In honor of “plain and boring weddings”

Comments on In honor of “plain and boring weddings”

1. Oh my gosh, I love this! Yes!

   I was actually thinking about this the other day when I read something that someone said about them not liking that a wedding didn’t have many decorations. But the fact of the matter is that I love weddings that are simple and minimalistic! And I appreciate those weddings as much as I do weddings that are grand and heavily decorated. Though what I always focus on at weddings is the love that the couple shares. 🙂

   Though, instead of labeling it as boring or bland, why don’t we call it “simple”, “unornamented”, or “no-frills”? Something with a better connotation so that we’re more celebratory with it. 🙂 Because isn’t that what Offbeat Bride is about? 😀

   http://tribe.offbeatwed.com/members/amerika/

2. I can see how “plain and simple” weddings might be a victim of themselves – i.e. not going to get millions of clicks because less OMGs!! but it would be lovely to see some more standard? boring? normal? weddings on here, but perhaps that isn’t what offbeat bride is here for? are we talking minimalist weddings or ones that are fairly normal?

   I probably wouldn’t submit my wedding because its fairly “normal”, long white dress, church, reception in a hall. it has some crafty and nautical touches but I’m not sure the whole world would get that excited. Although we are having curry. and a regatta. I hope my fellow Tribesmates will be interested when I post on the forum, but probably more because they have seen it coming together than because it is particularly interesting/ exciting

   • I would love to see that wedding on the blog! I havent been on the tribe for a while as our planning has been postponed, but I would love to see pics of a hall wedding (what we were planning), and curry and a regatta…sounds awesome!
     As Ariel says here, being an offbeat bride (or living an offbeat life) is about intent, not decor

   • I am ALWAYS up for nautical touches. And a regatta?! Now I want details!

3. I am getting married in 18 days. My middle-aged Hawaiian wedding is going to simple with some homemade touches. I am going to submit my wedding because I think that there should be more on older brides. I also have the tattoo thing going for me and a great location. Oh I am also plus size and wearing something traditional. I got a little intimidated by all the themes and DIY stuff so I kept it simple. Hoping it strikes a cord with someone.

   • I can’t wait to see your magical day! I hope it is wonderful & full of love 🙂

4. Thank you for this. I recently posted elsewhere about feeling so much grief over the decorations that didn’t get made, and how I felt that it didn’t deserve a submission to OBB even though there was some fun and funky stuff in it. This post gives me something to chew on around my perspective on that, particularly the background of “not enough-ness.” So again, thank you, thank you.

5. I admit, I was sad when you took away the “offbeat lite” tag. As an offbeat lite bride myself, I liked the idea of having a “normal” wedding with some offbeat highlights, because that’s what I was personally doing myself. While it’s fun to read about the super-offbeat and hugely themed weddings, and I love seeing those pictures, I don’t usually look at them and go, “I can see my guests attending a wedding like this.” Usually I’d say something like, “What a cool concept. Now let me get back to planning my reception-hall wedding with the fantasy table numbers…”

   That said, I understand why you took away the tag. I’m not asking you to bring it back. I’m just saying I was sad to see it go.

6. As someone who adores big extravagant affairs but would faint at the idea of paying for them, simple weddings appeal to me.

   However I wanted to point out some things in the examples of budget weddings .

   For the $100 wedding, they had a professional photographer, and 5 freelance photographers. The other two budget weddings listed in the article had professional and freelance photographers involved(whether bride, groom or both). Their wedding photos are wonderful and I adore them!

   But in lots of examples of budget weddings(both this site and lots of others), people enlist “friends with talent” to provide them with the glamour photo aesthetic loved so much in wedding porn(I don’t blame them, it’s pretty and if I had friends who could do that- I’d use them).

   It seems hard to find amateur photography examples on the internet. I understand the traffic concern, this post about small amounts of photography and wedding albums get less than 300 shares (http://offbeatwed.com/2012/03/photographic-minimalism) and many others get 1000+

   From a business standpoint, it makes sense, and you don’t want to waste time on things your readers don’t want. I completely agree that for you all to post more, we must “vote with our clicks” and encourage them!

   I hope we can encourage more brides to share their weddings and to feel like their weddings are just as important whether their photos are clear and “well-lit” and professional or if your Mom did your photos filled with grey-lighting and full of red-eye! They’re beautiful, just as beautiful as the weddings we don’t get to see because there were no photos.

