Michael & Jeannie’s eternal Tae Kwon Do wedding

The offbeat groom: Michael, band director

His offbeat partner: Jeannie, research assistant

Location & date of wedding: Y Chapel of Song, University of Central Oklahoma — June 19, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: My wife and I met three years ago in a tae kwon do class and decided to create our wedding around that theme. The entire wedding party (except for the best man) had been in the class at one time another so they all wore their gi's.

The party consisted of my three kids, her triplet daughters, my brother, our teacher and his daughter. The triplets were the flower girls and carried flower petals in sparring helmets instead of baskets. The rings were carried in cases used for storing sparring mouth gear. My bride and I walked in to the “Wedding March” as performed by Queen.

We wanted to reflect our laidback fun personalities so every pew had a smiley face balloon tied to it. Also the ceremony was written to make people laugh, which included the wedding ceremony words from the movie “The Princess Bride” (Mawage. Mawage is what bwings uth togethah tooday). Instead of “you may now kiss the bride” he said, “You may now sidekick the groom”… and she did.

My wife and I spent many of our dates playing ping pong so we knew our cake had to be a ping pong cake. The reception was held at the home of our teacher and a close friend of mine did the catering.

Tell us about the ceremony: My late father was a preacher for 45 years. The Bible that was used during our ceremony was one of his Bible's that had my parents names engraved on it.

Our biggest challenge: Getting everybody there. Making sure everybody had good directions to both the ceremony location (which was buried in the middle of campus) and the reception location.

My favorite moment: Even though the ceremony was built around celebration and laughter, the vows were serious. We knew by the looks in our eyes that we meant every word we said.

My funniest moment: When she sidekicked me. Very original thought. 🙂

My advice for offbeat brides: Don't be afraid to buck tradition.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? To include several things that met different aspects of our personalities.

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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