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The offbeat bride: Andy – Graphic/Web Designer
Her offbeat partner: Jeff – Graphic/Web Designer
Location and date of wedding: The ceremony was held outside in Forest Heights Park. The reception was held at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, AB — 08.08.09
What made our wedding offbeat:
Our wedding ended up being exactly what I had imagined — fun, causal, bright, design oriented, and full of our favorite people all wrapped into one day!
A few of the highlights were:
- Our short and sweet, twelve minute long, wedding ceremony. We wrote out the entire ceremony ourselves with help from ideas found online to ensure it was fun, a bit God-y but not too God-y, and most importantly, represented us totally.
- The tacky “Just Married” sign, complete with rattling cans, that we put on the back of my wheelchair for walking back down the aisle.
- Our lemonade stand complete with a big lemonade sign as well as my favourite mom-made lemon squares.
- The t-shirts our lovely (and possibly slightly lazy) ushers made with our faces on them and huge arrows pointing to which side of the ceremony was who's.
- Our wedding party attire — the girls all designed different dresses but they were made with the same material. The guys dressed fairly casual opting for no dress jackets and wearing checkered vans. Their ties were also made out of the same material as the green from the bridesmaid's dresses which tied everything together perfectly.
- Our entrance song into the reception which was the songs that Jeff wrote for the stickman engagement music video…
- The jumbo cupcake we had atop the cupcake tower!
- Using decals as the wall decor around the room and behind the head table.
Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was probably the granny smith apple green. Green is in but not that exact shade and so it was hard finding everything to match. Luckily between us and our friends we were able to make everything come together.
My husband and I are both graphic designers, so we were able to design all the stationery from the invitations to the table numbers to the huge seating chart board and have the theme and color tied together in all the designs.
For the textiles the apple green seemed impossible to find! Luckily I had my lovely bridesmaid Teira who is a sewer extraordinare! We found, with great difficulty, enough of the exact green material (I have never bought so much material ever) to make 120 napkins, four table runners, and a bunch of matching throw pillows for the black couches in the lounge area. Thank you Teira!
Lastly, the decals. They were the best idea I had! I found it was equally hard to find modern, colourful, unique backdrops in our exact colors — but our walls were so bare, we needed to do something. The decal idea worked out perfectly though. They're not too expensive, a bit of work but not crazy, they come right off, you can get them in custom colors, and they made a huge impact.
My favorite moment: Walking down the aisle after saying “I do!”
We danced to Must Have Done Something Right down the aisle, I had a tacky “Just Married” sign on the back of my wheelchair, and at the end of the aisle we had a pause and were able to enjoy each others company for a minute or two before the flock of family and friends came. It was a small but great moment!
My offbeat advice: Blogs are your best friend! There are so many great wedding blogs out there, and they're the best places for wedding ideas, support, everything. Seriously, just put down the wedding magazine, all that's in there are ads and super expensive weddings. Instead, just search a little for great blogs, like this one, and you can find so many more ideas that will be more “you” — real weddings and real people, support and other brides to talk to, and also free!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- decals – what is blik
- all stationery: paper leaf design (me & my husband)
- florist: eden lilly
- favors: chocolates by jacek chocolates
- make-up: jenn kowton
- cupcakes: fuss cupcakes
- wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses: kelsey mcIntyre
- hair piece: etsy – twigs and honey
- bridesmaids jewlery – polli
- bridal party lunchboxes – the macbeth collection
- photography: leah rae photography
- rentals: infinite event rentals
Enough talk — show me the wedding pics!
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.
So very cute. i especially love the choice of groomsmen and bridesmaids attire. Congrats!
Yours is my favorite wedding on OBT to date! I love it! And that's our color green too…you're right, its so hard to find!
I'm jealous! I love "Must Have Done Something Right", but our wedding band learned it for us, but they don't do it justice. 🙁
Thank you, thats a HUGE compliment! That sucks your wedding band wasn't able to quite do justice to 'Must Have Done Something Right'. Have you already had your wedding? What song are you doing now?
No, not until October. But my dad and a bunch of his friends from his high school youth group back in the day have a cover band. They play all the local Seafood Festivals, Mardi Gras events, Beach festivals, etc. It was between that song and "You'll Always Be My Best Friend". I guess 40-something year old Southern men just aren't the same. We'll probably put in on the iPod during the band breaks though!
It sounds like such a fun day and I love the choice of an unusual colour.
What a wonderful idea to have all the bridesmaids dresses made from the same material but to any design!
Gorgeous bride! And twelve-minute ceremony, now THAT'S what I want! Our coordinated wants 15 minutes of walking music, and I looked at her with total disbelief.
I love the bridesmaids' lunchboxes. So cute!
I just Tweeted about your video – this is SERIOUSLY the most fantastic engagement song/proposal in the world. I was totally cracking up.
What a great couple you guys must be.
