Date and location of wedding:Hunter's Creek, Michigan — July 27, 2013
Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Jeffrey and I worked every weekend for six months to prepare an old farm for our Alice in Wonderland and circus-themed wedding. Our entertainment was the Detroit Circus and The Reefermen. All our decorations were handmade and we did everything ourselves, with help from family.
Our biggest challenge:
Despite a gorgeous summer in Michigan, the weekend of our reception was met by a downpour! My handmade decorations were all but destroyed by the rain, and many of our guests were not prepared for the showers. But we managed and had a wonderful support system surrounding us. Everyone was very understanding of the ever-changing Michigan weather. Thankfully, we had covered porches, tented seating areas, and indoor facilities to keep all of our guests dry.
My favorite moment:
The most meaningful moment of our wedding experience was the union of two different worlds of people. The love that was expressed to us that day was the most meaningful moment I have ever felt.
Also, watching the six months of labor Jeffrey and I put into the wedding come together was incredible. It was better (and wetter) than I expected, and I wouldn't have changed a thing.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
Don't worry if it rains. It just adds to the magic of the day.
The Offbeat Bride:Lisa, self-employed artist and illustrator
Her offbeat partner: Waide, Senior Developer
Date and location of wedding: My grandparents' farm, Nelspruit, South Africa — August 2, 2014
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
We had our wedding at my grandparents' farm. Some of the highlights for me were my black dress, our ceremony (which we loved!), the bubbles we used as "confetti," and the glowsticks we played with during the reception. Everybody started making jewellery out of them and even the grandparents were joining in on the fun.
I made most of the decor, from the 250 fabric flowers to the atlas bunting to wrapping all the table decor in twine. We had so many friends and family members helping us set up the day before, and when I saw the finished venue for the first time on the day of the wedding I nearly cried. It was better than I thought it would be. I was so worried my expectations would overshadow the reality but it was actually the other way around.
Our photographers, Kallah Ohr Photography, were also amazing, and put everyone at ease about having their picture taken. They were the best team we could have chosen to shoot our day.
My brother wasn't a groomsman; instead, he offered to fire dance for us during the reception. It was amazing, and something I will never forget.
Tell us about the ceremony:
Both Waide and I are athiests and the ceremony was actually a huge problem for us since we didn't know how to craft it. It was suggested to us that we ask a local Methodist minister to do the ceremony. He was open to the idea of marrying people outside of the church as long as he got to know us first. We were a bit hesitant because we didn't know what to expect, but he put as at ease very quickly and was a very nice guy. I was still nervous about not having a rehearsal (his suggestion) because I had no idea what he was going to say, so the reception was a complete surprise for us. But it went smoothly.
Our biggest challenge:
The biggest challenge for me was learning not to micromanage and to let go of stuff that wasn't important. I was so worried that my perfectionism would take over, but I was actually very calm about everything. We didn't know if we were going to have a cake because the cake vendor had only contacted me about the design the day before the wedding. I was cool about the whole thing and took it as a "if we have a cake it will be a great surprise!" It turned out that we did get our cake and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
The next biggest was the DJ's power supply dying just after the speeches. The electricity kept shorting and his computer just died. I panicked a bit but my bridesmaids came through. They produced laptops and the music eventually returned. And even though he lost the playlist, no one noticed and everyone danced anyway.
My funniest moment:
When I was throwing the bouquet, all the girls stepped away from it like marriage was contagious, and the one who did catch it dropped it with a shocked expression! Another one of my friends then grabbed it triumphantly.
I kept tearing my dress! Our photo shoot was on the farm and we were walking around in the orchards and it kept snagging on sticks. I also got it caught on one of the doors and a friend stood on it with her heels (twice!). But the best part was when I told Waide to just tear off the ripped part — his face was just amazing.
My favorite moment:
The most meaningful moment was seeing Waide's eyes fill with tears as I walked towards him. He told me afterwards that he wasn't smiling because, if he had smiled, the tears would have run down his cheeks.
Another one was definitely the first dance. In the eight years we had dated, we had never publicly danced together, and the fact that Waide took lessons so he could dance with me meant the world to me.
It was wonderful having most of the people we loved in one place and some of them even travelled huge distances to be there. It meant so much to us.
Zay and Stacey's wedding last June was a color and light EXPLOSION. After a weekend of camping and playing in the lake, the couple said their vows at sunset on the incredible fields of 80 Acres in Kansas. Damn, you two. If that's how good you look after a couple days of camping, I'd love to know what you look like every day! Zay and Stacey each strutted their stuff in gorgeously fanciful wedding costumes. Zay was in leather from head to toe (complete with bare arms and lacing everywhere. Growl.) while Stacey showed a blue dress what it was meant to look like.
Take a careful look at her ensemble, folks. I love that she thought of pairing that black halter vest with such a swooping, formal dress! I'm pretty sure she has some shoulder jewelry going on underneath it too. Then there's the headpiece — a jaw-dropping concoction of feathers, flowers, and jewelry. And if her bouquet isn't three feet long, I'm worse at eyeballing measurements than I thought.
