Kat & Earl’s handmade movie geek Disney-inspired wedding

Today is “Disney Day” on Offbeat Bride! Why? Because we like you. We're serving up Disney-fied wedding inspiration all day, starting with Kat & Earl's Disney-inspired wedding.

The Offbeat Bride: Kat, Script Coordinator for Disney

Her offbeat partner: Earl, Writer/Actor

Date and location of wedding: Church of Christ in Los Angeles, CA and The Rococo Room in Pasadena, CA — January 19, 2013

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We definitely kept many traditions, but there were a few things that ended up defining a lot of our wedding planning that would normally ostracize us according to the traditional wedding planning community. Due to religious, family, and personal reasons, we didn't have any alcohol or dancing. We were anxious about being judged, and people responding strongly to this, but fortunately our friends and family ended up supporting the decision. And at the end of the day, we don't really drink and we don't dance (dance floors give me anxiety!), so it felt authentic for us to provide entertainment in different ways.

We wanted our wedding to feel like us: whimsical (my style), vintage (his style), but still intimate, relaxed, down-to-earth and movie-geeky (our relationship style). We had a morning wedding and a lunch reception, an acoustic guitarist/singer who played all our favorite songs, a big trunk full of photo booth props inspired by our favorite movies, and a gelato/cookie bar with toppings.

We also had ongoing games to entertain our guests like an I-Spy Photographic Scavenger Hunt, a photo booth contest (prizes awarded for “Funniest,” “Sweetest,” and “Most Kat & Earl” photo strips), and a personalized version of Truth or Dare Jenga. We also had the first act of a script that my husband wrote that invited our friends to write the next part of our story, and an interactive guest book that asked people for their marital advice, favorite memories, who they would cast to play us in our biopic movie, and their artistic rendering of us.

We also tackled a lot of DIY projects and hand-made many decorations to be very specific to us. We compiled and edited our own slideshows, and also created movie montages with our favorite moments in cinematic history for our save-the-date video and our “Happily Ever After” entrance video.

We feel so blessed to have a lot of incredibly talented (and generous!) friends and family. My sister sculpted our cake topper and designed our invitations, a friend baked our cupcakes, another friend drew us as animated characters, and a big group of friends came together to help us assemble all the giveaways, decor elements, and place settings. Each table was themed after a different movie, so the table numbers were 3D cut-outs of the script pages printed in a vintage style, next to a framed drawing of the two of us drawn into that movie as animated characters.

For our centerpieces, we had freshly cut flowers put into simple vases that featured the artwork of Mary Blair, my favorite Disney artist who designed the look of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella.

Tell us about the ceremony:
We had a traditional ceremony at our church, but it still felt very special and personal to us because it's the church that we both grew up in. I've known the minister who married us since I was about 12 years old. We're very active in our church and we know everyone there, so we had a full choir (for free!) that sang beautifully for us, and it was made up of all of our friends. One of my husband's closest childhood friends even performed as a soloist as we exchanged our vows. It was great to watch the video back and see our friends up in the choir loft trying to look solemn as they performed, but then suddenly breaking into big smiles and giggles during our first kiss.

Our biggest challenge:
Definitely the budget and the guest list. We're both Filipino with big families and a large church community, and I'm a compulsive people-pleaser, so trying to figure out how to make everyone happy while staying on-budget was definitely the hardest part. We had to set some difficult rules on our guest list (eg. only first cousins, only +1's for people that have been in relationships longer than two years, only friends we've hung out with in the last three years who know both of us, and nobody from work). For everything else we picked our battles and tried to reach guest list compromises that everyone could eventually live with.

My favorite moment:
I was so overwhelmed with emotion the whole day, it seemed to just fly by. But I remember one moment as if it was in slow motion. We were getting ready to make our exit at the end of the reception, and all of our guests got into a big line to form our escape route and began waving these ribbon-streamers that we had made. As we walked down the path, I could see the faces of everyone we love laughing and cheering and waving their ribbons in the air. I know from watching the video that it probably took us less than 30 seconds to walk through the crowd, but I felt like I was looking into each face and sharing this unforgettable personal moment with each and every one of them. My heart felt so full I nearly burst into tears. And then moments later it was just me and Earl alone together in the limo, our first quiet moment alone together, and my emotions settled into a beautiful feeling of peace and utter contentment.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Closer to Love Photography
• Dress: Watters purchased from Pre-Owned Wedding Dresses
• Reception venue: Cafe Santorini
• Shoes: Badgley Mischka purchased from Nordstrom Rack
• Acoustic guitarist/singer: Christopher Wooley
• Wedding Planning: Happily Wedding
• Videography: Weddings 360
• Flowers: Bloomeria
• Photo booth: Vizid Booth

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!