Emily & Greg’s wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey Doctor Who wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Emily, actor and professional Girl Friday

Her offbeat partner: Greg, audio post-production wizard

Date and location of wedding: St. Patrick's Church and Americana Hotel, Niagara Falls, ON, CANADA — June 7, 2013

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Our theme was time and luck, and Time Lords certainly factored into both of those categories. We gave our groomsmen watches (for time) and our ladies clover necklaces (for luck). My TARDIS garter was a gift from our best man. We had a custom graphic designed with us on a TARDIS that we used throughout the wedding process, on invitations and save-the-dates, and on our seating placements at the wedding. A friend of ours even designed our cake topper after it!

Our wedding toast started off with my commentary on how love, regardless of gender, sex, and preferences, should be accepted, and how traditional this wedding was despite the fact that I'm happily bisexual and Pagan, and Greg is a reformed Catholic and “heteroflexible.” We are also polyamorous.

Throughout the day, we also wove in aspects of tech, creativity, music, and film, which are our other passions. We invited guests to Tweet the wedding using a hashtag we had included on the back of every placecard.

Our rings were custom-designed mobius bands, with the word “always” engraved inside. Instead of clinking glasses to kiss, we requested that guests give us a toast or tell a story. The flowers we had were gerbera daisies, the flower that Greg brought me on our first date.

Our night ended with about a dozen of us naked, hot tubbing, and relaxing together.

Tell us about the ceremony:
Our ceremony was what I would call Catholic-lite: the non-Catholic, non-mass version that the church is willing to perform. I came down the aisle to “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, we signed the registry to “Seasons of Love” from Rent, and our exit music was “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles.

Our priest told the story of our “one night stand” (that ended up being much longer), and ended with this Apache blessing.

Our biggest challenge:
There was a big issue with payment to our hair and makeup vendors, so my friend Ellie stepped in to volunteer to do everyone's makeup, and she did a fantastic job. Then our ceremony musician quit on us over playing secular music in a church, which threw us for a loop. But again, more friends stepped in to volunteer their help, and our new vocalist and musician were super-supportive of our choices.

My favorite moment:
There were several things that stood out to me. First, that there was no way in hell I would have pulled off my wedding without the help of my friends, and just how lucky I was to have so many awesome people around me. We had a series of crises that I mentioned, and we had people outside of the wedding party volunteer their time and talents in so many ways. My friend Jen made the cake topper. My friend Brent had volunteered to DJ for us.

When it came time to do the wedding party photos, post-church and at our location, we lucked out hugely. By pure random happenstance, a tall ship was docked along the pier where we wanted to do photos. They were kind enough to allow us on board for free!

We had a hilarious speech from my roommate about the “babies at home”: five cats and two snakes that we would have worked into the wedding if we could have. Due to our no-glass-clinking rule, we had so many heartfelt blessings and speeches from friends that we may not have heard otherwise.

I also felt really lucky to marry into a family that has a lot of respect for each other, and who are so open and giving.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
I learned that I didn't have to go it alone — friends, Greg, and family were WAY more supportive than I had expected or hoped for. I also learned that there comes a point where I can't stage manage and control everything. Whatever happens is going to happen, so I'm better off rolling with it.

Also, Greg and I had two major fights around the wedding. The person worth sticking with is the one who will do anything to work out the problems, and he really demonstrated that. Having cold-feet freakouts seems to be normal (at least in my world) but it's also important to curb those self-destructive urges and remember what you love about your partner.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: JF Hannigan Photography
• Dress and tiara: The Brides Project
• Rings and earrings: Suzanne Crudden
• Cupcakes: Bella Cakes (OMG SO TASTY)
• Bridesmaids' dresses: Henkaa
• Makeup: Entertainment by Ellie (who also does party tricks with balloons!)

About the Author: Offbeat Weditors

@offbeatbride @offbeatwed

Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.