But moving on from the incredible outfits, be sure to admire the rest of this super-fun wedding! We've got fire eaters and tent-covered lounges and a veritable parade to the ceremony site. Enjoy!
Date and location of wedding:Canal 337 in Indianapolis, IN — April 25, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
It was really important to us to be able to incorporate some of the things that we really love into our wedding without watering them down, so we were really selective about what we brought to the party, but we really brought those things. We are both burners, Chris has an engineering background, and I'm a sci-fi nut, so we went with a burner-bent steampunk vibe, but not so much that it freaked out our (very conservative) families. We're saving that party for Burning Man.
We made a lot of our own stuff and really incorporated saturated colors and metallic tones. Some of the things we made: copper pipe centerpieces, copper table numbers, cog-shaped favors made of seed paper, the groomsmen's boutonnieres and bridesmaids' fascinators, the bridesmaid necklaces, steampunk customized Nerf guns and foamboard props for the photobooth, our invitation and program suite, the cake topper (Chris carved it out of wood and it was AMAZING), the flower girl buckets, and our amazing seating chart.
Tell us about the ceremony:
We wrote our own ceremony with some help from our wordsmith friends. The officiant (our dear friend Jason) dressed fully steampunk, complete with goggles, a kilt and big stompy boots. He also dyed peacock feathers into the side of his head to match our colors. Our parents were a little freaked out, but we loved it and he completely won everyone over with his sweet personality and general awesomeness.
I walked down the aisle to the Prague Philharmonic's version of the theme from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When my dad recognized the music, he started crying! We're a Trekkie family for sure.
The ceremony really highlighted the idea of marriage as a platform for freedom and self-exploration. We picked passages from "The Irrational Season" by Madeline L'engle and "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke. My brother sang "This Will be Our Year" by The Zombies and absolutely hit it out of the park.
We walked out to "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall and Oates. I tend to serenade Chris with the song on road trips, so we felt it was appropriate.
One of my incredible, artistic bridesmaids also made a small heart-shaped effigy and had it up before and after the ceremony for people to sign. We are planning a small, intimate camping trip this summer to burn it.
Tell us about your reception:
We wanted a serious, SERIOUS party. We made a lot of our own decor instead of splurging on flowers and lighting — we really wanted to focus on having good music and good food. We served cotton candy (required by me!) and popcorn during the post-dinner dance party and they were both a huge hit.
Chris's cousin who is a Shakespeare professor created beautiful photobooth backdrop using a lot of his personal collection of props. It was a wonderful gift and we were blown away by how great it looked.
We also had fire spinners (part of the the Indy burner tribe) perform — it was our big surprise, and I was a little nervous about how our more conservative guests might react, but everyone seemed to love their show. They had planned to do three shows throughout the night but it was FREEZING, so after the first one, I told them to just come in and party with us.
What was your most important lesson learned?
I stressed about the weather leading up to the day of the wedding. It ended up being stormy and freezing cold. But the morning of the wedding, I did my yoga and calmed down. I decided to give zero fucks about the weather and everything worked out fine.
I also asked my boss Mary to be our day-of coordinator (she had done it before for other friends) and it was a great decision. I manage large projects for my job and produce burn events as my volunteer gig, so I didn't need any help planning, but I definitely needed help executing and coordinating everything the day-of. Mary was wonderful — she'd just find me every once in a while to let me know how things were going, she coordinated with our families and all the vendors to make sure things just went smoothly.
The Offbeat Bride:Ashley, Full time Hair Stylist, Part time Superhero
Her offbeat partner: Erik, Computer Guru, Software Developer
Date and location of wedding: Ceremony: beach on the north shore of Vieques, PR; After-party: Journey's End — May 19, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
Two of our favorite things that we enjoy together are traveling and themed parties (or basically any excuse to dress up!), so we knew right away that those needed to be incorporated. It wasn't long before we decided on a pirate wedding in the Caribbean — costumes absolutely required. In fact, I helped put together costumes for most of our guests who were local.
My brother had been telling us about Vieques, PR for many years, so we decided to have the wedding there and secured everything without ever having been there ourselves. We took a quick trip down a few months before the wedding and absolutely fell in love.
The general gist was nontraditional, pirate shenanigans. A lot of our friends do not fit into neat little categories, so gender-bending pirate-try was highly encouraged.
We didn't want any kind of rehearsal dinner, so instead the evening before, we set up a massive pirate map scavenger hunt for everyone which took them all over the island sightseeing. The challenges they had to do were all video challenges, so we have great video of all our friends and family that we have turned into a hilarious collective video to give to them all as gifts.
Tell us about the ceremony:
My brother and I have an extraordinarily close relationship. We knew from the beginning that he would perform the ceremony, so we got him ordained online through the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. They believe that pirates were the original divine beings, so really, it was fate.
To get people in the mood on the beach, we played the song "Weird Beard" by the Mad Caddies and a couple of our friends sang and acted it out theater-style.
My brother, as Acting Captain, was on point and in character for the whole ceremony, complete with pirate lingo: "Ahoy all ye lads and lasses, all you sly-eyed snakes and simple wenches. T'day is a day to celebrate."
