Alison & Jeremy’s hard hittin’ rockin’ wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Alison, project manager (and OBT member “Alison“)

Her Offbeat Partner: Jeremy, musician

Location & date of wedding: Berkeley Church circa 1871 in Toronto, ON — November 14, 2008

What made our wedding offbeat: I was engaged on Feb 3, 2008 (I proposed over the phone on the way to a movie) and got married Nov 14, 2008. This left us just over 9 months to plan our wedding, and to me, this was plenty of time to throw a wicked party. The goal of our wedding was to have a spiritual ceremony that involved our friends and family, and throw a party for our guests like none they've ever been to. Based on feedback, the goal was met and exceeded.

Since I was marrying a musician, having a DJ was not an option. We're live music loving freaks and knew the venue we had to have was The Berkeley Church. This wicked venue was a church turned concert venue and our wedding date was chosen stricly on the venue's availability. The deposit was down 2 weeks before we even told our families. Our entire wedding was based on live music in a wicked venue.

We had ceremony musicians, cocktail musicians, singing grace, my parents sang, his parents sang, we sang, my husband's family band played, my hubby's band performed and of our, we had our wedding band. Did I mention we love live music?

Some cool things we did include making our wedding bands (engraved with his: You Rock, me: You Rule), contacted Offbeat Bride “Princess Lasertron” to make my bouquet and a few “button-nieres” and dressing up my 2.5 yr old nephew as a Rocker Boy and surprising my guests with my father/daughter choreographed dance routine to “My Girl”.

Some other surprises for our guests: My husband wrote a song as my wedding gift and performed it at the wedding. He also got our rocker friend, Bruce Gordon (from Toronto Band “I Mother Earth”) to perform my favourite IME song. I love my Rockstar.

My father and his friend's have been doing a lipsync “thing” for years. They surprised my guests by performing it and really hamming up the place. This was the a treat for me as I have never seen it.

Our biggest challenge: Jeremy is from a large family so we had to limit our guest list somewhere. We decided to eliminate children from the guest list and only asked those in our wedding party (who were single) if they wanted to bring a hot date. It was really hard to draw that line and keep to it. There were times we thought about extending the invitation list, but if we did, it would have added at least 28+ to our list. In the end, it all worked out well, and all aunts and uncles (and single friends) appeared to enjoy their night out.

My favorite moment: Our top favourite moment was surprising my husband by getting my pastor to say “You may now kiss the boy.” He laughed and thought it was great. Another moment was when Jer and I ended our speech singing “Anyone Else But You,” by the Moldy Peaches. The guests loved it. I loved it.

My advice for other offbeat brides: Tip#1: Book the venue and the date BEFORE you tell your family. That way you set the tone. This may not work for everyone's family, but did with ours.

TIP#2: be careful what you write online. I had a venting post sent to one of my bridesmaid from another bride. Remember, whatever you write, think that it may end up in that person's hands.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:

• My flowers and my day of getting ready hoodie – Princess Lasertron
• My DIY wedding rings – The Devil's Workshop
• Great freebies – Vintage Glam
• My venue – Berkeley Events

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:

About the Author: Offbeat Weditors

@offbeatbride @offbeatwed

Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.