Brooke & Will’s Star Trek and peacocks handcrafted wedding

Robots and aliens have invaded weddings this week! It's making me want to break it down in a binary solo. Today we've got some Star Trek lovers with a penchant for fall colors and DIY!

The Offbeat Bride: Brooke, university employee

Her offbeat partner: Will, Lobsterman aka server at a lobster restaurant

Date and location of wedding: The Great Hall at Greenlake, Seattle, WA — October 16, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We did a lot to make the wedding our own. Almost every detail was designed or made by friends and family. I worked closely with my mom, sister, and two best friends to create most things including my dress (handmade by my mom), invitations, table decorations, flower arrangements, hair piece, boutonnieres, paper flower decorations, and more.

I wanted to include a knitting element, so I knitted the flowers for the boutonnieres, the “shoulder cozy” that I wore when we did our pictures outside, and the shawls that my mom and mother-in-law wore to the wedding. I wanted Will to feel included, and for both of us to have fun with the wedding planning, so we decided to add the Star Trek element. We had a lot of fun coming up with the table themes and nods to Star Trek throughout the wedding. I love the Art Nouveau period, and that element was included in our invitation designs. We chose dramatic fall colors of red, orange, gold, and black.

We were definitely on a budget, and many of our choices were dictated somewhat by needing to save money. It was important to us not to go into debt for the wedding, and by being thoughtful about every detail and lucky enough to have an amazing group of talented friends and family, we were able to accomplish our goal. We used Vistaprint to print our custom wedding invitations, bought the roses from an online wholesaler, bought our own wine and liquor (and had a bartender friend serve it). We had beautiful dahlias from a friend's yard as a wedding gift, and another family friend baked all the pies as a gift.

I am grateful that I have an amazing best friend who volunteered to help with coordinating the details on the day of the wedding, and who also helped me out a lot during the planning stage as well. Without her and my family, I don't see how the whole event would have even happened.

Tell us about the ceremony: We wrote the ceremony ourselves, and our good friend Larry agreed to do the ceremony. We opted to do our legal ceremony at the courthouse a few days after the wedding ceremony.

My brother walked me down the aisle to Ben Folds' “The Luckiest,” which is a special song for us. I walked back out to “When U Love Somebody” by the Fruit Bats.

We incorporated a wine box ceremony, which was something I first heard about on Offbeat Bride. You put a bottle of wine and letters written to each other in a box and don't open it until your first anniversary. Then you drink the wine, read the letters, and write each other new letters and do it again for the next year.

My favorite moment: I was upstairs in the bridal room with my brother killing time until the ceremony started. He had brought a flask with whiskey in it and offered me some. The flask was pretty full, so when I went to take a sip it dribbled down my dress. I could have freaked out at that moment, but I stayed calm and just asked my brother to go get some paper towels. Thankfully, it was a light-colored whiskey so it didn't end up leaving a mark on the silk, but when I look back I realize how relaxed and happy I was. I wasn't scared or nervous, just really happy to be marrying the man I love so much.

My funniest moment: My most FUN moment was when the dancing got started and the DJ (my best friend's brother) played “I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers, and I started dancing a jig of sorts and singing along. Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by friends and family, and we're all singing along and clapping and laughing. It was amazing.

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? The day of the wedding did not start out well. I didn't have the right mixer my mom needed to finish her cake, we forgot to buy the wine for the wine ceremony, and numerous other delays made us two hours behind schedule. Everybody was stressed and snapping at each other. But in the end, thanks in large part to my friends' and family's hard work and organization, we were walking back to the venue after the entire photo session with 15 minutes to spare! We ended up waiting to start the ceremony until the guests were seated, and I was really relaxed by that time.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Katie L. Wright
• Venue: The Great Hall at Greenlake
• Roses: Brides ‘n' Blooms
• Shoes: Irregular Choice
• Place settings and favor boxes: Oriental Trading
• Patterned tissue paper: Paper Mart
• Wine box: Amazon
• Candles and votive holders: Quick Candles

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!

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