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The Offbeat Bride: Megan, Registered Nurse (Operating Suite)
Her offbeat partner: Alex, Systems Analyst (IT)
Date and location of wedding: Northern Pavilion/Heather Garden at Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens – Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia — July 28, 2012
Our offbeat wedding at a glance: First and foremost: colour! I'm not into the traditional white dress, so I glammed it up with a fantastic bead and feather-adorned prom gown.
Origami flair: I didn't want to spend money on flowers, and since I really love origami, I pain-stakingly spent weeks folding origami cranes (and a few doves) to use for decoration, and as a garland/boutonniere instead of a bouquet. I also featured a kanzashi hair piece as my “something blue.”
No cake: This was absurd for me, as I love cake-decorating. However, having a newborn gave little time for this craft of mine, so instead, using some ideas from this very site, we had a fondue bar! I bought a cheap chocolate fountain from eBay, and had three fondue sets with differing chocolate types and offered a selection of fruits and confectionery. Sided with a hot drinks station which offered a kettle full of hot chocolate, and various yummies for sprinkling, this was a popular alternative and no-one asked “Where's the cake?”
The location: I love the Blue Mountains in NSW, I spent many, many days of my childhood roaming those gardens and it was a special location where Alex and I went when we starting dating, so naturally it was a perfect choice for us.
Family-only: To keep numbers and cost down, we only invited immediate family/near cousins and kept our guest list down to twenty. This meant we were able to book the log cabin on site in the gardens and held our reception there to keep things intimate.
I cooked for our wedding. A few weeks prior to our wedding I spent my baby-free hours cooking soups, dips, and anything else that I could freeze. Several days prior, I cooked and prepped non-stop.
Tell us about the ceremony: We kept our ceremony simple. Alex and I asked our celebrant for “short and simple!” which she did. It was only twenty minutes long.
I walked down the aisle to a string quartet rendition of Journey's “Don't Stop Believing” on the mp3 player. We chose this because The Wedding Singer is one of our favourite movies!
We chose a reading each; Mine was “A Lovely Love Story” by Edward Monkton and Alex chose one piece of script from “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” which read:
“You want a question that goes with the answer for 42? Well, how about what's six times seven? Or how many Vogons does it take to change a lightbulb? Here's one! How many roads must a man walk down? Because my head is filled with questions and I can assure you no answer to any one of them has ever brought me one iota of happiness. Except for one. The one. The only question I've ever wanted an answer to – is she the one? The answer bloody well isn't forty-two, it's yes. Undoubtedly, unequivocally, unabashedly yes.”
We ended our ceremony by walking down the aisle to “Your Personal Penguin” sung by Davy Jones.
Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was having to cancel our first wedding! Alex and I had planned a trip to Thailand in October 2011, and had booked a Buddhist wedding ceremony (I'm a Taoist) during that time in Chiang Mai.
There was a problem with that plan however — in July of that year I became very ill and I decided to take a pregnancy test. Well, blow me down: two lines. Two pink lines. I was pregnant! With this new joyful information came waves of sickness, bed-ridden sickness. Alex and I were left with no choice but to cancel our Thai wedding. We had to then reschedule another wedding for after our daughter was born.
My favorite moment: I have two. Having our gorgeous daughter in the flesh, all puffy and princessy at our wedding is a glorious one.
I was unable to have my maternal grandparents at our wedding as they had unfortunately passed on, however I included a photograph of them at the reception adorned with two origami peace doves.
My funniest moment: We chose to write our own vows. Alex gloriously themed his with pigs (my favourite animal), likening us to “two pigs in mud” when together, and I managed to so gracefully slip into my vows a fart joke. We couldn't stop bursting out with laughter!
My advice for Offbeat Brides: Shop around (eBay has great bargains on dresses like mine!), and shop AHEAD of time, as the cheap stuff can take at least a month to arrive. Try to prep as much as you can if you cater yourself. Finally, prom dresses make great (and cheap!) alternatives to wedding gowns.
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.
love the dress and the venue. and I want to snuggle your adorable baby! 🙂
This post warms my heart. 🙂 Happiest of wishes to you both!
That dress is BEAUTIFUL!!! As is everything else, of course 🙂 But I *really* love that dress!
LOVE that reading from Hitchhiker’s Guide! And the baby, of course 🙂
Never perform with babies or animals. You will always get shown up. Your daughter couldn’t be cuter if she tried!
And I love your dress!
This is my favorite dress on OBB! Gorgeous!
OMG your dress! And your adorable squishy little one! Stunning. Congratulations all around 🙂
I love your dress! Could you share the name/ style/ designer of the dress? Thanks!
I just showed your post to my fiancé, who said, “If she can fold all those paper cranes AND cook all the food AND take care of a baby at the same time, they should make her a UN Ambassador, because she could surely bring about world peace.” 😀 Your wedding was awesome and your dress was fan-freaking-tastic!
stunning dress. I absolutely love the colour, and it looks perfectly matched with everything about this wedding.
THE TSUMAMI KANIZASHI. I am a Japanophile and had not heard of this art form until now. WHY.
I have been LOOKING AND LOOKING for ways to have a flower crown without real, bee-attracting flowers on it, and I can’t find all the silk flowers I want, or am displeased with their appearance. AND I SEW AND DO ORIGAMI ALREADY. IT’S THE BEST OF BOTH. OMFG WIN.
THANK YOU.
Also, love the dresses on both you and the mini-human 😀 so gorgeous!
Congratulations and amen on the prom dress! For my wedding I wore a bridesmaid dress in deep hunter green. Traditional white just wasn’t my thing, and my choice saved me hundreds of dollars. Congrats again!
I dont usually read the bride section anymore but your wedding and family are beautiful and magical. LOVE IT!
Did anyone find the dress? It’s close to perfect!
Hi guys – Thanks for all your wonderful comments, I just saw this got posted on OBB today and I’m stoked!!
For the questions about the dress – I bought it from http://www.promgirl.com and had it shipped over. I guessed the size and it was a tiny bit big but it worked out! The dress is unfortunately no longer available, it was on sale at the time, but it was called the “Style: FL-P5629 Name: Flirt Strapless A-line Dress” .. no stylist that I am aware, just ‘some prom gown’. I found that if a website contained the word “Wedding” ANYWHERE it was double the price.
As for the Kanzashi flower – my inspiration was from OBB itself! I hadn’t heard of it either until I found this site and it inspired a good 80% of my whole wedding.
Thanks again for all the nice comments. Juniper, our daughter, is now 9.5 months and is a bundle of …I’m supposed to say joy, but snot comes better to mind right now. 😉 But she’s gorgeous and definitely upstaged me for sure!!
Also for anyone who lives in Sydney, Australia – I thoroughly recommend our celebrant, Jessie Cachillo (www.jessiecachillo.com). She was amazingly friendly, and gave us the perfect ceremony to suit who we are. Definitely look her up!
I found the dress on eBay and actually ordered. Takes a month to get here (still waiting!) and it was $170 ish, tho now $150.
THIS IS THE LINK:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261143328882
I really really really love it and hope it works. Thanks so much for sharing your wedding with us!
Love the green dress.
this is a green stain wedding dress , so beautiful…
That dress is to die for!! =)
i love these wedding dresses,and thanks for your share
Love this black and green dress