   As a final little note, I like to see the requesting for more weddings like these not because they’re looking for something to “make them feel better about what I’m doing,” but to look for confirmation that there are weddings like theirs so that they can reaffirm that they do belong in the community. (Besides, what’s wrong with helping reader insecurities? We support OffbeatLite Brides, OffbeatOffbeat Brides, introvert Brides and Plus-sized Brides through feeling positive about their weddings and themselves. I don’t think supporting any kind of ‘type’ of bride through their respective insecurities is a bad thing.)

   • “However I wanted to point out some things in the examples of budget weddings .
     For the $100 wedding, they had a professional photographer, and 5 freelance photographers. The other two budget weddings listed in the article had professional and freelance photographers involved(whether bride, groom or both). Their wedding photos are wonderful and I adore them!
     But in lots of examples of budget weddings(both this site and lots of others), people enlist “friends with talent” to provide them with the glamour photo aesthetic loved so much in wedding porn(I don’t blame them, it’s pretty and if I had friends who could do that- I’d use them).”

     Yes, this. I admit when I look up budget weddings (here and on other sites) this is something that personally bothers me. Sure you may not be paying WITH CASH for things and therefore it’s technically a budget wedding but you are still receiving the services larger budgeted weddings have. Not everyone has a professional photographer friend (or even an amateur photographer friend), or a florist friend, or a dress maker friend, or a baker friend, etc. I’d love to see more weddings where the couple made due with their budget and didn’t bring in *free professionals*. I don’t know… to me that never really seemed like a budget wedding. I remember reading one (I don’t remember if it was on here or not) where the couple spent about $750 total but happened to have friends who were professionals in almost all the other areas… they have a professional cake, professional photographer, professional band, professional dress maker, even the venue happened to be owned by friends who let them have the wedding there for nearly free. The estimated if they’d paid for the wedding it would have been around $15000. I’m happy for them that they didn’t have to pay that out of pocket but that is not, IMO, a budget wedding. That should be called a *connected wedding* or *friendor wedding*… something like that.

     Sorry if I sound a little bitter… it’s just really hard to scour the internet looking for true budget wedding tips and the main one always is to have friends do everything for you. *sigh*

     • If I could click “this” a zillion times, I would. I understand the need for clicks and site traffic, but at the same time, brides without connections and with tight budgets need inspiration too! I think that a better balance is needed.

     • And you know…a lot of the time this does not work out as good as you think it will. My cousin’s husband got a lot of his friends to do things for cheep or free and it was not great. Also, as someone who makes dresses professionally, I will certainly cut a friend a deal but I ain’t making her a free dress. We’re certainly going to DIY a lot of things for our wedding, but some of it is because of the business that we’re in. My fiance can borrow lighting equipment and he owns DJ equipment. We’re hiring a friend to be our photographer, but as someone who makes a living from art I WANT to pay him.

7. This might be a little off topic, but I feel like the tone of the request was a bit judgmental. The most important part of my wedding was the fact that I was marring my husband, hands down. We just wanted to have a celebration that reflected our personal flavour of weird. I can understand and respect the desire to see more minimalist weddings, but I think that, just as we shouldn’t turn this into a search for someone we can do better than, we should take care not to turn those value judgments in the other direction, either, by suggesting that flashier weddings mean a bride who doesn’t have their priorities straight. I know this is something Ariel has written about at least once, but I thought it was worth mentioning here.

   • This! I felt a little put off by the request by how it was worded.

   • They’ve probably alienated a lot of people by calling their wedding plain and boring. I fight daily to think that my wedding is not offbeat enough for this site and this post made me realise that I’m right. I don’t fit into the WIC definition and I don’t fit into the Offbeat definition… so basically I fit in nowhere. This post has basically told me that I fit in nowhere and that I’m plain and boring because I don’t have insane things going on for my wedding. It’s just plain and boring.

     • The phrasing “plain and boring” was that of the reader making the request — NOT MINE. It breaks my heart to think that might not have been clear enough in this post… I put the words in quote marks every time to try to make that clear.