Thank you!! Ya, he did pretty well on the engagement front, but it gave our wedding a lot to live up to 🙂
I already commented on this amazing wedding at Andy's OBB page, but I wanted to add that the engagement video is just fantastic.
This is one of my favorite weddings I've ever seen on here! I love the colors and the graphics and wall decals. It looks like it was so much fun!
Thanks Claire, thats a huge compliment!!
I love the Blick decal idea! And the bridesmaids DESIGNED their own dresses?? I would have failed so hard at that!
By 'designed' I mean they worked with a designer, told them what they wanted and she came up with brilliant ideas and made them – do't worry, we would he failed mercilessly at designing them ourselves as well 🙂
I LOVE the BM dresses!!!!
This is so awesome! I love the bright colours, and the design touches are fabulous!
Just a note on the tags though, Edmonton is in Alberta, a province in Canada, not Alabama 🙂
Thank you! No joke — Ariel and I had a really good laugh about my lack of Canadian knowlege when I asked if Quebec would count as British Colombia. Yeah….
Hahaha, totally other side of Canada. No big deal, pretty much the same thing 🙂
Yeah, Ariel's response (after laughing her ass of at me) was to just send me a map with a BIG OL line running from one side of Canada to the other. Point taken thankuverymuch. 🙂
Where did you get your shoes!? They are so cute! Your wedding looked beautiful!!
Hi! I got my shoes at Town Shoes – they were on sale and like $30! I think they might still be around though!
Your mom sent me the proudest email and got me to this site. It was so much fun to view once again the pics from your wedding. You and Jeff just make me smile. I hope this finds you deliriously happy or just delirious! Love and kisses!
That wedding was seriously gorgeous!!! The bride was beautiful! Loved the slightly retro look everyone had also and the picture back drops!
I just tagged this "best wedding evar" because it's one of my favorites we've featured on the site. 🙂 LOVE IT! Congrats Andy & Jeff.
(PS: Still cracking up about Alabama vs. Alberta. Who wants to give Megan a quick tour of Canada?? 🙂 )
Thanks so much!!
Thumbs up on the craftiness! They all made their own dresses…that just blows me away. Also I must say the "Just Married" sign was an excellent touch too ;-).
Oh no, they didn't make their own dresses, they just designed them with a designer who came up with ideas, helped our brains and personal touches to the fantastic ideas and then she made them. She did my wedding dress as well, but no, only she can take credit for making those dresses 🙂
Thanks!!
His head doesn't seem all that big in pictures. But this wedding is lovely – and I have that pan, that makes that monster cupcake! It all looks perfect and dreamy. And the video is hilarious.
What a beautiful wedding. I'm so glad to see this featured on OBB.
This is so perfectly amazing! I LOVED IT! Of course, I loved the whole series of pictures, but the write up was funny and creative and upbeat! Maybe you two should plan offbeat weddings as a sideline to your graphic art business?
This is honestly one of my favourite weddings from OBT, everything about it blew me away!
Thank you so much!!
I was loving this wedding even before I realized it was in Edmonton, where I live!
this is the most beautiful bride i ever see! best wishes to her! wish her have a happy wedding life.
I HEART this wedding VERY MUCH. I saw the video months ago when we first got engaged (can't remember where… here?) and it made me cry. it was so beautiful and perfect. THIS wedding (plans) was one of the first to make me realize that offbeat was the WAY to go.
Plus Canada is great.
And ya know, having lived in BC, MANY people there have NO clue about the Maritime provinces…. I got asked once (by a BC-ian-Canadian) if Nova Scotia was between New Brunswick and Qc, and if it was the same place as Newfoundland….. umm……. she was a 30 year old lawyer.
Thank you – I'm so glad our wedding plans could make you go Off Beat 🙂 It is the way to go though, so many more options that way! Congrats on being newly engaged!!
omg, I'm i LOVE with the colors and the table setting! so inspired.
This is one of my absolute favorite wedding posts ever! It looked so beautiful and perfect and and and! The best wishes to Jeff and Andy from me!! <3
Thank you so much! Thats hugely flattering!!
Pretty sure this is my favorite wedding and my favorite couple ever featured on this site.
I would like to have a green wedding as well (so close to this shade!) and am having a difficult time finding tons of inspiration. And how could you not LOVE that video?!
Congrats!
Wow, thank you!
There are a lot of green weddings out there now, just search the blogs – here are some other green ones: http://www.oncewed.com/real-weddings/green/
Good luck and stick with it!
firstly congrats!!!
i looove your wedding, espascially the engagement video, i watched it three times now and i don´t know if i should laugh or cry, it´s so sweet and genious at the same time!
you both look so happy and beautiful, so contratulation again!
It’s true what they say about creativity – you don’t have to strain to make something original, just make it personal, your own, and originality follows naturally.
When I saw the pics on flickr I just knew that one or both of you HAD to be designers, so clean and so fresh, quite delightful.
