Offbeat Wedding Planning Resources & Tools
Congratulations on your engagement! Here are ALL kinds of wedding planning resources & tools to help you plan an epic offbeat wedding. This is where you’ll find your wedding binder, vendor resources, your wedding website, a great wedding checklist, city wedding guides, and so much more.
Organize your wedding planning
Start with our Offbeat Wedding Planning Tools:
- Wedding Vendors: Find your offbeat-friendly wedding vendors from photographers to planners to dress makers and more
- Wedding websites: start a free (and gorgeous) wedding website
- Wedding planning binder: Download our massive pack of wedding planning spreadsheets and organize EVERYTHING, plus the binder includes our much beloved printable checklist that’s helped literally hundreds of thousands of nontraditional folks plan their weddings
DOWNLOAD BINDER NOW
DOWNLOAD BINDER NOW
Organization advice:
- Weddings 101: wedding planning basics
- 7 questions to ask before picking the wedding date
- 6 ways to help vendors understand your offbeat wedding
- Set up a Dropbox for wedding vendors
- How to plan your wedding, Project Manager-style
- Archive of wedding planning tips
Offbeat city pages
Wedding planning city guides: the nitty-gritty of how to get married in your city. These are based on the top US cities where Offbeat Bride readers live… coming soon, our top international cities like London, Syndey, and Melbourne.
Sending invitations
Letterpressed lovelies or emailed videos, how will you be letting everyone know the deets?
Tools:
- 10 design apps to use for your DIY wedding invitations (including 5 COMPLETELY FREE ones!)
- Wedding invitation printing techniques primer
Wedding invitation advice:
- When to send out your invitations and save-the-dates
- Common mistakes when addressing your wedding invitations
- Wedding invitation wording basics for the newly engaged
- How to avoid drama when not including people on your guest list
Wedding websites
Offbeat Bride has partnered with Wedsites to bring you free wedding websites catered to the unique needs of nontraditional couples.
Tools:
- Create a free wedding website
Wedding website advice:
- 9 wedding website tips to inform, reassure, and give warm fuzzies to your guests
- What should you put on your wedsite’s FAQ?
- 6 tips for an extra-useful wedding website
- How can I make sure my wedding website won’t show up on Google?
Offbeat-friendly vendors
Some wedding vendors will look at you funny when you share your nontraditional plans, but the businesses in our wedding vendor directory LOVE alternative clients. (Some even offer special discounts just for Offbeat Bride readers!)
Tools:
Vendor advice:
- How to find your wedding reception venue
- Important questions to ask wedding venues
- Important questions to ask your potential wedding photographer
- Insider advice that jewelry stores may not want you to know
Your wedding budget
Making and sticking to a wedding budget is key to staying sane and keeping your life in balance. We’ve got tips…
Tools:
Wedding budget advice:
- Sample wedding budgets for all kinds of offbeat weddings
- Package deals, tax write-offs, and pants: Save money on your wedding
- Catering advice from a wedding caterer
- 10 realistic wedding budget tips to stop budget ballooning
- Archive of wedding budget tips
Craft your ceremony
From vows to readings to unity ceremonies and playlists, there’s more to ceremonies than meets the eye.
Ceremony advice:
- Wedding Ceremony 101: Crafting your own wedding ceremonies from scratch
- So you want to have a friend officiate
- Lots of ceremony scripts
- Tons of wedding readings
- Movie-themed instrumental songs
Wedding day timeline
From the crack of dawn to falling into bed at the end of the wedding day, it’ll likely be jam-packed. Here’s how to get it all organized…
Tools:
Wedding timeline advice:
- How to make a “less worry/more party” wedding day timeline
- An insider’s view of a wedding photography timeline
- Example day-of schedule for an early morning wedding
Find your outfits
Whether you’ll be wearing a long white gown or a floral pantsuit, your wedding day outfit should totally be YOU.
Tools:
Fashion advice:
- Browse our fave offbeat dress designers
- Everything you need to know about having your wedding dress custom-made
- The ultimate guide to plus-size wedding dress shopping
- 5 things you should know about tuxedo rental and fittings
- 11 wedding hair tips
- What to wear as a gender-bender
- How a trash bag helps you go pee all by yourself
Decor & Flowers
Decor can be totally optional with the right venue, but if you’re handy, crafty, or chic, this is where you can shine.
Decor and floral advice:
- Themed decor: Harry Potter-style
- 6 vital things you need to know when working with a wedding florist
- So many FREE printables for weddings
- Tons of decor DIY ideas
- Our decor archives
Playlists and reception
Tools:
- Using Spotify as your wedding DJ
- The ultimate DIY wedding photobooth tutorial
- Easily edit your wedding songs
Reception advice:
- 13 ways to make a reception more fun
- 10 delicious ways to make your wedding food fun
- First dance songs that haven’t been done to death
- Dancing alternatives
- Archive of reception ideas
Themes and real weddings
Having a wedding theme is not at all required, but they can certainly be fun to incorporate as little or as much as you’d like.
Themes and real weddings:
- Lots of offbeat wedding themes
- Thousands of REAL weddings for inspiration
- Tons of wedding inspo to sate your wedding appetite
- Archive of dresses
Ready for even deeper insights?
There are loads more advice posts over on our wedding basics page, our full content archives, and of course, by searching the site!
You can always submit your questions and ideas here if you need more advice. We’re here to help!