When one of our friends "objected" to our union, he and Erik battled it out in a choreographed sword fight (with real swords!). Fortunately, the groom won!
Instead of a ring bearer, our mothers held our rings on twine around their neck which was cut by my brother's sword when they came and presented them. Our vows were on handwritten scrolls.
I'm also a huge Doctor Who fan, so after our vows, we reenacted the scene from the Wedding of River Song (unbeknownst to most our guests who were clueless), complete with the hand-tying ceremony using a bow tie my brother took off a crew member's neck.
Tell us about your reception:
Since I am clearly not a fan of tradition, all were thrown out the window. No cake cutting, garter tosses, or glass dinging here. In fact, we didn't have a cake at all. I didn't even like to refer to it as a reception and instead called it the "after-party." One of the villas we rented had a large indoor/outdoor area, and it was held there.
We had a local guy and his assistant come in to cook a buffet-style dinner with Asian influences.
For decorations, we had a pirate chest handmade by the groom and filled with treasure — gold coins and jewels scattered about. Lots of skulls. Draped fabric, fairy lights, and fisherman's netting were used, along with candles and local conch shells. Captain Barbosa and Captain Jack Sparrow even came in the form of giant cardboard cutouts as our "celebrity guest appearances."
Since we didn't have a wedding party (we love our friends equally), there were no set speeches. Regardless, one friend stood up to perform a poem they had written, and another gave a speech. After that, one of our friends, who was a professional singer, performed some songs for us and got the party started. From there it was all dance party!
We brought in a couple local fire spinners to perform on the side while everyone partied to help seal the atmosphere we were trying to create. Later that night, our friends created a "Real World"-style confession booth and left us hilariously drunken video messages.
What was your most important lesson learned?
The biggest wedding challenge for us ended up being the unexpected things that can go wrong the day of. Usually that's things like the caterer being late or the singer not showing. But in our case, my mother ended up getting her arm stuck in the electronic gate on the way to come cook us pre-wedding breakfast and showed up with her arm grotesquely swollen (but not broken, phew) and bruised from elbow to palm. She was so determined to not ruin my day that she actually hid it from me under a dish towel while her and my stepfather cooked us breakfast! Such a bad-ass.
Shortly after finding out about her arm and seeing how bad it was, Erik declared that he wasn't feeling well. Turns out he was bitten on the wrist by a spider the day before and now had the classic red streak of a blood infection running up his arm. We put a tourniquet above it and raced him to the hospital — four hours before the ceremony! We told them our situation, and three medicinal IV drips later, they discharged him. He was feeling better almost immediately, and we were lucky that everything was able to continue (though a little late).
So my advice is this: If you can afford it, hire a wedding coordinator for the day of, no matter how much you think "I've got this!" You never know what can happen hours before the ceremony, and it would have been nice to have had someone who knew what was going on organizing things while we were at the hospital. Fortunately, we have amazing friends who held down the fort without us.
Fire spinners: Jamie Mulligan-Smith & Linda Nunez Montanez
Bride and Groom outfit: Threads of Time (they didn't do the whole outfits, but we got several pieces from them and they were essential to helping us put it all together)
Liz and Tony's wedding inspiration came from trips and involvement in the Burning Man community where they met some of their closest friends. The venue was a friend's gorgeous home in the hills of Rancho Santa Fe, California.
Some of our favorite parts were their customized outfits in teal and green with octopus light-up umbrellas, and their reception with fire dancers, fire sculptures, and a ring nest complete with robin's eggs. Liz's dress featured loads of tentacles and a corset made from shattered pieces of mirrored glass. You'll absolutely want to see the whole shebang.
Maria and Sito wanted to celebrate 10 years of dating with an unofficial non-wedding rite with all their loved ones in Madrid, Spain. They didn't want any official protocol, so they decided on a "ten years on fire" theme. This meant, of course, fire dancers, fire rituals, and a focus on reuse of materials for the decor. DIY was the order of the day! Let's relish in their joy.
The Offbeat Bride: Julie, Employee Benefits Consultant
Her offbeat partner: Vincent, Software Engineer
Date and location of wedding: In front of Mazu Goddess of the Empty Sea at Burning Man, Black Rock City, Nevada — September 3, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
Our dream was to be married at Burning Man. We are both fire spinners/dancers and met auditioning for a dance troupe that would be performing at Burning Man. However, since our family and many of our friends would not make it out to the dusty desert and harsh conditions, we decided to have two weddings. The first took place on June 12th, 2015. We had small private ceremony in my parent's backyard, followed by a fun, whimsical, unicorn-themed party with friends and family.
Wedding #1:
The second wedding was held at Burning Man on September 3, 2015. At Burning Man, it's important to leave all expectations at the door. We sent an invitation to our burner friends indicating the wedding time and date. The location was yet to be determined, since we had no idea what art installation we would see there that moved us and we would want to get married by.
