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The offbeat bride: Maggie, Student (and OBT member)
Her offbeat partner: Will, Pastor and Grad Student
Location & date of wedding: Ceremony was at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, IN. Reception was at the Mill, also in Marion, IN. — July 11, 2009
What made our wedding offbeat: My husband is a pastor, so we were expected (by people who didn't know us very well, that is) to have a very traditional (in this case meaning BORING) wedding. Not so!
We played Sufjan Stevens, Alexi Murdoch, Nick Drake, and Sigur Ros at the ceremony, which was short and sweet. One of our favorite professors married us, and I wore a tea-length green dress made by my mom and a rockin' fascinator which she also made. I made our bouquets and boutonnieres out of vintage buttons and ribbon. Instead of the awkward receiving line, my husband and I dismissed our friends and family ourselves.
Our reception was at a local restaurant, and it was extremely casual. We did away with special tables for the party because we just wanted to hang out with everyone. My mother-in-law and I made all of the Nutella-frosted banana cupcakes that we served at the reception, and they were AWESOME.
Almost everything involved in the wedding and reception was handmade my family, friends or myself. My husband and I have a very close relationship with our family and friends, and it seemed only fitting that they would be instrumental in making our wedding happen!
Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was the entire prospect of having a somewhat non-traditional wedding in the middle of Indiana. People are very conservative and traditionally minded here, and some people just could not get it through their heads that we didn't want our wedding to be like a fairytale — we wanted it to be fun!
My mom caught a bit of flack for not being a “traditional” controlling mother-of-the-bride and letting me do whatever my husband and I wanted with our wedding, but she's awesome and I don't think it bothered her as much as it bothered me.
My favorite moment: There were so many, I couldn't pick just one! However, I will limit it to two.
The first was when my brand new husband and I were on our way from the wedding to the reception, and it dawned on us that we had a blast at our own wedding! I'm a very introverted person, and I was not looking forward to being the center of attention. However, as I hung out with my family and friends and watched them hanging out and having a great time with each other, I realized that nobody was really the center of attention, and I loved it that way.
My other favorite moment was the surprise firework send-off! When we left the restaurant, fireworks started shooting off. This was set up by our friends, and we had no idea! It was awesome!
My offbeat advice: The wedding is great and all, but don't forget WHY the wedding is happening. The bottom line is that your marriage is way more important that your wedding. Try to look farther ahead than just the wedding day.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- Dress and fascinator- An adapted vintage Vogue pattern made by my mom.
- Groom's tux- Marion Civic Theatre
- Custom ties- Toybreaker on Etsy (she was awesome!)
- Reception venue- The Mill (They were amazing to work with!)
Enough talk — show me the wedding porn:
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