8. Great article! I personally don’t feel I have to compete with the grand beautiful weddings featured on Offbeat bride. I don’t feel that there are high expectations for me and my soon to be. I feel inspired by what I see and read! Isn’t that what this community is about? Making all bride and grooms feel good about what they like, love and want out of their own individual weddings? I agree with many of the above statements. I always felt Offbeat bride wasn’t about themes, but was a place for people like me. People who will never “fit in” with today’s bridal magazine, blogs, websites and planners. People who don’t want to “fit in”, people who want to be themselves (whatever that may be). This is the literally ONE place where people like me, can be who we are and plan unique weddings that reflect us and our significant others. We won’t be judged and we aren’t told we HAVE to do things a certain way. We are free to be ourselves here, Offbeat or not 🙂

   • Are we really though? Lately I feel like more and more anyone who isn’t going really offbeat is kind of pushed to the side and ignored. If there’s any element of tradition or not completely off the wall, people are really made to not fit in. I’m fightin with that right now. I don’t feel like I fit into the WIC and I don’t feel like I fit into the Offbeat either now. So basically, because I’m not going over the wall with crazy individuality and uniqueness, my wedding is boring despite doing a lot of fun and different things for it. Bluntly, that hurts. There’s support for sure here, but ultimately, I still don’t feel like I fit in. And I don’t like the thought of my wedding being classified as “plain” and “boring” just because it’s not all the way out in left field.

     • I think, as Ariel stated in her comment above, it was pretty clear that she was using “plain and boring” facetiously since that was the self-deprecating language of the original comment.

     • Lately I feel like more and more anyone who isn’t going really offbeat is kind of pushed to the side and ignored. If there’s any element of tradition or not completely off the wall, people are really made to not fit in.

       Ignored by who? Offbeat Bride has always supported weddings along the full spectrum of “offbeat.” We’ve published tons of posts from readers celebrating the balance between their more traditional and nontraditional wedding choices, going back many many years:

       http://offbeatwed.com/2014/03/wedding-factory
       http://offbeatwed.com/2013/07/not-a-unique-snowflake
       http://offbeatwed.com/2012/09/think-my-wedding-will-be-normal
       http://offbeatwed.com/2011/09/more-traditional-bride
       http://offbeatwed.com/2010/12/offbeat-lite
       http://offbeatwed.com/2008/04/offbeat-er-than-thou

       Seriously, spend some time with these posts. You will find a LOT of support from Offbeat Brides who have wrestled with these same feelings.

   • Totally agree! Its not a competition. I feel like some of these comments are so judgmental. When writing these articles you have to take a year worth of planning and one crazy wedding day and compact it into a brief summary. When talking about your wedding you don’t want to talk about all the things you couldn’t get and how things didn’t go as planned or what have you. And when having a small budget it takes twice as much planning and work than if you were to have a lager budget. You have to do a lot of DIY and footwork with small budgets so if you have to make it things yourself, do you want to make it half A** or do you want to take a few extra seconds and add a little special touch to it? You can’t be jealous or envy someone else wedding. Again its not a competition.

9. I’ve had to defend and justify nearly every element of my wedding, be it complicated or simple, offbeat or traditional. Some of my simple-wedding friends snarked on my complicated-wedding details and tried to make me feel like a bad feminist for caring about my wedding, which led me to write this treatise: http://offbeatwed.com/2015/01/maintenance-shaming

   . . . and then in the FB comments for this article, people thought I was snarking on simple weddings! Good grief. But for what it’s worth, I’ve NEVER clicked to Offbeat Bride and thought, “That wedding doesn’t belong here.”

   • “Bad feminist”? This troubles me. A feminist stands for equality. I am sorry you’ve had all this trouble with your wedding. I hope the mood among those people gets better. Also, I hope your wedding turns out to be perfect for you and your significant other 🙂 best of luck, stay strong & happy!

   • OMG it gets really frustrating when people presume that because you’re expressing upset/concern/an opinion, that it means you HATE the opposite.

     I CAN HOLD THESE TWO OPINIONS AT THE SAME TIME. Just because I like apples doesn’t mean I automatically hate bananas.

   • I’ve had to defend and justify nearly every element of my wedding, be it complicated or simple, offbeat or traditional.

