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The Offbeat Bride: Lindsay
Her offbeat partner: Katie, Cook for Ohio University
Date and location of wedding: Old Mining Town Company Store in Athens, OH — August 1, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
The location was an old mining town company store which set the perfect scene for our rustic wedding. We had red everywhere on our wedding day and we both wore red shoes. This was because a year before, our little friend Camden was five years old and passed away. He had a heart defect that he was born with and went in for a surgery that went great but there was a complication afterwards that took his life. There isn't a day that goes by that we don't miss him. We always said that when we got married he would be in our wedding and he was. He was the red rose in my bouquet, the red shoes on our feet, he was with his little brother as he walked down the aisle with the rings — Camden was everywhere with us.
Most of the sunflowers and all of the wild flowers came from ours and our friend's gardens. We had so much help and love in the room because it was a very DIY wedding.
Tell us about the ceremony:
We are a nontraditional couple so we didn't have a very traditional wedding. We didn't have a wedding party, but we had our three favorite little people to carry the rings and sprinkle flowers. We had two outer aisles that we both walked down with our parents at the same time on the outer side of the chairs and came together in the middle. We wrote our own vows for each other and exchanged the rings, we kissed, and then continued down the center aisle as one.
Katie's aunt is an ordained minister who performed the ceremony. Her mom opened the ceremony with a reading from the supreme court ruling to legalize gay marriage:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.”
Tell us about your reception:
There was amazing barbecue food and a bar stocked with local treats. But all I wanted to do for my wedding day was DANCE and goodness did we dance. I had been to a few weddings before and I made sure to have a DJ that would keep the dances going. We may not have had a receiving line to make sure that we got to say thank you to everyone for coming, but everyone knew where we were and came out to dance with us. My little brother brought all of his dance moves and made sure that we had a BLAST.
What was your most important lesson learned?
The best advice that I received was to find time to sneak off to watch your friends and family together with your new partner. This gives you time to yourselves for a moment, but also to realize how many people you have in your lives that love and care about you to come celebrate your marriage to one another. I am so thankful that the building we got married in had a second floor with windows that we could watch the crowd come in before the ceremony and then sneak up there again to watch them dancing the night away.
I have so many favorite moments from our wedding night but one of the best moments was ending the night. We went into town to our favorite hot dog shop with some of our guests for a late night snack in our wedding attire. We had our first official date there and celebrated our engagement there, so it was only fitting to have our first night as a married couple there as well.
Vendors
*Photographer: Inphinite Photography and Marissa Eileen Wedding and Portrait Photography
*Venue: Eclipse Company Store
*Dress: JoJo's Wedding Dress Shop
*Alternations: Bernice Muschlitz
*Cupcakes: Flour Power Cupcakes
*Food: Kiser's Barbecue
Gallery
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I teared up reading this and looking at all of your gorgeous photos! My fiancé and I are getting married in October and we’ll have a similar vibe, complete with reading Justice Kennedy’s opinion in the ceremony. I loved every detail, especially honoring your friends and loved ones who have passed on.