Posted byI've been giving you tastes of little crocheted elements from Corinne's wedding planning updates — now it's time to get all the details from her actual wedding!
The Offbeat Bride: Corinne – Receptionist/Crafter
Her Offbeat Partner: Jesse – Kennel Technician/Dog Walker/Artist/Home Brewer/Haunted House Actor
Location & date of wedding: Jesse's brother's backyard in Wheat Ridge, CO — June 27, 2009
What made our wedding offbeat: Jesse and I don't like to be the center of attention, and since we've been together for ten years, we decided to make our wedding as much fun as possible and not so much about us but more about our families and friends.
Our ceremony was only about twenty minutes long and our officiant was our friend Dustin. Our vows involved me promising to always remember to not take life too seriously and always make him laugh. And Jesse promising to get me a dog as soon as we get a house.
We let our wedding party (or henchpeople) pick out their own outfits. I didn't even care if they wore jeans, I just wanted them to be comfortable.
Our theme was pretty much just a mixture of everything we like: homemade things, Alice in Wonderland, scary things, tea, Harry Potter, silliness, zombies, beer and mead, etc. We made almost everything ourselves like the alcohol, party favors, wedding cake, guest book, decorations, and even the bouquets and boutineers. We made Mad Lib RSVPs and gave out prizes for the best answers.
And the White Rabbit and some zombies crashed our reception.
Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was probably trying to get everything done in time. We were scrambling the morning of our wedding to get all of the tags on our homemade beer. I crocheted little guys (ninjas, pirates, zombies, pygmy puffs, mome raths, etc.) as party favors and didn't get as many done as I would have liked.
But in the end, we had to learn to let other people help us and not worry too much if everything wasn't perfect. We didn't get everything done that we would have liked, but everyone had a great time anyway.
We are lucky that our families already know that we aren't normal and didn't bat an eye when we told them we weren't going to do the bouquet or garter belt toss or shove cake in each other's faces — in fact, our cake wasn't even edible because I crocheted it.
It was very difficult for us to set up everything outside, because it rained practically every day before the wedding. But we lucked out on our actual wedding day because it didn't rain a single drop.
My favorite moment: I have a few, but one of my favorite moments was just looking around my brother-in-law's backyard and seeing almost all the people in our lives in one area having a great time.
I also loved when Jesse's brother Paul dressed up as the White Rabbit and walked around the yard messing with people and when Jesse's friends from the haunted house dressed up like zombies and stumbled in the backyard, pretending they were going to eat everyone.
But I think my most favorite moment was when Dustin announced that we had successfully tied the knot and my new husband dipped me and gave me a big smooch!
My advice for other offbeat brides: I think the best thing I did was to not allow myself to get too stressed out over little things. In fact, I was told more than once that I was the most laid back bride that they'd ever seen.
I was concerned about having enough food for everyone and catering to the vegetarians and Celiac's disease sufferers, so we just asked people to bring food instead of gifts if they wanted (as gifts were completely optional). That way, there would be food there that they like. And instead of struggling to get all the wedding party (or henchpeople as I called them) the same outfits, I just let them wear what they wanted and we just gave them a color scheme.
In the end, because I wasn't stressed out and tried to allow everyone to have as much fun as possible, they were more relaxed and it allowed me to have more fun too.
If you happen to have wedding zombies, make sure that all of the fake blood is dry so it doesn't get all over the guests, unless they like that sort of thing.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- My dress – Amanda's Bridal
- Jesse's suit – We borrowed it from our costumer friend
- My mustache handkerchief – Etsy
- Our color changing customized party favor cups – Dollar Imprint
- Paper lanterns – The Paper Lantern Store
- Beer making supplies – Stomp Them Grapes
The rest we pretty much made ourselves
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26415444@N07/sets/72157621752887593/show
About the Author: Offbeat Weditors
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This is one of my favorite weddings from Offbeat Bride! I simply adore all the homemade elements …and how can you go wrong with Alice in Wonderland and Zombies in the same place!!??
what allison said, this wedding has some of my favorite topics in it! namely crochet, alice in wonderland and zombies! i hope my wedding ends up half as cool!