     Very a million times much related post: http://offbeatwed.com/2013/01/not-offbeat-enough

10. It might be perception too. I think that because a lot of Offbeat Bride readers are drawn to seeing, well, cough cough, off beat weddings, that maybe even reading Offbeat Bride might even become our little world of normal. Even dare to say, even “boring.” (runs away before getting pelted with rotten eggs and tomato’s). People are so used on this website in seeing the “offbeat” side of life, that like stated, it has because normal to see anything from Punk, to Steampunk, to rainbow, to gay, to transgendered, to interfaith weddings, that nothing seems to be “offbeat” at all about it (again, runs away before getting pelted with stinky fish).

    • I agree (no stinky fish I swear). When my searches lead me to some other bridal sites I see the snarky, judgemental and downright rude comments to totally legit questions or ideas, and remember the offbeat empire and practical bubble I spend most of my time in. Where all kinds of weird and wonderful is not just accepted but celebrated. We’re spolit for choice, and perhaps forget simple is one of those choices.

11. Maybe we could call them “grilled cheese” weddings? A grilled cheese is a super simple sandwich, just bread and cheese. Sure, we all love the idea of sandwiches with all kinds of veggies and meats and condiments. They’re delicious! And fun! And that’s awesome. But sometimes, there’s nothing more satisfying or delicious than a simple grilled cheese. That’s how I’m thinking about my wedding. It’s at a golf course where they handle most of the details. Sure, we’re putting some of our own special touches, but nothing like some of the stuff I’ve seen on here. Neither the FH or I are particularly crafty or skilled in the arts. But, we wanted to get our family together in a big party and celebrate with generic food and drink and decor. But it will be special because it will be us and it will be fun. And delicious, like a grilled cheese. And maybe I shouldn’t post when I haven’t had lunch yet, but I like to think I made my point. All sandwiches (weddings) are delicious, but sometimes some people are very happy with a plain old grilled cheese (unless they’re vegan or lactose-intolerant). Now, to eat! Oh, and I will post pictures of my grilled cheese wedding in a month or two.

    • We used to call them “Offbeat Lite,” but gave up on that last year: https://offbeatempire.com/2014/09/rip-offbeat-lite

12. A while ago I saw wedding pictures on Facebook. One of the guys getting married is a friend of a friend whom I’ve met a few times and had friended, but I definitely didn’t know the grooms well. They had a very simple, bank-account-friendly wedding. Everyone was in jeans and the whole thing was outside at a state park. There were doughnuts and board games at picnic tables for the reception. The only decorations were a simple arch behind them during the ceremony and their handfasting cords, and the photographs were all taken with friends’ phones. Even though it had none of the trimmings I’m used to seeing in wedding pictures, I really enjoyed looking through the whole album because it very clearly showed a few things: 1. This couple was so effing happy to be getting married to each other, 2. Their friends and family were really happy to be celebrating with them and they were obviously surrounded by a close-knit community and 3. It was a memorable day, in a beautiful park, with love and laughter and smiles.
    I remember seeing a couple of their pictures and thinking they belonged on OBB, actually. They made me feel happy for the couple and excited to have my own wedding day, which is generally what I’m looking for if I click on the showcased weddings. I think what gets me to click on them is usually an emotional-looking picture that shows how happy people are more often than an interesting theme or detail. But I’m more drawn in general to the planning posts or think pieces, so I guess I’m not really qualified to advise on this anyway 🙂

13. When I went through the wedding process I recall getting really pouty at ALL the wedding sites and magazines because I was starting to not feel creative enough and began second guessing all of our decisions. Our budget was our budget and I felt all the lame insecurities. I didn’t need that on top of all the stress. I would have appreciated a little more inspiration on the simple side too.
    In fact, I think I’ll submit our wedding now that I’m months removed and see how it goes!

14. I for one come to Offbeat Bride for pizzazz, not because I particularly care if the marriage works out. By all means I hope they do, but *EYE CANDY!!!* That’s all I’m here for.

15. I’m going to be the odd one out here, clearly. When I go to a site that is primarily for inspiration I don’t want to look at crappy photography full of terrible lighting and red eyes and awful framing no matter how nice or in love the couple is in real life.

    Even the most outrageously themed weddings offer a lot of practical ideas on how to do things, how to make the wedding your own and how to incorporate your personality into the day. Suggesting that these weddings don’t have anything to offer a couple with a smaller budget or who are ‘less offbeat’ is crazy talk unless you’re only here looking for an exact wedding template that you can copy.

