Posted byRemember that amusement park wedding you all squee'd about? Worry not. Here's more details on their story.
The offbeat bride: Jescia – painter and photographer, soon to be high school teacher (and OBT Member)
Her offbeat partner: Matt – TV news producer
Location & date of wedding: Jescia's Godparents back yard, Mandan, North Dakota — July 3, 2010
What made our wedding offbeat: First and foremost, for a small-town, North Dakota wedding – it was secular. We eschewed tradition by moving outside, and startled some of my family members by including an inflatable jousting game. 
As an artist, the details were so important! I made strings of mirrors to adorn our ceremony backdrop, my aunt made our cake toppers and boutonnieres, my mom and I made the photobooth, and I antique-shopped for our guestbook, cake stand and all the table centerpieces. I made the jewelry. We made our programs into fans/masks with our faces on them.
I baked the cupcakes and cake (devil's food with salted caramel buttercream…), and a friend decorated the cake. Unfortunately it was too windy for the s'more station. 🙁 
Our officiant was a fellow artist friend of mine who got ordained online so he could make powdered holy water for an art project. My cajun uncle read selections from “I Like You” while we held a ring warming.
My cousins, friends and godfather (a composer) performed The Beatles, Bright Eyes and Animal Collective during the ceremony. 
My first boss (former newspaper editor) took our photos, which I had dreamed of taking at the Super Slide Amusement Park in Bismarck. I edited all of our photos, aiming for a Holga 120 look.
Matt spent hours and hours on FinalCutPro creating our amazingly epic slideshow. Our reception finished with my bridesman toasting us by retelling the Harlequin Romance dream-scenario he invented to get me to pursue Matt four years ago.
Tell us about the ceremony: We wrote most of the ceremony, and included a reading from “I Like You” by Sandol Studdard, and an Apache Wedding Blessing.
Our biggest challenge: Surprisingly, I was not at all stressed out about the wedding until the day beforehand: I hadn't slept for a few days and it was 100 degrees when we were trying to decorate/rehearse. Other than overcoming heat stroke, our biggest stressor was the lack of planning by some of Matt's friends who in turn relied on us to fix everything.
My favorite moment: The music was so important to us. Every song had its special place and moment in our story, especially “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes and “The Purple Bottle” by Animal Collective. I tried really hard not to cry, but when I did, Matt told me my mascara was running, and tried to scrub it off my face. Awww, love. 
My funniest moment: The reading and music ended way before the ring warming had finished. People were calling out to the musicians to get them to play something. Someone yelled, “FREEBIRD!” 
My advice for offbeat brides: If you're DIY-ing it, start as early as possible: yes, you will change your mind often, if not constantly, but that extra time will allow for mess-ups and changes of heart.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? You really learn who is there to support you when you're about to have a panic attack only moments before the ceremony. My friends are AMAZING. (Matt is too… haha) 
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Dress: Saks Fifth Avenue, Sue Wong
- Shoes: Macys, Marc Fischer
- Fascinator: bridalcouture on Etsy
- Bridesman's Tie: toybreaker on Etsy
- Groom's Ring: Green Karat
- Photography: Sue Bartholomew Balcom
- Tent: YMCA (proceeds go to kids' day camps!)
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
About the Author: Offbeat Weditors
Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.
I *adore* the bride’s ink. Is that a camelia-type thing on her back?
I want to see more of it!
It’s a Celtic Tree of Life, and the Buddhist Triple Lotus around it – kind of an homage to time. I think there’s a better photo as my OBT profile pic!
love love love everything about this! 🙂
Me too! Beautiful! And “The Purple Bottle” is an excellent song.
I absolutely just LOVE everything about your wedding! TOO CUTE! 🙂
I beyond love this. Everything is so shiny and happy! How did you make the mirror garland? I might steal your idea for my reception hall…
The mirrors were SUPER easy – I just bought tons of different sized round mirrors from Hobby Lobby and hot-glued them together with ribbons in between. It was really fast, easy and awesome!
This is so magical… I love it!
Oh my goodness! A. Everything is beautiful and I’m coveting the typewriter guestbook! B. We are ALSO reading bits from “I Like You!” We used to read it at summer camp and it’s always been special for me! I love that we’re ceremony twins!
OMG! The typewrite guestbook was awesome! What did you do with the sheets after everyone left a message?
Congrats on your wedding and love the colors of purple and green… it looks great and everyone looks like they are having a blast. The birds look cute on top of the wedding cake. Best of luck on your future…
Hey can you give me details on your photobooth?
What a gorgeous day! I love your dress and the swing pic!
Lanie
[email protected]
We took two 4×8′ sheets of plywood, attached them with hinges (so we could fit it in the truck to transport it to the wedding location), cut them down to 6’6″, traced around our frames, used a bandsaw (?) to cut out the holes, then used Modge Podge to decoupage fabric onto the wood like wallpaper. After that was dry, we screwed on the frames (from the back), and screwed on crown molding and base boards (again, from the back). When we got to the location, we screwed on some supports to the back: two 2×4’s vertically to keep the hinges from folding, and those were hinged to two other 2×4’s (with long straps connecting them on the bottoms) to create a prop, like the back of a standing picture frame. And… viola! Photobooth.
Simply adorable! The photobooth was hilarious.
Best.Photo.Booth.ever.
love this couple! great ideas
Yay Jescia! I’m so happy your wedding was awesome. Giant slide = epic. Also, I think you need to post the recipe for the salted caramel buttercream. *nom* Is Nichole going to steal it from you? Lol…
P.S. So excited you’re going to be a teacher!
Haha, thanks Sarah. I got the buttercream recipe from Martha Stewart’s caramel buttercream, and added sea salt to taste. It was pretty much amazing. Unfortunately I did not really have time to eat any of it at the wedding!
The bottom cake was a lemon cake with lemon buttercream and a strawberry/blueberry/honey/lemon filling (i drank the remainder of it… yum!)
What a beautiful, beautiful day. I love it! Our wedding colors are purple and green as well! And “our song” is First Day of My Life too!! LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
I absolutely love everything about your wedding…the amusement park, colors, jewelry, trolly, typewriter, ring book, pond area…it all looks like so much fun and has so much personality. I’m now on a mission to figure out how to make my wedding this cool!
I’m from ND too, and I understand how BORING weddings in ND can be sometimes… thank goodness you went with your true selves and really made your wedding an experience to remember! I do love that photo booth. I also love your facial expressions!
I can’t wait to come home to ND to have my wedding and blow the socks off of everyone who thinks that ND is humdrum! Congrats on putting together a fantastic wedding.
Love everything. Also great advice about DIY projects. My projects have undergone many changes since they were first conceived and I like being able to play or know to cut something out because it’s going to be too time-consuming.
So rad! I’ve bookmarked this for the photo booth instructions. 🙂
ahhaaha this is such a cool wedding!!! i love the cake toppers, they made me die from happiness, also also also the guy holding the sign saying “i am so tall” so funny!!! very cute