Posted byThe moment I saw their Lego cake topper and their card box constructed out of legos, I knew I had to profile them on “geek week!” So Lego nerds, check it out… -Megan
The offbeat bride: Lauren, computer nerd for a museum in Houston (and an OBT member)
Her offbeat partner: Nick, TSA Officer
Location & date of wedding: The War Memorial, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI — 8/28/2009
What made our wedding offbeat: From top to bottom, everything about our wedding bucked tradition. Somethings were out of our control, so we tossed out tradition. Lauren's whole family was unable to attend the wedding, so her father-in-law walked her in. But somethings… the lego cake topper, the moissanite ring (no diamond here!), and the knee high striped socks, well… we did it our way.
We met online years ago, so our relationship was viewed as non-traditional from the start. We stuck with what made us comfortable and happy, in our relationship and the wedding, and it worked out. So what if our best man was blind? So what if we only had one side of the family there? These unique opportunities, while challenging, just gave us a chance to make the wedding our own. We interjected our personality into every part of the wedding, and our friends and family embraced it.
I AM still surprised we got away with walking out to The Throne Room from Star Wars.
Our biggest challenge: Working out a budget with each other. I help do event planning for work, so I kind of had the basics of ‘throw a big party' down. I knew what we needed and what the cost was like. Dear Nicholas had no idea. The boy had some serious sticker shock.
We helped tackle it by arranging a “Money Meeting” every Saturday morning at 10am. We'd sit down and be totally honest about money. Wedding related items were always the first topic of discussion, but we started having open and honest conversation about our spending habits and what was really important to us. These meetings really helped us focus on what spending would be like for the wedding, and between the two of us from now on.
My favorite moment: My dress, borrowed from a friend, had a french bustle in the back. As any dressmaker can tell you, those things are a crazy maze of horrible ribbon. We couldn't figure out how to get my dress up and ribbonafied. So finally, my maid of honor just dives under there… then Nick… then MOH's boyfriend… then another bridesmaid… then a photographer. I had half the damn wedding party under my dress.
My offbeat advice: Focus on what's important to you. There's always a way to incorporate it into the wedding.
We support a lot of non-profits. The plan was instead of favors, each table could be a non-profit. We ended up narrowing it down to three for all tables. In the middle of the party, a server walks up to Nick and says she knows people who have worked with two of the organizations and she knows of the third and it's activities. It gave us the warm fuzzies, just like when we decided to do it.
You shouldn't do something just because everyone does it/it's normal/etc. The wedding is for you. If you spending it pleasing everyone else you'll never get to enjoy your big, awesome party.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- BrickLink.com – Custom Legos for the cake topper
- jmauerjewelry.com – moissanite rings. they're shiner than diamonds, but they're made in a lab in the USA, so it's greener, ethical, and uh …patriotic?
- SockDreams.com – my knee high socks came from here!
Enough talk — show me the wedding porn:
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Awesome wedding! And Shiner Bock! Mmmmm. Is 9:30am too early for beer? I met my FH on-line too. : )
AH-mazing! Looks like it was so much fun. And you look so beautiful and filled with smiles!!!
Fantastic wedding! BTW, thanks for hooking up up with sock dreams… I love how you wore your feet 😀
May I ask why your family couldn't attend? Was it too far away? I'm dealing with a similar thing with my FH's side of the family, except its also an illness issue…
I have an extremely small family, so when I say, "The whole family couldn't attend" I mean less than 10 people. It's a long story, but mainly distance and circumstance kept us from being together.
Our wedding party was comprised of my "internet family" down here in Houston… So I had people with me who were very important in my life. =) And now I have Nick's family… and holy damn there's a lot of them. We get along swell.
I guess my advice would be to have a lot of communication with the family who can't make it (if you can), take a lot of pictures, and keep in mind that while it's unfortunate that everyone can't be there… You are loved. And your wedding is a celebration of that. Enjoy it.
Is that a Dwight-style decorative banner I spy? Love it!
love the cake topper. very neat.
Oh my gosh. Please tell me the "You Are Getting Married." banner is an Office reference like I think it is. Best. Idea. Ever. LOVE IT. 🙂
It is! Friend/bridesmaid Stephanie made that. It is AMAZING.
I saw it and immediately went OMG A DWIGHT BANNER.
That is the best thing ever! Almost as good as having Dwight there…
Neat! So funny that your wedding was viewed as non-trad because you met online! That's became so common among my peeps – me, my sis, several married & engaged couples I am friends with – that's it's passed into 'standard territory'…
Lovely! Everybody looks so happy, and some very cool pictures too.
And that car! I like….
How fun! I really love the cut of the dress, too. And kudos for borrowing, yay!
Wow! That's amazing that you borrowed the dress from a friend. It fit you like a glove! Also, thank you for saying "no" to chair covers.
Chair covers always seemed like such a crazy thing to me! It's a CHAIR. No one is going to remember what your CHAIR COVERS look like. Seriously!
Looks Awesome!!!:)
Legos and socks aside, I don't see all that much off beat about it. Still, it looked lovely, and so did the bride. Very pretty, and obviously happy to be herself. Congrats, and may you guys have a lifetime of happiness!
I don't know, I think Legos and socks and sneakers and The Office-influenced computer printed banner, and strawberry centerpieces and borrowed wedding dress ALL registers as pretty awesomely offbeat to me. I've never been to a wedding with any ONE of those things before. And I second that congrats. 🙂
I dunno, it seemed like every opportunity to do something traditional with the wedding… well, it never ended up that way. I think other than having a white dress, a bridal party, and a cake, everything else was up in the air… and gosh, it just made the experience more enjoyable and meaningful.
I guess the main point is that you can have a "normal" wedding without it being exactly what you read about in Mass Market Brides Monthly. From crazy awesome inked brides to someone like me…
(Also, I'd like to take a sec and say that I really do hope that moissanite rings do become something you see in Mass Market Brides Monthly because they really are better all around.)
Love the bridesmaid dresses!! Ones you could ACTUALLY wear again! 🙂
They had been used in three different weddings that summer. My bridesmaid Peggy actually is wearing the bridesmaid dress I wore in a different wedding… We wanted to be smart about it. Black A-line dresses are timeless, too, so when we look back at the pictures it isn't "what were we thinking?!"
LOVE the idea of making donations to not-for-profits as wedding favours!!! 🙂
Could be even more fun if it were pigs, chickens, etc donated in each guests name – might have to steal that idea myself 😉
Congrats 🙂 x
We entered our reception to Throne Room! 🙂 You all looked super cute. Loved all the pics.
Oh! I wore that exact same bridesmaid dress for one of my best friend's weddings a couple years ago. Since then, it has been repurposed as THREE different Halloween costumes! 🙂 Totally well-spent money! haha
I tried so hard to talk my guy into processing with The Throne Room… I'm so glad to see that other people actually succeeded in doing so. 🙂
My partner and I are all about moissanite! Great choice with that and the rest of the wedding. I love the "money meeting" idea. Might become a part of our wedding planning too!
LOVE the card box! Go LEGO! 🙂
That’s so funny I met my husband online 9 years ago, and he really like legos to!
God Bless!