    I don’t think ‘simple and boring’ weddings necessarily belong on offbeat bride; I’m pretty sure those are just called weddings.
    On the flip side of that, if a reader has had a wedding that was a brilliant use of low to no budget ideas, I’m pretty sure you can write an article about it instead of submitting it as a wedding where photos are more important. Also, if there isn’t a site out there already that focuses on small budgets and ultra simple decor (I’d fall out of my chair in surprise if there isn’t) maybe that would be a cool side project someone would want to start up! Sometimes a site or organization just can’t be everything to everyone.
    Ps- “grilled cheese” weddings is a brilliant name!

16. OK.

    But, why does the writer assume that those who do something special with the wedding don’t also think marriage is the most important thing? It’s quite possible to want a fun and gorgeous party but also know that in the end it’s the marriage that matters. The two are really not mutually exclusive.

    That’s always been my main takeaway from Offbeat Bride – not “unique”, not “weird”, not “fancy”, just…authentic, in the way that you can create a beautiful party just ’cause you want to, but also stay true to your values regarding marriage.

    So it’s not that I disagree with the author here per se, but I’m bothered that they put two things at odds that really don’t need to be. Kinda goes against what I see as the whole spirit of the site, yeah?

    • Yeah, there are 1,000 better ways to snark on the WIC without shaming someone’s big wedding. The couple profiled in Martha Stewart weddings with the designer dress at the Plaza in New York City also cares about their marriage. Why else would they, you know, get married?To say they don’t because they have different monetary values and priorities than you (general second-person “you”) is, frankly, sanctimonious and mean-spirited.

17. My wedding was very pared down and simple. We cut out a lot of things that didn’t mean anything to us and kept/changed/embellished or added the things that did.
    Ariel has said before that authentic is a more accurate description than offbeat and this is important I think. We did what was authentic to us, and I learned that was ok here.
    Sometimes I feel (on the occasions I come back to have a look here) that most weddings here don’t resonate with me because they are so flashy. I find myself feeling that just because all the things from a traditional wedding are styled goth instead for example that it’s still the same as a trad wedding in essence, just with different trimmings. And doesn’t appeal to me at all. It’s not a value judgment on those people – we’re just different. Some people are flashy people and so that kind of event is authentic for them.
    And this is the critical beautiful thing about this site – it is a home for all of us.

18. I’ll be submitting mine!

19. I don’t feel the *need* to see more “plain and boring” weddings on OBB, even though my upcoming wedding falls squarely into this category. The thing is, “plain and boring” is pretty straightforward–anyone can do it. My wedding simply does not include many interesting components or artsy details, like an unusual venue, DIY decorations, any music, fancy invitations, special ceremonies, custom rings, professional cake, etc etc. At the end of the day, unless I have an interesting story, or some specific tips to share, there’s not much to blog about.

    Like others have already pointed out, I think the desire to see more “plain and boring” weddings is really about seeking validation. I totally understand that, but I don’t think OBB is obliged to validate every possible combination of choices in the world. I also don’t think OBB invalidates ANYONE’s choice by not equally representing every type of wedding. In fact, reading about very offbeat weddings has empowered me to be more authentic, since my authentic identity is much less controversial and less prone to attracting criticism than these other amazing people’s identities. If I can pick up a few cool ideas here and there, great. Even if I can’t, I’ve already gotten a lot out of reading OBB.

    • Four days later, I’m still clicking the THIS button on your comment.

20. I didn’t read through all the comments so I don’t know if someone else has raised this, but what is plain and boring exactly?

    Of the real weddings that are shown, there is a range from courthouse elopements to wonderful themed events. There have been many, many simpler weddings that haven’t had all the fuss other weddings have.

    You read the accompanying story of the couple and more often than not they didn’t have an elaborate budget or the time and patience to deal with little details and their weddings were still amazing.

    Usually there was one or two defining aspects about their less-fussy affair that made it pop.

    I realize I’m rambling here. The point I’m trying to make is that all these people probably did have a plain and boring wedding (in terms of details) but it is such a special day – a day where you focus on two people uniting their lives – why wouldn’t you want something to make it pop? To make your guests, or just yourselves, remember the special-ness? Just how plain and boring is plain boring?