Wedding #2:
We found a beautiful temple, called Mazu Goddess of the Empty Sea. The moment we saw it, we knew this would be the place that we wanted to hold our ceremony. I loved the large lotus flower that bloomed on top of the temple. The lotus was also particularly meaningful to us since it is known to be associated with fertility, spirituality, faithfulness, and eternity. Even though our legal ceremony had been a few months prior, the one at Burning Man was equally, if not more relevant, in our eyes. Since our wedding was unicorn-themed, I held a stuffed animal unicorn during the ceremony as well as my bridesmaids.
Tell us about the ceremony:
We were referred to an officiant who had volunteered to do wedding ceremonies on the playa (there is no exchange of money or bartering at Burning Man since it is a gifting society). We spoke to the officiant before Burning Man and he seemed like a perfect fit. He knew our story and knew that we wanted a non-religious ceremony and that we wanted to read our own vows that we had written for one and other. He also knew exactly where we were camped and where to meet us on the big day.
As it turns out, it was time for us to get married, and our wedding officiant was nowhere to be found! We waited for 45 minutes for him, as everyone was beginning to get impatient. Just as we found another fellow burner who graciously volunteered to marry us, our original wedding officiant showed up. He seemed disoriented and completely different from the person we had previously spoken to several times over the phone and email. We carried on and was given a ride to our wedding location in a friend's furry panda art car/mutant vehicle. As the ceremony began, we realized the officiant lost his notes and was basically making it all up as he went along. He made terrible jokes and read other people's wedding vows! We all just laughed and then proceeded to read our own vows to each other. This was a moment we certainly will never forget. Looking back, it was a beautiful ceremony with just some super awkward moments.
Tell us about your reception:
At Burning Man, the decor is the playa and the attendees who are dressed in the most mind-blowing costumes. The vibe was fun, whimsical, and light-hearted. I made my wedding bouquet out of flower-shaped lollipops. When it was time to throw the bouquet, everyone went for it (not just the ladies). One of the sweetest moments was a little girl running up to me asking for one of the flower lollipops right before I threw the bouquet. I gladly took some out to give her and it brought a huge smile to her face.
We gave out party favors after the ceremony, which contained a few Burning Man essentials, such as matches, a key-shaped bottle opener, Band-aids, powdered beverage mix with vitamins and electrolytes, and candy.
What was your most important lesson learned?
The biggest wedding planning challenge by far was planning a wedding when you didn't even know the location the ceremony would take place. All we could do is pick a date, time, and hope that our friends would find our camp. This is especially difficult because there is no internet or cell phone reception at Burning Man. Once we confirmed the address of our camp at Burning Man before we arrived, we sent out a Facebook update to all our friends, telling them to meet us in front of our camp on our wedding day. Fortunately, it worked out well. My only advice for Offbeat Bride readers that plan to get married at Burning Man is to let go of all expectations and just go with the flow.
Rich-as-hell colors, Art Deco-inspired style, circus performers, fire dancing, luscious cocktails, and the most fabulous florals we've seen in ages — this big top styled shoot is KILLING it. Don't miss all the copper accents, the Alphonse Mucha-inspired signage, aerial rig, and the most amazing bar area. Plus, you'll be begging to see more of the greenery-covered venue in the Pennsylvania.
Mindy and Luke had searched for a venue in which a large number of family and friends could come and celebrate, camp out, and enjoy a champagne toast. Believe it or not, there was little to be found until they found the Woodward Cave in Woodward, PA. You know we LOVE a good cave wedding. With a barefoot wedding party, retro clothing, guests and participants offering everything from fire dancing to ukulele playing and acroyoga, this rock star couple really had a magical cave wedding.
The Offbeat Bride:Vanessa, Religious studies graduate and archivist
Her offbeat partner: Alexander, computer technician
Date and location of wedding:Bergeries de l'Acadie, St-Jean-sur-richelieu, Quebec, Canada — May 7, 2016
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
Alex and I are hobby musicians (heavy metal for him and folk/classical for me) and we like medieval and fantasy stuff. Since I am a practicing wiccan/heathen, we wanted to have a real handfasting ritual for our wedding. We had 160 guests for our pagan wedding.
We wanted to involve most of our friends who are very talented people, so we asked them to help at each step of the wedding. A couple who we like very much led our wedding ritual, a friend made my black dress, and another one made my second dress for the evening. Our musician friends did the performances and we also asked our fire spinners friends to perform. We had belly dancers and even the very talented photographer was a friend of ours.
We had an outside ceremony ritual in the nature surrounded by trees and a river, followed by a cocktail party with entertainment of live electric cello and fire spinners. A dinner with a live medieval band and dancers followed by a night of dancing to DJ music who played all our favorite rock songs from the '80s.
Tell us about the ceremony:
Our officiants dressed in white and performed a wiccan ritual written by me and the priestess. We had 13 groomsmen and bridesmaids who entered with candles and made a big circle around the altar. Alex then entered with his parents and I entered with my parents, my mom carrying my wedding broom.
