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The offbeat bride: Katie, children's book editor
Her offbeat partner: Nick, graduate student in robotics
Location & date of wedding: Wightman Chapel at Scarritt-Bennett Center and Bound'ry Restaurant in downtown Nashville, Tennessee — May 16, 2009
What made our wedding offbeat: I studied ancient satire in grad school, so my wedding was kind of a satire on a Southern wedding. I wanted a wedding that looked really classic and gorgeous, but felt really irreverent and fun.
My husband and I are both atheists, so we found an amazing gothic all-faiths chapel in our hometown of Nashville, used primarily for weddings. My beloved Latin professor from college got ordained in the state of Tennessee to perform the ceremony, which we based on the traditional “dearly beloved…” ceremony but edited to substitute e.e cummings and Catullus and Cicero for scripture. We had about 100 guests (including a wedding party of sixteen people!) for our Saturday night, black-tie optional wedding.
For the reception, I had but two demands: fried chicken and Michael Jackson. And I got both. Bound'ry and my florist created the sexiest, most slammin wedding reception I have ever had the pleasure of attending — it was all amber light and orchids and Southern tapas and champagne and dancing and candles and laughter. 
A friend of mine manned the wedding playlist I created for my iPod, which included Sinatra, Madonna, all kinds of Motown, Prince, and of course, a lot of MJ. We had a wedding quilt guestbook and a giant candy buffet, which made for some great photo ops throughout the night. We danced until midnight and rumor has it the party went on at various locations until daybreak. It was the hometown wedding of my dreams.
Our biggest challenge: I wanted a big Southern Saturday night wedding, but it didn't look like our budget was going to begin to cover my grandiose dream wedding. Instead of compromising my vision for a big black-tie throwdown, I focused on finding independent local vendors who were operated by individuals whenever possible.
And you know who noticed the difference between a hired DJ and a friend manning my iPod, or realized we didn't have an engraved cake cutting set? Absolutely no one. They were all too busy downing Red Stripe and fried green tomatoes and doing the twist with my six bridesmaids.
My favorite moment: Nick and I walked the two blocks from the ceremony to the reception alone, and we loved having a few minutes of peace to enjoy the warm, overcast evening and exchange stories about our nervous mornings. We took the elevator up to the third floor of Bound'ry and stepped into an amber-lit wonderland. We could hear our best friend from middle school announcing us as “Mr. and Mrs. Nick and Katie DePalma” and “Brown Eyed Girl” blaring through the sound system. But the sound of 100 of our closest friends and family shouting congratulations nearly knocked us backwards. I have never felt so blessed and happy in my life.
My offbeat advice: The best advice I have for anyone planning a wedding is to stick with local vendors, the smaller the business the better. Not only are you supporting your own community, but we found that small business owners take a huge amount of pride and ownership in their work. I think offbeat brides will find that small local businesses will be more willing to work with them to create the wacky wedding of their dreams than the big box vendors will. We were thrilled with every last one of our vendors and the unique Nashville touch they put on everything they did for us.
Ask the folks at your venue for their recommendations (because they work with vendors 24/7 and they know the sheep from the goats), consult with other brides in your area about who they're using, and poke around on Craigslist for emerging talent. That's what I did with my photog, and well… just look at the photos! She's already charging her new clients twice what she charged me, and I don't doubt that she's well on her way to being a renowned wedding photographer.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- Dress: Watters and Watters 9042b Reembroidered lace v-neck gown with full bustle skirt and chapel train. Purchased with awesome no-frills option from RK Bridal, which I cannot recommend enough (I got it for 60% off what the fancy boutiques in Nashville were charging!)
- Chapel: Wightman Chapel at Scarritt-Bennett in downtown Nashville, Tennessee
- Reception: Bound'ry Restaurant
- Photographer: Stephanie Saujon Baltz of La Photographie Nashville (she was incredible!)
- Organist: the very awesome James Weinberg (how cute is his website?)
