Why it’s totally okay to plan a wedding your way… even when you’re told otherwise
When I asked Brian to marry me, tranquil and quiet energy swirled around us. In all the perfection that this was for us, I didn’t expect the whirlwind that would come — the questions, assumptions, unsolicited advice, and all the “good things” that go along with an engagement in two large and loving families. Our quiet serenity on that beach on Toronto island slipped away from me so fast, I went looking for it in all the wrong places.
How cancer prepared me for wedding planning
When planning a wedding you have expectations, and ideas of what your big day should be, right? Sometimes life gets in the way of that. After 11.5 years of living with cancer, I’m getting married at the end of October 2016, and cancer has been the perfect trial and error for this entire process.
Cancer has been no walk in the park. But sometimes I have days where I can walk miles and still have energy to make dinner AND bake some vegan cookies. Other days, not so much.
“Will we need a corsage for your grandmother?” Grief and wedding planning
Those who have lost someone — and that is nearly all of us — can tell you that grief, rather than subsiding, simply assumes the traits of water molecules. Over an amount of time, never predictable, it changes shape from a solid pain to a fluid, familiar ache, an ache which leaves room for joy, for the ability to page through love-worn photo albums, for gratitude at ever having known and loved the person at all.
No spoons left: how I had the best time being very sick at my own wedding
My wedding was the most beautiful day of my life. It really was. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ceremony. It was magic, it was us, and I wouldn’t trade one moment of it for anything; from the sappy, teary vows to all that went wrong.
What? It was perfect despite it being imperfect? Don’t be quoting fortune cookies — explain. I was sick. Terribly, nightmarish level sick.
Surviving as offbeat in mainstream online communities
Is it just me, or is it difficult being an Offbeat Bride on more traditional websites? While I love to talk about planning weddings, why are the communities on these websites as a whole so judgmental? Is it just me that’s met with this…hostility, if I even dare to ask about something that seems too offbeat, taboo, and “rude?” We’re just surviving as offbeat in mainstream online communities…
Bridal “best selves”: when is too far?
As with many Offbeat Bride readers, this blog was a welcome antidote to the bridal mags and blogs that represent all brides as being white, thin, tanned, and perfect. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but when you don’t fit into that round hole, the bridal industry can make you feel a bit like Square Peggy. Aiming for perfection in any aspect of a wedding, whether it’s your letter-pressed invites or sun-dappled forest grove location, is asking for tears before bedtime.