During the entrance there was a Viking song playing by Wardruna with live drums and electric cello. We started by calling the four elements with the priests, which is important in Wiccan spirituality. The priestess then called our 13 friends who came one by one and wrapped around our hands a different colored ribbon (13 colors) to give us a blessing. My husband and I then shared mead by saying that we entered this life in perfect love and perfect trust. After that, we jumped the broom to symbolize entering married life together.
Tell us about your reception:
Two of my belly dancer friends danced for us as we arrived at our table at the reception. Then the live traditional band named Skarazula started to play for dinner.The centerpieces of the tables were small trees with lights that I made to remember the yggdrasil tree from viking tradition. Each table had a name of a realm in the viking mythology.
We did a quiz with fantasy/medieval questions. Every table won, so we had to do a dance contest with one member of each table and the winner received a bottle of wine for the table. The musicians also taught medieval dances to the guests.
We served locally-farmed lamb barbecue, but since I am vegetarian as are most of my friends, they also served a vegetarian option. We didn't have cake, only small cupcakes as the restaurant already was serving chocolate mousse. We had pagan molded chocolate as decoration but the kids ate it all!
Zay and Stacey's wedding last June was a color and light EXPLOSION. After a weekend of camping and playing in the lake, the couple said their vows at sunset on the incredible fields of 80 Acres in Kansas. Damn, you two. If that's how good you look after a couple days of camping, I'd love to know what you look like every day! Zay and Stacey each strutted their stuff in gorgeously fanciful wedding costumes. Zay was in leather from head to toe (complete with bare arms and lacing everywhere. Growl.) while Stacey showed a blue dress what it was meant to look like.
Take a careful look at her ensemble, folks. I love that she thought of pairing that black halter vest with such a swooping, formal dress! I'm pretty sure she has some shoulder jewelry going on underneath it too. Then there's the headpiece — a jaw-dropping concoction of feathers, flowers, and jewelry. And if her bouquet isn't three feet long, I'm worse at eyeballing measurements than I thought.
But moving on from the incredible outfits, be sure to admire the rest of this super-fun wedding! We've got fire eaters and tent-covered lounges and a veritable parade to the ceremony site. Enjoy!
The Offbeat Bride:Jessica, Founder of Urban Nomads
Her offbeat partner: Oliver, Founder of Urban Nomads
Date and location of wedding: Yurt at Home Farm, Beachampton, England — June 3, 2017
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
We wanted our wedding to be a reflection of the lifestyle we live. So the theme was hippie love fest. As travelers in our horsebox named Luna, we wanted our friends and family to share a piece of the experience we have as Urban Nomads.
We wanted our wedding to be a reflection of the lifestyle we live. So the theme was hippie love fest. As travelers in our horsebox named Luna, we wanted our friends and family to share a piece of the experience we have as Urban Nomads. We had a yurt put up in a field near to where our family lives. The whole ceremony was outside in nature which was very important to us. The decorations were all homemade by my family. Each dessert was made by different friends and family and shared potluck-style after our BBQ.
There were flowers from different gardens everywhere and all the paths in the field were lit with candles in the evening. We had welcome drinks before our ceremony so we could meet our guests and talk to people who had traveled from both Canada, Germany, and all over the world to be there.
Our bar was in the theme of the event so, naturally, it was a bar truck offering everything from beer to shots. We then all walked together into the field for the ceremony. Live music was essential for us as I am an artist and Oli loves all things acoustic. We had live acoustic music for when people arrived outside and then live music in the evening. We also had some friends come by in the evening to show off their fire dance skills. To finish the night we had the best grilled cheese truck come and fed our guests grilled cheese and vegan hot chocolate.
Tell us about the ceremony:
Our ceremony was the highlight of the day for us both. We wanted to incorporate a handfasting with an honouring of the elements and for our families to be involved in each aspect of the ceremony. We had an altar at the back which held items for the four elements: water from the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, fire was a candle in a salt lamp, air was a Koshi wind chime for the air element, and earth was collected from Oli's hometown in Germany, my home in Canada, and our current house here in England, this was mixed with salt in a bowl on the altar.
Our officiant Amanda was incredible. She married us under a branch arch with golden leaves. My cousin created the sacred space by making a circle of rose petals for us to stand in during the ceremony. Oli and I arrived together with each other welcoming our guests and stepping into the circle. Each element was honoured by different members of the family including parents and siblings and then our friends offered a cleansing ceremony smudging us with sage as they recited our favorite smudging prayer to the universe.
Our best man Paul repeated our ceremony in German for all the German relatives, and we made our own promises to each other based on the values that we wanted to uphold in our relationship. At the end, Amanda and Paul both finished with, "On behalf of all those present, and by the strength of your own love, I now pronounce you partners in life." We walked away together back into the tent with all our family and friends following.
Tell us about your reception:
After the ceremony, we had our speeches. My dad retold stories of keeping the neighbours awake while I danced above them wearing pink plastic shoes as a child in Hong Kong. He then gifted those shoes to Oli saying it was his turn to take over. Oli then spoke followed by Paul, both in German and English to make sure we included both sides of the family. After that we had a gorgeous BBQ featuring vegan sides and vegan mains, and meat and potatoes for the non-vegans.
