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The offbeat bride: Kelly, Part time photographer
Her offbeat partner: Rick, IT guru and part time photographer
Location & date of wedding: Wellington, New Zealand — June 6, 2009
What made our wedding offbeat: We didn't have a budget, but we didn't want to spend a fortune, so we looked at cheap options for everything and decided to create/make most of the stuff ourselves, and ask around for help. 
We ended up with a very easy going day, amazing food, cheap but good alcohol and an amazing view of snow capped mountains. As well as, Dr. Seuss inspired vows and a mad hatters cake that we cut with a two meter long samurai sword.
We also used Vinyl LP's that we picked up at an op shop for the place-mats to add extra effect, along with with four and a half inch heels for the short bride to wear.
Our biggest challenge: Making the family happy was our biggest challenge. We changed the venue three times to suit them, and our fourth choice ended up being a combination of the other three choices. 
Money is always going to be a problem as well (unless your loaded!!) – but at the end of the day, it's only money, and money can be paid back. Your wedding day is about memories and crazy drunk people and silly speeches and comments made.
My favorite moment: Rick's favourite moment of the day, was walking into the venue first thing in the morning and seeing how effective the Black LP's against the homemade red table clothes looked.
My favourite moment of the day was the reaction we got from everyone when we pulled out the two meter sword and cut the cake – followed by rick shoving the cake down my dress.
My advice for offbeat brides: My tip for anyone, is stick with your gut and try not to let other people sway your opinion.
Try not to let money dictate the way you want your wedding day to go… don't forget you might only to get married once. So do everything and anything you can. There is usually cheap alternatives to your ideas, so don't hesitate to ask around for help. 
It's supposed to be a happy time in your life, so eat what you like, drink what you like and party as hard as you want.
Best tip that was passed down to us was, spend more money on the honeymoon than the wedding, as you deserve a good break!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links? 
- Wedding dress: Gothic Wedding Dresses: They have an amazing selection of alternative dresses – I wish I lived closer and had the closet space as I would have loved to change a couple times during the day for those dresses.
- Cake: Tamara Jane: She was lovely to deal with and HIGHLY creative, with amazing flavours for cakes (ours had a lemon teir and a chocolate and berry teir).
- Our NZ auction website was a blessing in disguise! We got most of our stuff fom there.
- Our Photographer: David St George and our videographer was Planet Murphy: both amazingly creative guys!
- We also decided to be silly and ask a local spanish resturant if we were allowed to take photos there (Osterio Del Toro) as they had amazing decor – to our luck they let us have full run of the place, and we are so happy with the results.
About the Author: Offbeat Weditors
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the wedding looks amazing. i love the red and black.
the wedding dress link is wrong though. is it supposed to be http://gothicweddingdresses.webs.com/ instead?
Such a beautiful wedding! Both Kelly and Rick look great! And pendants the bridesmaids were wearing really polished the look.
Love the photos, and Kelly’s dress is amazing! The couple’s rings are gorgeous, too! Loving the green stone so much!
😀 cheers!
Its a perdiot stone.. I still love it to pieces!
Such a great wedding to photograph – R&K were overflowing with cool ideas, and the Osterio Del Toro location for the after weddding photos was absolutely magic.
Four words: I. Want. Her. Hair. Yes, that IS what I got out of this post. :p Sorry, hon. I promise I’ll do better next time.
Congratulations, Kelly and Rick!
hehe cheers!
I want my hair back too! due to being pregnant now (wooo!) I cant dye my hair with the permanents I used to use 🙂
Yay! NZ wedding rocks!
Haha, I wondered why my Flickr views had gone from an average of 500 a day to 6000 in over one day 😀
It was a fantastic day, and a huge thanks to David St George for the photos, who might have followed the traffic increase to this site also 🙂
oh my goodness the BRIDESMAIDS DRESSES and their little shrugs are Gorgeous! Any chance on finding out where they came from?
I got the shrugs made from a shop called Miss demeanor in Wellington, NZ – her shop has now closed, but she does take personal orders still 🙂
Oh yay for a New Zealand wedding! It all looks striking and beautiful
I rarely click through from google reader to watch the full slideshows, instead I’ll just star something I like so I can refer back to it later — but this time I clicked through. Gorgeous and obviously so personal. I love the records/linens and the bride’s hair most of all.
Hey, I am in love with your bouquet Kelly. Where and how did you get it?