Yours is the first wedding that has ever made me excited about weddings – usually I find them pretentious at one end of the scale or a bit sad and shabby at the other. You guys have moved yours into a class of its own by putting your own marks on it so convincingly. BRAVO!
I just loved the mustaches too…
I recognize the gorgeous font you used (dear joe?) you might consider giving JoeBob a heads-up, I’m sure he’d love to see how great it looked as part of such a special occasion.
Wow, thank you so much Grant. "A class of its own' – thats so flattering!!
i love the creative details! now i want a blik headboard for my bed. and the just married sign was the cutest damn thing ever.
Thank you for sharing – you have so many great ideas in there! Looks like it was a fantastic day – congratulations!!!
Three Cheers for an Edmontonian Bride! Very beautiful all around! Congrats!
Apple green and black is just a gorgeous combination
oh i love this!!!!!! my husband ito be is in a power chair due to his muscular dystrophy and i looooveeeee seeing pictures where the chair isnt the focal point! the person in it is. i just want to hug you both. is is ok if i borrow some of these pics to show my photographer? love it love it love it.
oh i love this!!!!!! my husband ito be is in a power chair due to his muscular dystrophy and i looooveeeee seeing pictures where the chair isnt the focal point! the person in it is. i just want to hug you both. is is ok if i borrow some of these pics to show my photographer? love it love it love it.
misty – borrow all you want!! so glad they could help, that was my biggest reason for submitting the photos. i had a terrible time trying to find decent wheelchair weddings so i was hoping folks might be able to find this one!
thank you so much! we found a great photograpner that wont make it look like a jerrys kid campaign. ( while those are wonderfull and my fh has been in them before im not too keen on that being my wedding photos lol) i want more people to post ways that they acommidated for spouses in chairs! you looked sooo pretty, thanks so much for posting! and a huuuge aww to the proposal vid!
this maybe my favourtite wedding i've seen! i love that green – it's so fresh.
Also loving the wedding party's outfits… and your owl tattoo – gorgeous!
This is the most amazing wedding I have ever seen! I began planning mine completely traditional, but I am so inspired now! Who knew you could have a wedding that was so out of the ordinary! Congratulations 🙂
Ha, glad I could help inspire a bit! Hope your wedding planning is going well and is tons-o-fun!
So pretty!! How did you go about holding your ceremony in a public park? I’m getting married this summer and we would like to be outside but we’re concerned about the logistics and Alberta’s fickle weather. Did you guys have a rain back up plan?
It was scary, as you said, it’s Alberta weather, but we got lucky mid-August! As for the logistics, we just called the city! If you look the park you want to get married in on the city’s website there should be a number for booking. You have to get insurance ($1/person I think) and there is no promise people wont be walking around, but no other event will be booked.
As for the chairs, we kind of broke the rules there. They said we could have ‘a few’ chairs and the girl wouldn’t clarify what the most ‘a few’ chairs was, so we decided it was probably 100 😛 The rental company just dropped the chairs off there, our friends set them up and 1.5 hrs later they picked them back up! We figured if we did get caught they probably would give us a fine, which would have still been cheaper than renting a venue and they probably wouldn’t make us stop the vows or anything.
Lastly, the venue we had booked for the reception gave us a ‘back up room’ at their place (a little not-so-great room, but an plan b) and only made us pay approx what a church would cost since we probably wouldn’t need it. They were giving us a good deal but if you’re spending a ton of money on your reception, they’ll want to work with you on little things like that.
Good luck!!!!
Okay, everyone else has already said it, but BOOM! What a friggin perfect wedding! Besides the amazing, quirky, makes-my-inner-designer-sigh-contentedly aesthetics, am I right that this couple just looks so gee-dee in love? Congratulations, you two!
I LOVE THIS WEDDING! That green is one of our colors too, and it is soooooo hard to find! Everything about this is absolutely gorgeous, whimsical, artsy, casual, and fun. Just what I hope my wedding will be! 🙂
Now I don’t feel bad for commenting…glad us time-travelers from 2012 can rock the comments 🙂
This is just such a great, positive awesometastic wedding. Like…to the max extreme. And I don’t want to be all condescending or b.s-y with the “how inspiring” or whatever, but I just want to say that it’s a big deal (for me, personally) to see that a wedding can be about the couple and the day and your kick-ass friends and family and awesome green decorations and not about whatever mobility device you so happen to use.
I am currently struggling with that being a possibility in the future and it is really just a blessing to get a reminder today that– it doesn’t matter. At all. And that “the issue” is such a NON-issue is…amazeballs. So, thanks, OBB, for again featuring just what I needed to read.
Okay, I’ve kind of been trolling for Edmonton weddings (mine is in three months) and I have to say the ton cans and just married sign were my favourite part. I love it. If I happen to need my cane when we get married, I might have to borrow that idea from you. The lunch boxes were also brilliant.