After that we ate the potluck desserts and shared our first dance to "Sweet Child of Mine" from the film Captain Fantastic which is one of our favorites to watch. The Monster Celidh Band then took the night away. They mix electronic dance music with traditional folk music and got everyone up dancing.
We had a break in between sets to roast marshmallows on the fire pits set up all over the field. We also had a fire dance show from some of my artist friends as we watched the sunset. Just as we left, we saw a family of hedgehogs run past watching the fire dancers.
What was your most important lesson learned?
We both have different medical conditions that made us worried about having a set day for the wedding. Oli has epilepsy with often unpredictable days where seizures would leave him unable to participate in the day. I have depression which meant that the run-up to the wedding and day was very tiring and often hard to manage. With the help of our families and some time off before, the wedding was calm in every way.
The other challenge was that half of our family speaks English and the other speak German. We didn't want anyone to feel left out so we made sure that the speeches were as bilingual as possible.
Tops hats, crowns, fire dancing, a SPECTACULAR bouquet, lanterns, swords, rainbow groom's hair, and even clown noses… are you all in for Olivia and Scott's fab fiery wedding yet? Their friend and photographer, Courtney Lindberg Photography, did such an amazing job telling us about the wedding that I'm going to let her explain it…
There are so many reasons why this wedding is special. Let me start with the couple. I met them at about the same time they were meeting each other. We are all fire dancers and were in the same conclave together. It was amazing to witness their first sparks for each other and then watch it turn into a grand romance rooted in the deepest love. Then we have the stunning venue, The Ebell Los Angeles, draped in history and providing the perfect backdrop for their eclectic affair.
The couple did most of the details on their own, including the invites, table decorations, and hand picking unique accents that truly made their day spectacular. The florals were out of this world and added the most exquisite color to the base theme of black and white stripes. The grooms' people carried swords, while the brides people carried lanterns.
The rings were passed around before the ceremony to each of the guests asking for a thought or blessing as they went around the room. It was moving to watch the guests hold the rings and bestow their well wishes before passing them along. The couple requested that the guests wear hats to the event, adding a whole level of style and flare. The reception was majestically lit filling the whole space with vibrant light and colors while people danced in bliss.
Towards the end of the evening, the couple put on a fire performance that surprised and wowed all their guests. Talk about a grand finale!
Date and location of wedding: Private neighborhood clubhouse/pavilion on the river marsh, Augusta, GA — October 7, 2017
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
The theme was TIM BURTON. We didn't want a Halloween wedding. We didn't want a wedding specifically themed after any of his particular movies. We wanted our wedding to be a regular, beautiful, fancy wedding, but through the eyes of Tim Burton — TWISTED.
We requested black tie attire for the guests and kept the wedding colors to black and white — with lace incorporated anywhere I could get it. The only pops of color were from our flowers — which were hues of a sort of bloody fuchsia, maroon, and light pink– my favorite of all being the black dahlia, which were used as the boutonnieres as well.
We did have some movie-specific elements, such as the photo op which was a recreation of the hill from Nightmare Before Christmas. We wanted a different backdrop for guests to take pictures with. So a friend of mine actually built the hill by hand from scratch — it was 17' long and had stairs so it would look like you were ascending the hill, and a platform to stand atop it for photos. Another friend of mine carved the heads of Adam and Barb from Beetlejuice out of foam and painted them by hand. We used them as decor on the cake table then later adorned them during the reception.
The best thing about this marriage is that we had been best friends for years, then when I finally left a toxic relationship, he asked me out and I said no. Twice LOL. Then finally I realized: why am I trying to set this great guy up with my friends and coworkers?! I need to say yes!
Tell us about the ceremony:
Music as the guests took their seats included Victor's piano solo from The Corpse Bride and instrumental music from Twilight. Our ceremony used vows from The Corpse Bride. I walked down the aisle to a custom made rendition of Calvin Harris ft Rihanna's "This Is What You Came For" because well… everybody's watching her, but she's looking at you!
My engagement ring stone was pear-shaped, but I always refer to it as being the shape of a blood droplet. Wes's wedding band is referred to as "the ashen one" — a reference to Dark Souls 3. My aunt was our officiant and she had us answer questions about each other weeks before and we weren't allowed to know what each other answered. The ceremony was almost entirely a complete surprise to us but it was so personal and wonderful and tear jerking and laugh inciting. She's also an opera singer and sang Ave Maria while we honored both my parents and Wes's parents with a flower ceremony of black dahlias.
Our flower girl Kadee is the daughter of our friend Ryan who built the Nightmare Before Christmas hill. We consider ourselves to walk a fine line between "normal" and "dark" sides, so for some attendees of the wedding (mostly Wes's family), some elements of the wedding were a bit of a surprise or shock. Despite this, we wanted the wedding to be fun for everyone. We didn't want a typical ring box so we made a quirky but beautiful ring holder. Most everything in the wedding was handmade, including our invitations.