- Candy: A Candy Store (which I sooo recommend because of the flat-rate shipping option)
Enough talk — show me the wedding porn:
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 twist on Southern weddings. As a Southern-bred atheist two hours south in Chattanooga this spoke to me more than any other wedding I’ve seen on this site! Amazing and it looks so fun!
Thank you so much, Emmie! That is a huge compliment!
I love how it looked so elegant AND so fun!!!
So you scrimped on music and splurged on beer, eh? Now the truth comes out! Hey, whatever happened to the video of your march down the aisle? I really really want it. Bad!
James, the only copy of the wedding video I have is corrupted! I need to get a new one from Mike D. And you know that you were a scrimp ONLY inasmuch as your rate was very reasonable. 🙂
James, you know we didn’t really scrimp that much 😛
I’ll see if I can get Katie to dig up the DVD – Mike D made an awesome movie out of the raw footage! We’ll see if we can dupe it and send it your way 🙂
Btw thanks again – you did an amazing job!
This is EXACTLY how happy I want to look on my wedding day! hehe And candy buttons?!?! FTW!!!
totally awesome! and your photographer did an amazingly awesome job really capturing the moments of the event, and how much joy there was between the both of you. huzzah!
What a great wedding! It looks like everyone had a blast.
My fiance’s beloved Latin professor from college is getting ordained in the state of Wisconsin to officiate for us. 🙂
What a wonderful wedding! It’s always inspiring to see offbeat southern weddings that manage to celebrate the southerness (mmm, fried green tomatoes) without getting lost in the traditions.
Plus, how awesome is Catullus at a wedding? Which piece did you use? I’m trying to convince my boy that Catullus was made for weddings, but he’s not quite buying it. Perhaps because all the translations of Catullus poems I’ve provided him with in the past have required inventing new swear words 😉
We used Catullus 5, but of course 😉 Since I’m a classics dork, two of my bridesmaids were classicists too so I had one read it in Latin (she brought the HOUSE down–she’s been going to spoken Latin conventions for years) and another read an English translation. Thanks for your kind words!!
Aw, how sweet, lots of kisses :). 5 is beautiful, but I’ve also always been fond of Catullus 45 for romantic moments.
Of course, the only one I have memorized in Latin is Catullus 16. My poor, poor Latin professor.
we did a wedding quilt too! except we already had the two toppers sewn together and had them laid out on tables. im hand sewing them to eachother now! beautiful wedding!
any tips?? I’m not a quilter and I’m a little cowed by the project. Especially because a lot of guests did NOT observe my request to leave a little room around the edges for stitching!
Fried chicken FTW! I love vegans as much as the next guy and lean more toward the vegetarian than the carnivorous myself, but it’s SO refreshing to hear about a bride who’s not afraid of a little meat on here! Also, beautiful wedding. Love the literary readings.
Thank you so much! It was a meaty good time.
Congratulations!
I love your advise:”Ask the folks at your venue for their recommendations.”
Thanks Jessica! This ended up being so helpful for us. We were going to go with a certain baker before our vendor told us how many disasters had come out of that bakery and recommended a lovely woman who bakes cakes out of her home. Our cake turned out absolutely amazing. I’d be hyping her here but she’s retired now!
Love this wedding. Can you tell us what lit quotes you used… I’m looking for something different. I also want to use selections from literature, not the Bible. Thx
We used Catullus 5 and e.e. cummings’ “i carry your heart.” Thanks for reading!
I’m so excited to see a Nashville wedding on here! It looks like you had sparklers going on in a couple of the photos. I want to do them for my wedding on November 6th, but according to the web, it is much more difficult to get them all lit and coordinated for photos of the b and g exit. Any advice?
It was kind of wild but it ended up being a really fun send-off. Just make sure you have a few authoritative people coordinating the effort, lots of candles to light them off of, and possibly a fire extinguisher on hand. I mean, just look at this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonesdepalma/3731258236/in/set-72157621487237563/
Good luck!! Where is your wedding?
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