Category Archive

manifestos

Love has NO color: how I found the man who embraced my dark skin

Love has NO color

My color has always defined me for as long as I can remember. I am a very dark, black woman. If you’re aware of what’s been happening to my people and women (since the beginning of time) who look like me, you may know exactly what this means. I’M A VERY DARK, BLACK WOMAN — enough said. Being me comes with a lot of judgement and I’ve had my fair share of ridicule.

Cue years of self-doubt, years of undoing the very horrible thoughts you created in your head because you actually started to believe the things that were being spewed at you for years on end. Fast forward to my mid-twenties and cue the love of my life…

No dieting, no makeup, no shame: My anti-diet, equal opportunity, feminist wedding

No dieting, no makeup, no shame: My anti-diet, equal opportunity, feminist wedding

I’m getting married this July, and like a lot of women, I’m getting increasingly excited and somewhat nervous about this. As someone who is all about equality, feminism, self-acceptance, and patriarchy smashing, there are a couple of things that my impending feminist, anti-diet wedding will not be about. For the sake of any other bride or groom or person who needs a reminder that you’re going to do just fine, here it is…

My crop top wedding dress will not be timeless... and that's totally okay

My crop top wedding dress will not be timeless… and that’s totally okay

During my current brief stint in the apocalyptic landscape that is the contemporary wedding industry, an insidious pressure has latched itself onto my consciousness. The pressure to be Timeless, Classic, and Elegant. But on many months of tortured reflection about being my Most Beautiful Self, here is the terrifying secret I’ve come to discover. And it all comes back to my crop top wedding dress…

we won tshirt 1 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

9 years of Offbeat Bride: we won (and why we’re done being special snowflakes)

January 1st, 2016 was Offbeat Bride’s ninth anniversary! That is a hell of a long time to be doing anything, and it’s especially a long time to be publishing a website. And yet here we are: nine years later! Still kicking! Still cheerleading! Still celebrating.

Things HAVE changed though, and we want to hear from you about it…

alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Why you should be judgmental about weddings

Offbeat Bride is known as the inclusive safe-haven of the wedding world, but did you know that we’re actually PRO-judgment? Wait, did we actually just say that? Allow us to explain…

Offbeat Brides official stance on wedding etiquette advice alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

Accountability: Offbeat Bride’s official stance on wedding etiquette advice

Not infrequently, Offbeat Bride will be criticized for supposedly telling couples to ignore certain kinds of wedding etiquette advice. Or we’ll catch shit for sharing weddings where folks went way off the beaten track when it comes to what you might think of as acceptable wedding etiquette. Given that the “Offbeat Bride hates etiquette!” critique comes up repeatedly, perhaps it’s worth capturing our official stance on wedding etiquette advice.