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The offbeat bride: Megan, account manager, aka story-teller and people-lover
Her offbeat partner: Tom, MD/PhD student, aka student-for-life
Location & date of wedding: Camrose Hill Farm, Stillwater MN — October 9, 2010
What made our wedding offbeat: We determined our theme while sitting in The Bad Waitress in Minneapolis, a retro-diner-style cafe/restaurant with a vintage superhero theme.
We've always said we wanted to conquer the world together; we love superheroes and we love the combination of old and new.
It was a match made in heaven; our vintage superhero/mid-century mod-theme emerged.
Our aim was to plan a celebration that was truly a reflection of our relationship. We knew we wanted a shabby/chic feel with a bit of European flair. Our focus on sourcing talent and food locally was just the start of our “green” theme, which could be felt throughout the day, in the corn by-product dishes, mason jar glasses, postcard invites, and the TOMS shoes worn by the bridal party.
We took on a lot of projects ourselves and also looked to Etsy for tons of inspiration for the big day. We tapped into many of our friends and family to capitalize on their unique talents, and focused on using “green” local and recycled elements.
We had superhero invites custom-designed by a friend, superwedding capes for the entire bridal party, and replaced the traditional cake with an ice cream truck. We wrote our own vows, and I recited a portion of the vows in Polish, which the groom speaks fluently.
Polish recipes, cakes, and homemade krupnik (liquor) were featured at the dinner, alongside burgers, made-to-order grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, and a lot of gummi treats.
An all-ladies bluegrass/folk band played during cocktail hour.
Tell us about the ceremony: My brother officiated. We wrote our own vows, each including some Polish flavor in the vows. Both my mother and father walked me down the aisle. It was just magical.
Our biggest challenge: I guess our biggest challenge was the fact that so many challenges hit at once. We were living in different countries during the planning stages of the wedding. I returned to the states in June of last year and everything kind of hit at once. I was planning a wedding while transitioning, job-searching, apartment-hunting, and working remotely as a marketing strategist for hostels back in Prague. It was both a great experience and challenge for us, but we made it, and it turned out just as beautiful as we had envisioned.
My favorite moment: The whole day was a celebration of the special people in our lives. We are blessed to have talented friends and family members who helped with every aspect of the wedding. My brother flew 4,000 miles from Prague to officiate our wedding. That was so so special to us.
For our unity symbol, we did something a bit offbeat.
My grandma gave me a baby blanket 27 years ago and when I went to live in Prague, I cut it in half, giving Tom one half and keeping the other.
On our wedding day, we symbolically sutured the blanket back together with Tom's tools (he's training to be a surgeon).
Grandma loved it.
My funniest moment: My mom's cousin brought her own superhero props, dressed as Batman and sang to us.
On top of that, she had a blow-up doll in tow; family members were dancing with him on the dance floor.
Wow.
That was unexpected for certain.
Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? We took a massive risk with the decision to have an outdoor wedding in October in Minnesota, especially since the year before it had snowed on that day. But, it turned out to be just gorgeous: 84 degrees and sunny. Also, nothing was really complete (as far as decor goes) until the morning of the wedding, when my entire wedding party rallied like none other and turned it into a beautiful work of art!
My advice for offbeat brides: Try to enjoy the planning process, but be realistic with your resources and your time. DIY is amazing and I wouldn't change anything I did, but it is very time-consuming, and can lead to stress. Start by writing down your vision. This really helped us to define exactly what we were looking for.
Look to your circle of friends and family for talent first. Chances are you have a lot of talent close to you that you can tap into to make your big day even more personal and special.
Remember the day is yours, but be sensitive to your family's wishes as it is their day, too. That said, don't give them too many opportunities to give their opinions; they'll give them willingly without you seeking them out. Make sure to manage expectations.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? Go with the flow on the big day; the day will not be perfect and certain things happen that you'd never expect. The week before the wedding I got sick, and the night before I didn't sleep at all. It's important to realize that these things are part of what make the day so special. After all, we never would have imagined a visit from a singing Batman, but we just went with it, and though it may not have been perfect by everyone's standards, it was perfect for us.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Photographer: friend Cat Norman
- Florist: Camrose Hill Flowers
- Wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses and boleros (made in Prague): friend Eva
- Bridal party shoes: TOMS
- Cocktail hour music: all gals' indie-bluegrass-folk band Dusty Porch Sisters
- Caterer: We Cater To You
- Dessert: Big Bell Ice Cream
- Cake toppers: FancieFanniesBridal on Etsy
- (recycled) Vintage superhero comic book table markers: WhatsEatingYin on Etsy
- “Cards” banner on gift table: tutucrafts on Etsy
- Bride and groom postcard signs: thebackporchshoppe on Etsy
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
About the Author: Offbeat Weditors
Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.
