Lenore & Andrew's "Young At Heart" Park Wedding • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

The offbeat bride: Lenore, Graphic Designer (and OBT Member)

Her offbeat partner: Andrew, Barista and Cafe Manager

Location & date of wedding: Pioneer Park, Lewiston, Idaho — June 12, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: Our theme, our outfits, our “new” traditions mixed with old… there's so much that made our wedding offbeat!

There was the mustachioed and mowhaked groom, the purple haired and tattooed bride, and the madness that was our families, too! There was also the officiant (my brother) who read from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as his introduction!

All together, we saved a ton of money doing EVERYTHING ourselves, from the invites to the food, the decorating and the bouquets. My mom made both of my dresses, as well as most of the bridesmaid dresses. I designed the wedding invites and our wedsite, and we put the invites together ourselves. We did most of the prep for the decorations, like the origami flowers and confetti pieces. My mom made the special coloring pages for each table.

We also used A LOT of bright colors, kids' toys and games to help decorate the wedding and the reception hall. We had a Lego brick cake that I made myself, with customized MiniFigs my mom had made out of Sculpy.

Tell us about the ceremony: We had our ceremony on top of a jungle gym at a park. We're both kids at heart, and felt like that was the perfect place to have our wedding. We slid down the slide together after exchanging rings, which was a great way to end the ceremony.

Instead of an official first dance, we had a Unity Cocktail. Andrew was the vodka, and I was the gin, and we had our officiant make us a Vesper martini.

Our biggest challenge: We had a lot of things go wrong, and a lot of bad stuff happen that we could not control. Our original photographer passed away a month before the wedding, and our backup photographer had to be fired for being a creep. I didn't freak out because I knew that there would be a lot of people there with cameras, and that we'd get a few pictures out of them. Thankfully, our friend Nick came through at the last moment and we got great shots from him.

We also had to scramble to get flower girls with a month before the wedding. I had originally picked my niece and nephew to help us out, but they weren't allowed to come after we had been told that they could. I happened to know two girls who would be able to fill in, and they did GREAT. We got their dresses done quickly, and they were amazing, and they definitely enjoyed the experience.

My favorite moment: Instead of having our parents give us away, our whole wedding party did. Our officiant asked “Who stands with this man/this woman?” and everyone said “We do,” in response. It was so great to be supported by not just our parents, but the other friends and family who gathered there.

There were so many great moments, but that was the one that stuck out for me, and I still think of and remember with a huge smile.

My funniest moment: Our officiant read from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I think it hit people about halfway through the ceremony!

The FUNNEST moment was sliding down the slide with my husband after exchanging our rings.

We also did Gob's “chicken dance” from Arrested Development as our “first dance,” which was definitely funny for our friends and family to watch!

My advice for offbeat brides: Don't waste your time worrying! Worrying will actually get nothing done faster, better or the way you want it. It will just make you ill, and you want to remember your engagement and wedding with HAPPINESS, not with STRESS!

Also, remember that at the end of the day, all that matters is you're marrying your best friend. Meltdowns, food issues and minor catastrophes be damned, you're leaving there with the one you love, and nothing can take that from you.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? Don't sweat the things you can't possibly control. People will do things you don't like, things won't turn out just perfect… what does it matter? If you stress out, little problems will seem so much worse. If you're just calm, and happy, it will be the perfect day that every bride wants it to be.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
Dresses, boutineers, bouquets, cake, decorations, favors, food and coloring pages were all done by us and our family! There were very few vendors, but here is what we did get done by other people.