    If you and your partner rolled out of bed, wore your normal everyday clothes, went to court and got legally wed and then went back home and got back into bed, that would be really simple. I’m sure that OBB would love to make a post about it but it would be really short and with no pictures and that would be pretty plain and well, boring.

    Seriously, I mean no offence to anyone who has done this but this is a “nothing to see here” kind of event. Why would anyone want to more “nothing to see”? Surely it’s not that difficult to imagine plain and boring? Okay, I’m definitely offending someone now. Sorry

21. What is “normal”? isn’t that the point of offbeat bride? I feel like you do a great job showcasing a wide range of weddings.
    My wedding was featured and it was “themed” but a theme doesn’t mean its a costume party or some fake party. It reflected our personalities, we really could careless what anyone thought. We were so happy to tie the knot and everyone could see that on our faces. With our without decorations. We had a small budget of $7000 and in our area the average wedding is about $25,000…..

    Also the “small” details don’t mean that you were only concerned about the decorations and not the marriage. Getting married is suppose to be fun (and it is) so all those details reflect your excitement about the marriage and the celebration. Some people are naturally detailed oriented in everyday life so of course you would expect them to want to do the same for this exciting time in their life.
    I think some people are putting too much pressure on them selves when looking at all of these blogs and pictures. Your wedding is whatever you make it. Your guest don’t expect a pintrest perfect wedding and if that is what you are frustrated with seeing then clearly you have gone off track and lost focus of the most important part…. The marriage

22. I think that some people are confusing the experience of having or going to a wedding with the experience of looking at a wedding in photographs on a website. I’ve seen plenty of “plain” weddings photographed beautifully and compellingly, and plenty of elaborate or fancy weddings photographed poorly. It’s not a judgment on the experience of attending the wedding to say that looking at the photos is boring. I would probably find the experience of attending a gorgeous $30k offbeat wedding that spent a lot of time on toasts and dancing extremely boring – I don’t enjoy either of those things. If someone asked me if I wanted to see the pictures, though, I’d probably have much more fun flipping through them than attending the actual wedding! Similarly, a courthouse wedding followed by a potluck bbq, photographed by the groom’s new-to-cameras brother, sounds like a blast to attend, but really no fun to just look at the photos.

    To say it another way, I can’t think of any bride and groom who are “plain” during even the most simple wedding – they are beautiful and happy and in-love and it’s wonderful to see. A great photographer can capture this, no matter the venue, decor, and clothing. But an inexperienced photographer and poor lighting can make anyone LOOK plain, so the love and happiness doesn’t come through the photos.

    I’d say, if you look through your wedding photos with a critical and detached eye, no matter whether your wedding is extravagant or bare-bones, and you wouldn’t want to spend half an hour of your life flipping through them JUST for their aesthetic value or their effective storytelling (but it has to be effective even if you don’t know the people in the photos!), then put some work into an introductory article and some truly awesome captions before you send it in! I’m honestly happy to click through and look at a bunch of “boring” or “plain” photos, but only if the writing in the blurb can convince me that it’s going to be worth my while, which is much harder than if the photos speak for themselves.

    • I’m honestly happy to click through and look at a bunch of “boring” or “plain” photos, but only if the writing in the blurb can convince me that it’s going to be worth my while, which is much harder than if the photos speak for themselves.

      The good news is that it’s an editor’s job to tease the magic out of EVERY wedding we feature… so when it comes to writing a compelling blurb, we do that for you! 🙂

23. I’ll be submitting my own simple outdoor spring ceremony with eight guests as soon as my photos come back! As well as my story of how it dwindled down from an ultra-glamorous winter wedding with 90 guests to this.

24. There are other blogs for plain and simple weddings. I come here for color and inspiration. You do you, OBB.

25. I’m planning a backyard wedding for 2019 which be on the simpler side with offbeat details. I’m going over wedding traditions with a fine-toothed comb and only keeping the ones that work for us, and as a result Offbeat bride is the only wedding blog I can stand! I’m planning to submit our pics to you once it’s over.

    The idea of a $100 wedding threw me for a loop – here in Western Australia a simple registry-office ceremony costs AU $400. I’m guessing the wedding economy is vastly different around the world!

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