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The offbeat bride: Rachel – Freelance Illustrator and Actor
Her offbeat partner: Dave – Actor
Location & date of wedding: Mayfield Park in Austin, TX — April 17th, 2010
What made our wedding offbeat: Dave and I fell in love with each other's creativity, so that was at the forefront of our day. We were on a tight budget (enter creativity!) and decided that a picnic reception full of hand-made personal details was the solution. We bought baskets with tableware inside (and blankets for the lawn) and we were our own florists and caterers.
I wore a 1950's party dress found on eBay, and Dave sported Chuck Taylors, a fedora, jeans and a vest. A friend of ours is an amazing musician, and he arranged songs from Aerosmith, the Beatles, Ben Folds and Coldplay for the ceremony. I'm Jewish by default (not in practice), but I love the tradition of a chuppah. We made the canopy ourselves, and printed “I Am the Luckiest” on it (inspired by some Ben Folds lyrics), and had siblings hold the four legs of the canopy–it was awesome having them so close during the ceremony.
We hand-cut paper birds and put wildflower seed inside and strung them on clear line as decorations/favors, along with having buckets on guest tables that included wrapped sparklers, personal trivia cards and candy. My graphic design skills were put to use on fan programs, banners, invitations, and quirky signage for lawn games and the cupcake/beverage bar.
Highlights of the day (aside from marrying my dream man and being surrounded by friends): Exiting through an impromptu friend “tunnel” into pouring rain while a peacock watched through the glass and piped in during the ceremony.
Our biggest challenge: Number one was budget (which we talked about). And number two, I guess, big life events like this really shine the light on true colors. We certainly know who would circle the earth for us (and we'd do the same for them), and the best thing to do is focus on how wonderful those relationships are and, as hard as it is to do, let go of the rest.
My favorite moment: Dave's brother married us, and so we had him to one side, siblings around us holding the chuppah, and another brother in the wedding party. To have family so close and so involved in the ceremony was touching.
Another wonderful moment was when we dedicated a song to my father who passed a couple years ago. My sister, Dave and I were sitting on the front porch step listening, and Dave's Dad came up to ask me for a dance. Now I'm lucky enough to have had two wonderful Dads!
Also, we did literally everything to put the wedding together. The morning of, friends appeared in ten-fold to help us rearrange plans to avoid the rain, and they even bought a tent for us at the last minute. We were incredibly touched.
My funniest moment: The peacocks and the groom were the entertainment. 🙂 One peacock spoke up from behind a glass door during the ceremony and someone commented, “Dave, you've got some competition!” During our first dance to the song “Falling Slowly” there's a lyric that says “Raise your hopeful voice…” Well, that's the exact moment when peacocks started to caw! They speak our language. My groom knows how to walk their walk and mimic them, which was great fun to watch.
Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? Rain. It rained hard. I had grown my own ranunculus for bouquets and aisle decor, and the rain pummeled them days before the wedding. We picked wildflowers and paired them with affordable hydrangeas from a market, and they did the trick. The rain returned the morning of the wedding–so much for all outdoors and watching the peacocks! But the sun came and stayed out until about the last half hour, when the big storm hit…including lightning hitting a tree on the grounds. But, it was romantic and strangely ideal. It really is true that if you're flexible and your heart and mind are in the right place, it'll be perfect regardless of the weather and your plans. 
My advice for offbeat brides: When the question is “How do we do this on our budget?” the answer is: Don't. “This” usually means the reception that everyone else is doing. Scrap the hall. We rented a park and cottage owned through the city at a fraction of the cost. We had the freedom to make our own food (amazing pasta, salad with mango and jerk chicken, berries with cream, brie and baguette, grapes) and chose our own vendors…of which we had just one for table and chair rentals. And that rental was the biggest hassle of the whole day. Everything we had done went smoothly.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? In the days leading up to the wedding (and the day of), I really became incredibly in touch with how important our friends are in our lives. I've always known this, but it became so evident in many ways. They had our backs, worked and helped us relax and celebrate. We originally thought of just the two of us getting married in Paris, but thank God we didn't. Spending our day at home in Austin was so much more important than I had anticipated for us. All of our memories and friends are right here.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Photographer: Will Hollis
- Dress: Ebay
- Music: Gabe Hayes Band
- Graphics: Me! Rachel McGinnis Meissner – [email protected]. I've had a lot of people ask me about the projects. I will say that a lot of them were very time-consuming and involved lots of hand-cut items, so they're best as DIY unless resources are abundant.
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
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