Erin & Shayne’s mustachioed, octopus, and “beericorn” Irish/Texan wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Erin, Teacher and Sign Language Interpreter

Her offbeat partner: Shayne, Job Coach and Photographer

Date and location of wedding: Casa de Rio Colores, Liberty Hill, TX and Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland — August 17, 2013

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Originally when we got engaged, we were planning a destination wedding with our family followed by a party/reception back in Texas. We decided on a trip to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. After the fact, I started researching the logistics of getting officially married overseas… and — oh my goodness — what a nightmare! At the same time, I started realizing I wanted our friends and extended family to be more involved in our wedding. Slowly, the destination wedding became a family vacation with a faux ceremony (on the Cliffs Moher, AKA the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride in Ireland!) and the Texas party morphed into an honest to goodness official wedding.

All of Shayne's dudes worked on growing mustaches for the ceremony (some more successfully than others!). I sewed my bridesladies clutches from the leftover fabric from my dress, and lined it with the mustache fabric from their dresses.

Shayne and I are combining our last names, and the logo turned into a brand for the wedding (it was on the ass of the “beericorn,” on the cups/koozies, on the programs, on the arms of the sunglasses, etc.). Inside each clutch was an engraved “Fellock” (the combination of our last names) flask with the date on them. For some reason the dudes' flasks had the correct year, but the ladies had 2014 engraved on them. We all took it to mean we need to have an annual anniversary shindig, so they could commemorate next year's party.

I wanted frozen drink machines, but hate the acid-y commercial margarita mixes. One of my bridesdudes works at a local bar and shared one of their recipes — the perfect ratio of Deep Eddy Ruby Red Grapefruit vodka to grapefruit juice. Yum!

My mother-in-law (and her crew) took on the “Sunday Hung Over Brunch” including bloody mary bar, cheesy garlic grits, a pineapple fruit tree, and other assorted breakfasty goodness.

The shift from having a party to actually doing the ceremony here in Texas was an interesting one. I went from not wanting a wedding dress, no match-y bridesmaid dresses, no cake, etc. to a full 180. I have never envisioned myself wearing a white dress, but I located aqua octopus fabric that was perfect for me. But it was discontinued so I had to contact the factory directly to get the last few yards. I found a local seamstress who made my dress and all of my bridesladies' dresses. My mom pushed for a cake and we found a woman who was happy to make an octo-cake and Shayne's mustache-shaped groom's cake. It melted a bit in the heat, but it was tasty regardless!

Tell us about the ceremony:
It was August in Texas, so we wanted our ceremony to be short and funny. We all walked down the aisle to the Flaming Lips “Do You Realize??” The ceremony was super quick and ended with shots of Jameson from our flasks. It was so short that the person responsible for playing the music for our exit stepped away for a second and missed the cue to play Bright Eyes' “First Day of My Life.”

Another huge headache was getting a photographer. The first guy we found seemed too good to be true, and he was. After we met in person and he got the deposit, he fell off the face of the Earth. I got the money back and found a second photographer. She was much more expensive, but it was getting close to the wire. I got an email from her saying that she wouldn't be in Texas the month of our wedding and if we still wanted her, we would have to pay her travel. But I guess the third time is a charm, because we couldn't have been happier with Alexandra at Ixi Photography!

My favorite moment:
Both Shayne and I were raised by our mothers, and it only felt right to have them walk us down the aisle. My twin sister was our officiant, decked out in a tuxedo t-shirt and jorts. Shayne's sign language interpreter he had in middle school is still a good friend, and it meant a lot that he was able to interpret the ceremony.

The paper flower bouquet was a DIY project. I made flowers from newspapers my mother had saved that represented important people to me that are no longer with us. Instead of my matron of honor holding my bouquet during the ceremony, I laid it on a chair intentionally left empty for those people unable to attend.

My funniest moment:
One of the first purchases for the wedding was a life-sized hollow horse. My mom called me one day and said, “So, you mentioned you wanted a unicorn that could dispense beer when you pull its horn? Well, I think I found the perfect horse to transform.” My high school mascot was a unicorn, so I had mentioned in passing that it would be cool.

My stepfather is an engineer and always up for a random project. He researched all of the logistics, from how to cancel out the temperature rise from the beer traveling from the keg up through the beericorn to crafting several options for the horn including LED lights, another that was chrome, and a third that was a real horn.He also researched how to get one of his hot rod connections to airbrush it a pearly white.

We couldn't afford a separate photo booth, but our photographer was very accommodating and even had the second photographer man a photo non-booth area. I delegated finding props to one of my bridesladies, who rocked the selections, which made for hilarious photos!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Dress: Barbara Humphrey
• Catering: Maudie's
• Beer: Big Bend Brewing
• Venue: Casa Rio de Colores
• Her ring: Octopus Me
• His ring: Brent & Jess
• Snow cone truck: Kona Ice
• Cakes: Kayla Knight Cakes
• Photographer: Ixi Photography

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

jewelry: Brent & Jess