Meagan & Simon’s Mad Hatter tea party wedding

The offbeat bride: Meagan, ER Registration

Her offbeat partner: Simon, manager

Date and location of wedding: Gaylord, MI — August 27, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Simon and I are into all kinds of things so we started with what we loved most. The colors black and blue were the base of our ideas, and then we added a semi-modern Mad Hatter tea party theme.

Simon likes steampunk and anything geek-related, and I like Alice in Wonderland and crafty stuff, so we combined them. We had a very limited budget, so there was a lot of DIY involved along with some creative imagination. The wedding party helped out a lot, especially my maid of honor.

Tell us about the ceremony: We made our own music for the ceremony. We also had a special, slightly altered reading from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

“But I don't want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh you can't help that,” said the Cat “We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.”
“How do you know I'm mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn't have come here.”
“Would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don't much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
” — so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you're sure to do that,” said the Cat “if you only walk long enough.”

You must be mad yourself in order to understand the nature of things, reject normal social conversations, and behave abnormally to figure out where you're going.
Wherever they get to, Meagan and Simon will wind up somewhere together, and I hope these few words help them and all of you negotiate your way through your own wonderland.

We then exited to the tune “Here We Go” by the Fresh Beat Band.

Our biggest challenge: Our daily schedule was challenging. We work opposite shifts and have a two-year-old, so getting everything together and communicating was hard. It took a lot of notes and a few less-than-sane moments to get it all done on time. But we got it done and Simon and I were there to say our vows.

My favorite moment: Having our family take part in our wedding was the best, but I also loved our daughter as our flower girl dressed as Alice. She was so cute in her role along with my niece and nephew, representing the queen of hearts and the white rabbit.

A Month of Mixbooks:
As part of our partnership with Mixbook, this couple has been given a free wedding photo book to show off their wedding photos. We'll be featuring some of these Offbeat Bride Mixbooks in a few weeks!

My funniest moment: We had a kids' table of games and a croquet set outside. And of course, the adults played with the kids' games and the kids played croquet! It was a pretty funny scene.

The kids also had a blast on the dance floor, especially my daughter She was busting a move, and was a total social butterfly while hitting up every person she could for a bite more of their cake. The photo booth also gave us a lot to laugh about.

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? Not having a DJ was a worry. We couldn't afford one, so we picked all our own music to play. The only glitch was that the entrance song didn't get played, but nobody noticed.

My advice for Offbeat Brides: The best advice I can give is let your freak out and have fun. I'm also an advocate for a professional photographer since you can't retake the photos after the fact.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Leah Renee
• Bride's hat: Etsy seller AngeliqueAshton. She made the hat to my exact specifications!
• Other details: ThinkGeek

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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