at eachother with such satisfaction that after 10 months of planning, it was exactly what we wanted!
My advice for other offbeat brides: Get creative! Weddings can involve lots of things including expenses, drama, expectations, etc. But you can pick and choose what you want. Choose the traditions that resonate with you and do the rest your very own way.
At the beginning, we made clear goals about what we hoped to get out of the wedding and we stuck to them. They were very helpful at keeping us on task and setting priorities.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- My dress: Miss Velvet Cream
- My husband's tux: Domini the Clothing Architect
- Helen's dress: Bad Unkl Sista
Enough talk — show me the double wedding porn!:
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