Tell us about your reception:
Wes is part of a group that spins fire and LED poi or glow sticks, so some of his friends who share the same talent/hobby gave an awesome fire performance for our guests. Also there was lots of rave lighting and glow hoop and poi spinning at the reception.
An inside joke we have is that over the years, Wes would always Rick Roll me, like even at the worst times like 5am when we're up and tired and getting ready for work, then suddenly I'd hear "never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down…" So at the wedding, he surprised me by singing the entire Rick Astley song to me in front of everyone!
I love rock/metal music, so for our toast, our bridal party changed the words to "Tribute" by Tenacious D and presented us with "The Best Toast In The World," complete with toy guitar solo. Our first dance was to Alanis Morissette's "Head Over Feet."
All of the centerpieces were DIY and I loved them so much. One had flowers in tiny little nooses hung over mirrors — their souls reflected in the mirror. Tim Burton elements were found throughout in black and white stripe and spirals. One was inspired by the aliens in the original War of the Worlds movie — a giant beautiful crystal eye with huge feather eyelashes, staring out at the guests. The third were black branch trees sitting atop a huge black spiral. We didn't have a wedding planner so when we went to cut the cake, we couldn't find our fancy cake cutter, so we cut the cake and fed each other off a rather large kitchen knife.
What was your most important lesson learned?
Biggest challenge was not spending a fortune. We cut costs by making anything we could by hand. It worked out in the end, but I did not realize how much TIME it would take. My best advice to couples out there looking to save money is to make sure you have plenty of time. Even when you think you're on schedule, make sure you have everything done at least a month in advance.
A good friend of mine is my hair and makeup stylist who also hosts a yearly special FX hair/makeup show called Monster's Ball, so she was big into our theme and my makeup and also is who made the Barb & Adam heads on our cake table that we wore. Another friend did my nails and hand painted sand snakes (from Beetlejuice) — one on each foot that came together on big toes to kiss.
We also had a custom Tim Burton inspired Snapchat filter. LED balloons for the sendoff were supposed to represent the ghost of each guest floating ominously above them (each was connected to hair tie for guest's wrist so wouldn't be let loose and harm the environment).
You may have seen photos of this wedding going viral recently and we've got the whole story from the brides themselves. Get ready to be floored by this en fuego couple… (Also: do not try this at home.)
Date and location of wedding:Camp Tanager, Mt Vernon, IA, October 13, 2018
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
The theme of our wedding was performance. We are professional performers and have lots of performing friends. We had many different performances from Burlesque, Fire, Aerial, Dance, Hip-Hop, Belly Dance, Singing, Juggling, and more.
We ended the ceremony by lighting our dresses on fire!
Tell us about the ceremony:
We used stuffed animals instead of floral bouquets. We had a handfasting but with a whip.
And of course, we lit our dresses on fire instead of doing a unity candle. Our officiant said, "You may now light the brides" before it all started. We're both fire performers so we know all of the precautions to take when doing something like this. We had a certified pyrotechnic and medic on hand just in case, but they weren't needed.
A person from my wedding party lit my dress and one from Bethany’s wedding party lit hers. We tried to get them to match evenly but mine ran up first and Bethany’s took a while but it slowly burnt up the skirt. I think Bethany managed eight seconds in hers and mine was 12 seconds before I had to drop it. We attached slow-burning duck cloth canvas to the trains of our dresses, which would easily tear away.
Our hair was up, the ground was damp ground, and we had 50+ experienced fire performers helping out. We followed all of the rules outlined in the Specialty Insurance Requirements, NFPA 160 and NAFAA Regulations. So we were very safe about the whole thing.
Tell us about your reception:
We had blue and pink themed decor at the reception. My favorite color is pink, and Beth's favorite color is blue so it made sense. For entertainment, we had jugglers, clowns, and aerialists perform during the reception.
What was your most important lesson learned?
If you have an LGBT wedding, be very careful about posting publicly. There are still a lot of anti-LGBT people in the world who will comment or message you with threats of violence toward you. You can read more about this element here.
[Editor's note: here's a post to help you if your wedding happens to go viral!]
We featured this wedding last week on the blog, but their account of the aftermath of it going viral was not surprising but definitely disheartening. Read on for the full account…
Photo by Cukini Studios at Studio Reserved
I just had my wedding two weeks ago on Oct 13th, 2018. It was a pretty standard, boring wedding thing, except for one dangerous thing. Both my wife and I are fire performers and I used to be a model and photographer. Because of that, I know a lot of photographers and many of them are still close friends of mine. We ended up with several wedding photographers, one of which we have shot with dozens of times. Together we worked on and got an amazing photo that could have resulted in major injury or death and still could if done again.
As stated before, we are both professional fire performers. We have performed all around the world for our crafts, have been highlighted as the feature fire instructor at the largest fire festivals in the country, and admin the largest fire eating group on social media. Because of this, we have done multiple fire-related photo shoots. As a photographer, I’ve wanted to do a "trash the dress"-type shoot, and as a model, I’ve wanted to be in the dress. We’ve made this happen a number of times. My wife has done it multiple times, I’ve done it multiple times, and we’ve facilitated a fire-themed trash the dress many other times. We have or had over a dozen wedding dresses for these shoots, many of them donated to us. This type of shot is not new for us. So, for our wedding day, since we have so many fire performers as friends, we could easily do a dual trash the dress shoot for our wedding.
