Nicole & Josh’s pop culture interfaith geek wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Nicole, Writer/Producer

Her offbeat partner: Josh, Digital Sculptor

Date and location of wedding: Huron Substation, Los Angeles, CA — June 7, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Since we are both non-traditional, geeky people, we decided to have a comic book/pop-culture/nerdfest wedding with a yellow/grey/rustic color scheme. We chose this theme to make all the crazy wedding planning fun and really wanted it to reflect our personality. From our decor to my shoes to our wedding readings to the cake toppers we got to incorporate our theme in many fun, creative ways.

We were looking for an open, industrial-looking venue that could host ceremony and reception. A place where we could bring in our own vendors with a nice outdoor garden area were all very high on our list. We were trying to do everything on a tight budget so when we found Huron Substation it was love at first sight. It's a beautiful venue, I adored the wedding coordinator, Rose — she saved us so much money and took away so much of the stress.

We are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles where there is the LA Flower Mart, a magical place where you can purchase large quantities of beautiful flowers at wholesale prices. I was quoted $3K from a local florist for what we wanted, and I was actually able to pull it off for $300. It was also one of everyone's favorite activities. The day before the wedding we grabbed all the flowers and then had a bunch of people from our families come over to make the bouquets, centerpieces, etc. It was a great ice breaker as this was the first time a lot of people were meeting. Josh's little sister is six and wanted to help so she colored me flowers and put them on pipe cleaners. I thought they were so cute that I stuck a couple in my bouquet. I was so happy with the results and it's a really warm, positive memory of everyone I love hanging out together.

Family is very important to us. We had a table with all of our parents' and grandparents' wedding pictures. I liked this a lot because it was really cool to see which couples got married around the same time, as was evident in the style of their dress and photos. Josh's mother and sister passed away when he was very young, and my grandmother had recently just passed away, so having an “In Memoriam” table was something that was special to us — a little sad obviously, but it felt like we were sharing the day with them, too.

Tell us about the ceremony:
We come from mixed religious backgrounds, but aren't really religious, so we wanted to take elements and traditions of things that we liked and incorporate them without forcing traditions that were meaningless to us. Our family and friends read passages from our favorite children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit, the Bible, Les Miserables, and Doctor Who. One of our good friends, Jacob, married us under a chuppah, we wrote our own vows, and hammered a unity box full of love letters and a bottle of our favorite wine (to be opened in case of emergency or every five years).

Our biggest challenge:
I had a nightmare dress experience. I made the mistake of falling in love with a dress the way that you fall in love with a friend. I didn't realize it was supposed to make me look good, not just be this thing I hang out with. They didn't have my size in stores so when it finally shipped to me, the girl had measured me wrong and it could only fit half of my body. We went up a size and when they finally sent it back it was big enough for two of me. I was so sad. What's worse, I didn't think that it would have ever looked good on me. My friend, Alison, had recently gotten married and I loved her dress — we were both in love with tea length, vintage, lace dresses. She sent me to Stephanie James Couture, which was an amazing experience.

My favorite moment:
Our love letter vows we wrote pretty awesome. They were honest and focused on things that other people may see as flaws but are what make our relationship work so well. Mine were more emotional and his were more funny, so they balanced out well. We had no clue what the other one was going to write so it was pretty cool to see that we talked about the same things.

My funniest moment:
Our unity box was funny. We had just read aloud the vows that we had written for each other and a lot of people, including me, were crying. I hammered first and was very lady-like and quiet (more ceremonious as opposed to functionally hammering it shut). Josh decided to lighten the mood and hammer the nails into the box as aggressively and loudly as possible, startling everyone and scattering nails into the front row. Pretty epic.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
The most important lesson that we learned was communication and budgeting. The wedding really taught Josh and I how to set financial goals, budgets, and communicate what is important and what we're not spending money on. We did all coordination of to-do lists and timelines in Google Docs so we are able to access it on any device and update constantly. It really helped to be organized and I was able to be completely relaxed on the day of knowing that all the details were taken care of.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Kelly Lynn Photography
• Venue: Huron Substation
• Wedding Coordinator: Two Tree Events
• Caterer: Wood Ranch
• Dress: Stephanie James Couture
• Shoes: Adra's Creations
• Ketubah: Once Upon a Paper

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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