What an awesome celebration! I love it all!
I just wrote my Mad Libs RSVPs last night – much harder to write than I thought! Your wedding looked like SO much fun – very inspiring!
I am from Arvada! So nice when I get to see other CO offbeats. I live in Ohio right now but the wedding is in Denver next year. I love this one, great DIY stuff and what looks like some pretty awesome friends, you did a great job
Lots more Colorado weddings over here: http://offbeatwed.com/tag/colorado-wedding!
Lots more Colorado weddings over here: !” target=”_blank”>http://offbeatwed.com/tag/colorado-wedding!
Mad Lib RSVPs? Calling the wedding party henchpeople? YOINK!
We also have a number of vegans and a celiac sufferer coming to our wedding. After a lot of work, we did find a caterer who could accomodate and has created some really wonderful things for them to eat. I love that you found a way to include everyone.
And Mad Libs RSVPs! Brilliant. I'm thinking about nicking that idea for our guest pages!
Thanks everybody!! We had so much fun!
We actually had a book with everyone's Mad Lib answers so that they could take a peak and see what other people wrote. And I forgot to mention that our ring bearer is my florist friend Kellie who helped me with the flowers and bouquets and our flower "girl" is our friend Viet who made our wedding bands.
Feel free to steal away! That's what idea sharing is all about 😉
What FUN!
Cori – You and Jesse continue to astound me with your creativity. Trust me when I say this was, by far, the most amazing, exciting wedding I've ever attended!
This is my favourite wedding I've ever seen on the OBB!
This wedding theme idea rocks!! love the combo of alice in wonderland and zomies! Congrats to the couple! great wedding.
mome raths and pygmy puffs = love! This is one of my favourite OBB weddings, its great that your wedding was a mix of whatever you like, why have just one "theme" when you can have everything?! (And "Haunted House Actor" is the best thing to have on a resume, ever!)
I may be partial because I'm Corinne's mother, but it was the best and I was so proud of everything she and Jesse did. They both are artsy/crafty and there was sooo much they did with a great amount of detail. There was a kids table with hats, feather boas, toys and much more. I think everyone had a great time, and then when they surprised everyone with zombies invading the back yard….priceless!
I LOVE your cake!
Such a funky collection of ideas! Very cool. =)
Love the rabbit.
Kell (Boo)
http://offbeatbride.ning.com/profile/Kell
im thinkin of doing this theme for my wedding also how did you do those tea cup lights? i loved al your do it yourself stuff it really inspired me . i woas worried about the expense because i want it to be extremly wacky and crazy in a non tacky way. you totally accomplished that kudos!!!!
Amazing!!! I'm absolutely in love with your wedding! Haha. Seriously, fantastically well done! So nice to see such originality and creativity.
I hope you and your Husband have a long, fun filled life together!!
First, any wedding that has zombies in it is clearly a fantastic one! Well done, both of you! Also, could someone give me an example of a "Mad Lib" RSVP? That sounds like an EXCELLENT idea, but I'm having a hard time conceptualizing how one would do that. Of course, this may be my recently removed wisdom teeth and subsequent meds talking. Help a sister out?
Yeah, I would also love to see one of these Mad LIb RSVPs! Great idea!
Looooovee the zombies! I believe my fiance will want to have zombies in our wedding now that he's seen you pull this off!
The tea cups and saucers I just glued together and then glued onto a long dowel we stuck in the ground. We used tea lights for safety purposes.
The mad lib RSVPs said, “On June 27th, when Cori & Jesse tie the _____ (noun), _________ (your name[s]) will/will not be there to ________ (verb) them. When we _________ (verb past tense) the invitation, we exclaimed ___________ (exclamation)!?!!??!?!!?!!! We are so ________(adjective) for Cori & Jesse. They are our most _______ (adjective) __________ (plural noun) and we wish them lots of _________ (noun) and happiness together.” Then we put a line at the bottom for them to put how many people are attending and told them to select one of the following: gladly attend, regretfully decline, regretfully attend, enthusiastically decline or will decline to respond but will ultimately attend.