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The Offbeat Bride: Michelle – Administration Awesomeness (and OBT member “Michellie Bellie“)
Her Offbeat Partner: James – Offroad Junkie Extraordinaire
Location & date of wedding: Admiral Baker Golf Course in San Diego, CA — September 07, 2008
What made our wedding offbeat: We wanted a wedding that encompassed mine and my husbands many off-beat tastes. My husband and I are both avid tattoo collectors and wanted them shown off at the wedding. I gussied them up with jewels and made sure to get a strapless dress. We love skeleton and pirates and our theme was “love never dies”. We had skeleton figurines as our centerpieces and cake topper.
We also did almost everything DIY. Most of the things used at the wedding were acutally taken from our home decor. We just grabbed things off the walls and shelves on the way to the wedding. I wanted our wedding to be great, but without putting us into debt. I found almost everything off ebay, even my fabulous DRESS, wich only cost me $80, including shipping. Talk about a bargain! I handmade our guestbook using my super-cool scrapbooking skills.
I loved how we just threw in all our quirky little tastes into the wedding and it flowed so perfectly!
Our biggest challenge: When we told our family and friends that we were going to have a skeleton themed wedding and the main color would be black, everyone grumbled. They thought it would be some morbid un-happy funeral-type wedding. When I reminded them that it was MY wedding and that I had always backed them up in whatever they did, not to mention that I am probably the most happiest person you'll ever meet, and no way would it be any sort of sad day, they seemed to lay off… but still seemed skeptical. I just took all the critisism as lightly as I could, shrugged it off and kept telling myself, “they will see my vision on my wedding day and will see how awesome it will be!” By the end of the wedding, so many people were telling us it was the most fun wedding they had ever been too!
We also had a challange with the families. James and my immediate families are so big! We each have two sets of parents and I have four siblings and he has five. We just couldn't fit them all in the wedding party, it would be too much. (My sister cried when I told her I didn't want seven bridesmaids and I wasn't going to choose between all the siblings). So, we decided that we would have a sand ceremony where they would each pour some sand into the vase as a sign of blending the families. They all walked down the aisle one by one before the wedding party and poured the sand in front of everyone. We wanted to have our family recognized for being such a big part of our lives. It was very touching.
My favorite moment: My favorite part would have to be walking down the aisle. It didn't really hit me that I was getting married until I stepped out of my hiding place onto the aisle runner. I wasn't nervous or anything, until I stepped out and saw my future husband, then the tears started rolling. The music was perfect, I was walking down the aisle to our song “Sun and Moon,” by Mae and right at the part where the soft melodic music becomes rock with drums and all, I simultaneously stepped out to make my grand appearance. James and I decided not to see each other for 24 hours before the wedding, so when I looked at James and he locked his eyes with mine and had the biggest smile on his face, my heart melted. And to top it all off, my father was walking me down the aisle. Something I never thought possible because we hadn't spoken in ten years and had some serious problems up until I forgave him about a year ago. It was everything I could have dreamed of and so much more.
My advice to other offbeat brides: Make it your own. Incorporate things that make you uniquely you! It doesn't matter if it goes with your color scheme or your theme, if it makes you happy, then it will all come together fabulously.
Also, don't sweat the small stuff. If something goes wrong, that is normal and what makes your wedding REAL. Laugh it off and who knows, it may make for something better than what you origanally planned! My husbands mom put the wrong cake topper on the cake, AND the florist changed the flowers without telling me and was also an hour late. But I just blew it off — there was nothing I could do about it the day of the wedding, and it ended up making for the most gorgeous wedding photos! So in the end, it was all good in the hood. 🙂
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:
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