Posted byOur reader survey told us that half of you identify as Academia Nerds, so a theme week was in order. This Bookish theme week is for the academics, the bookworms, and the card-carrying library buffs!
The offbeat bride: Jolene, Web Developer
Her offbeat partner: Jasin, Artist Extraordinaire
Date and location of wedding: Indianapolis Arts Center, Indiana — September 23, 2011
Our offbeat wedding at a glance: I love books, Scrabble, and cupcakes. Jasin loves art, karaoke, and beer. We held our ceremony at an arts center on a riverfront stage just beyond a sculpture garden. We encouraged our wedding party to select their own outfits, only insisting they wear matching shoes: Converse sneakers for the girls and Simple shoes for the boys.
I represented my love of books through custom library card invitations and bookmark favors, and by arranging cupcakes on stacks of old children's books. I added a nerdy touch by dressing up the cupcakes with “Just Married” spelled out in Scrabble tiles. For our reception, we headed to our backyard where we had kegs of beer, karaoke, and a photo booth.
Tell us about the ceremony: I am Agnostic and Jasin is Christian. We decided to have non-denominational ceremony. A close friend, who was ordained online, officiated the ceremony. We Googled wedding vows and combined our favorites into the perfect set of promises:
“From this day on, I choose you to be my (husband/wife). To live with you and laugh with you; to stand by your side, and sleep in your arms; to be joy to your heart, and food for your soul; to bring out the best in you always, and, for you, to be the most that I can. I promise to laugh with you in good times, to struggle with you in bad; to solace you when you are downhearted; to wipe your tears with my hands; to comfort you with my body; to mirror you with my soul; to share with you all my riches and honors; to play with you as much as I can until we grow old; and, still loving each other sweetly and gladly, My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home. As I have given you my hand to hold, I give you my life to keep.”
Our biggest challenge: The biggest challenge was trying to personalize the wedding. We made our own invitations, favors, flower arrangements, and decorations. Etsy was our friend too. A lot of the supplies for our wedding came from Etsy vendors, including the Scrabble tiles, blank library cards, and even my wedding dress!
My favorite moment: Jasin had four close friends as his groomsmen, but I only had three lovely ladies that I truly wanted as bridesmaids. To balance out the wedding party, we had our rescue dog walk down the aisle and stand on stage as my fourth bridesmaid. Luckily, one of my bridesmaids is a dog trainer, so she was able to keep Puppers in line! It meant so much to have our dog there because she really is like a child to us, and I couldn't stand the thought of her sitting alone at home and not sharing in our special day.
My funniest moment: The photo booth at the reception was definitely the hit of the night. Our friends and family took ridiculous pictures with silly props. They even had a keepsake from the wedding: a print out of their photo.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? I learned the importance of delegating responsibilities. It is unrealistic to think you can get everything done perfectly if you do it yourself. All I did was stress myself out and make myself ill, until I started asking for help. I enlisted a coworker to be my “point person” on the day of the wedding. He took care of decor, setup, and all the little details that I didn't want to worry about. He even made sure all the dads had their boutonnieres and all the moms had their corsages. I think he may have found a new calling in life: wedding planner!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Dress: Etsy seller Ting Bridal
- Cupcakes: The Flying Cupcake
- Hair: Phil Salmon
- Hair Clip: Etsy seller Sweetgrassmill
- Photographer: John R. Gentry, Jr.
- Photo booth: Strike a Pose
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
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.
Wow! That sculpture is so “Alice in Wonderland”–I love it! Loved that you had your dog there!! Wish we could have our pup incorporated, but he’s just too skittish around lots of people ;(
I want this wedding! So lovely – I love the scrabble tiles on the cupcakes!
i got a whole bag of scrabble tiles off etsy. there are always sellers with them!
oh and all i did was hot glue a toothpick to the back of each tile. voila!
Such adorable details. I love that it’s so coordinated yet unique. This week’s theme is going to knock my socks off!
The vows. Wow. So awesome. And the library card invites! Love them!
thank you! it’s amazing what googling “vows” can come up with 😉
The library card invites really are amazing.
thank you! and this was done BEFORE i started working for the library. i guess it was meant to be *sigh*
Love this wedding – especially the library card invitations!
love that your colors don’t seem to be so set in stone. taking different tones and colors out of the peacock feather… that’s sort of what i’m doing, even with the splash of turquoise. And I didn’t even plan it that way, it just sort of happened. So I’m glad to see how well yours turned out! I’m going to look up that etsy seller for your headpiece, thanks 🙂
oh her headpieces are gorgeous!! my favorite colors are blue and green, and once i started finding all kinds of peacock color-themed goodies, it was all over. i love love love the colors!
I am now stuck between three different hair clips of hers! thank you ! haha
my bridesmaids are all wearing different dresses: one a pale sienna-orange, a sage green, and a buttermilk yellow. but I think the peacock feathers are going to look great with each/all of them. and i’ll have a splash of turquoise 🙂
Love it! And we’re Lanvu dress twins, too. 🙂 I loved my dress sooo much.
Such a beautiful wedding! Just love it, and the scrabble tiles are too adorable!