OMG, that dress is gorgeous, and putting the boots with it was awesome. What a cool wedding! I especially loved the blanket-suturing pic. =)
oooh, really want more information about the lanterns you flew that night!!
Hello Autumn!
When I lived in Prague, they would wish upon these lanterns and send them off into the air at most major celebrations. When many of them are lit up and sent off into the air, they are so ethereal. You can find them here: http://shop.wishlantern.com/White-Eco-Lanterns_c_16.html. We bought the eco-friendly ones, of course:).
Smiles,
Megan
Ok, I’m also interested in these lanterns, my only concern though is fire safety! How can they possibly be safe? What happens if they float away and get stuck in a tree or something? And how do you know where they’ll land, and when? And how can you be sure they won’t still be on fire? I know there must be good answers to these questions, I just don’t know them!
your wedding looked amazing and sooo fun!!!!! your photographer did an amazing job!!! i love love love your photos!!!! 🙂
Eeee, this is so awesome. I love the vintage feel — those candy dressers are brilliant! And I LOVE the cut of the dress. Beautiful wedding!
Absolutely LOVELY wedding! The putting the blanket back together is sooo sweet.
“Remember the day is yours, but be sensitive to your family’s wishes as it is their day, too.” –too true!!
Sewing the baby blanket back together was my “aww” moment; such a symbolic gesture! Very creative and fun wedding!
What an absolutely funky wedding! I love the idea of giving the bridal party capes – and those shots look like so much fun! (Okay, ALL the shots look like so much fun!) This just put a huge smile on my dial.
this is such an awesome wedding!! We’re incorporating superheros and geeky things throughout our wedding as well, and I LOVE that idea to give the wedding party super hero capes 😀 … I think the flower girl and ring bearer would enjoy having capes for sure.
that dress is amazeballs!! i’m in love with this wedding!
Love the postcard invites… How did you do RSVP that way? phone, email, website?
Hello Liz!
In order to minimize the amount of waste in our wedding, we decided to do simple postcard invites with an online RSVP. Here is our website, FYI: http://www.projectwedding.com/ourwedding/megandtom. It worked well for the most part, we had to follow-up with some people, but it wasn’t a big deal. In the end, it saved us a ton of money (our invites and thank you cards – all custom – cost less than $100, thanks to our amazing friend who designed them and thank to a friend who hooked us up with a great, cheap print vendor…it’s good to work in the mktg industry:)) and also a ton of waste. On top of that, people remembered them and they easily cut through the clutter of boring, paper-heavy invites. Also made for a cool keepsake. A win/win!
Smiles,
Megan
Does the vendor who did the comic invite have a website? I’d love to give a similar piece (a portrait rather than an invite, of course) to a friend of mine who’s getting hitched this summer…
Kate,
Hey! Thanks for checking this out. Unfortunately it was a friend who did my invite custom, rather than a vendor – it was actually his first time experimenting with illustration and he did an incredible job! You can check out etsy.com for individuals who may do something similar. Her style is a complete 180, but I really like a woman by the name of Nan Lawson who does cool illustrations – but order far enough ahead of time, as she is booked out for custom stuff: http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?search_submit=&q=nan+lawson.
Enjoy!
Smiles,
Megan
Love the blanket suturing, that is such a sweet idea!!
That is one of the most gorgeous wedding dresses I have seen!
So cute! I also love the flat shoes for everyone; there’s a way to keep from getting sore feet at the end of the night.
In another life, this could’ve been my wedding. I love the capes, the Toms, the eco-friendliness, the fun, the bluegrassFolk band, and especially the superheroes.
Plus, you all look gorgeous!
Congratulations!
wild! i love the photos of this wedding, and am certainly taking notes. even more wild is that i’ve BEEN to this location. a friend of mine got married there last year. it’s outrageously perfect. the folks at camrose hill are doing a great job!