Obviously, do not try this yourself without professional assistance. Note: we are world renowned professionals. I’ve done fire promos for companies in many different countries and have world records in fire arts. Our wedding party had eight other performers fire performers and a certified pyrotechnician. More than 50 of our guests are fire performers. We had multiple fire extinguishers, specialized dresses, specialized protective clothing, six fire safeties, insurance, permits, medics, and more than 300 people ready to jump in to help. For us, this is not that far away from the norm. I used to eat and breath fire as a full-time profession.
Come to find out, it was a dangerous photo, but not because of the fire.
If you read the text above before seeing the photo, more often than not you read “my wife” and assumed I was the husband. From the photo, you can see that I am, in fact, another woman. This is what trips people up the most. Our wedding photo has spread around the world and of course, there have been many comments on it. I agreed to many sites and news sources to publish our photo and story because I was proud of the photo.
In the U.S. it is, by far, more dangerous to be LGBT than it is to be a professional fire performer.
I expected a lot of haters, but what I didn’t expect is what they commented against. I would assume that more people would be angry about the fire and at least one person concerned about our safety. I was wrong. Over 90% of the comments were attacking our intelligence and sanity with most of the remaining attacking us as a same-sex marriage. If I saw this photo third-person, I would first ask, “Are both the brides okay?” Not one of the thousands of comments I saw was concerned with our safety and many of the commentators attacked our orientation rather than discussed the fire itself.
The point of this:
I’m proud of this wedding photo. It’s a compilation of years of effort in fire performing, modeling, photography, and thousands of hours of effort in creating a wonderful relationship with the most amazing woman ever.
I want people to know that despite the effort of the SAGA/LGBT Community and its allies, it seems more people are concerned about same-sex marriages than are concerned with someone on fire.
For people to realize that civil rights for LGBT is still being fought for. Same-sex marriage was not officially sanctioned by the U.S. until 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution), which was just three years ago.
Most importantly:
Off the top of your head, how many deaths can you think of regarding LGBT people? Chances are, you’ll remember the 49 dead from the Orlando shooting just two years ago or the Matthew Shepard story. Now, how many deaths can you think of resulting from someone intentionally lighting themselves on fire for entertainment purposes? I could only think of one worldwide (Linda Farkas in Hungary), none in the U.S., and I know thousands of people who do this.
I tried and could not find a single death of a fire performer or a fire stunt-person in the U.S. There have been deaths from accidental fires in film, TV, and performances, but only one incident from an intentional, professional, fire stunt. To the best of my knowledge, I found only one professional fire performance related incident (four Musical Performers dead from pyrotechnics indoors) in the U.S.
In 2016, 49 people were killed in a single anti-LGBT hate crime. Yet, in 2017, LGBT deaths in the U.S. almost doubled. On average there are more than 1,500 hate crimes against LGBT and over 50 murders of LGBT per year in the U.S.
Personally, I have seen directed at us and received multiple threats of violence and death from people, people wishing me to die, people thanking god we already started burning before going to hell…
In the U.S. it is, by far, more dangerous to be LGBT than it is to be a professional fire performer. Given the 500+ LGBT deaths vs. 0 (zero) fire performers deaths or 4+ professional fire-related deaths of performers in the last decade, there are over 100 times more LGBT deaths in that time frame than performer deaths associated with professional fire stunts.
Personally, I have seen directed at us and received multiple threats of violence and death from people, people wishing me to die, people thanking god we already started burning before going to hell, men telling me I needed to be raped before my wedding so I would have picked a husband instead, many other hateful comments and messages regarding this photo, and can only assume there are many more I haven’t seen or will still receive.
So, there was indeed danger from creating this photo, but not from what you would think. I’m a marketed performer signed with an international talent agency. My name, image, and contact information is already out there. When this story went viral worldwide, I was also publicly exposed as being a lesbian (despite actually being bisexual). Given the comments and threats toward me and my wife, I discovered something through this experience:
I am far more likely to be killed because of marrying another woman than I was from being set on fire.
Let that sink in.
Reprinted from this Facebook post with permission from the author. Thanks for letting us share it!
Recent Comments
Helena: Sending love and happiness your way ? [Link]
Soulseeker: Thats what i call a dangerous love... [Link]
Grace Ryan: We need to teach our boys about boundaries and consent, that they're not owed a woman, and that sex is… [Link]
Christen: This was beautiful and terrifying and all I want to do is envelop you in a big hug. I'm disgusted… [Link]
It may be Winter around here, but it's summer in our hearts with this wedding dazzling us. Tatiana and Chase's California backyard wedding was a mix of Hawaiian style, tons of performances (because both of them know so many talented people!), fire dancing, tropical flower crowns, gold shimmery dresses, palm fronds, and so much gorgeousness.
Let's see how this tropical paradise wedding played out…
