A casual Colorado wedding meets chic speakeasy party

Offbeat partner: Cara

Offbeat partner: Heather

Date and location of wedding: The Lumber Baron Inn and Gardens, Denver, CO — August 4, 2018

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We really wanted a casual, foodie, boozy wedding. We wanted good food and for our guests to have a chill but fun time.

Tell us about the ceremony:
My dad officiated our wedding which was so incredibly special. Both of our families are super supportive and embraced our not quite traditional queer wedding. My sister in-law hand made our rings for us and we had a ring warming ceremony. Each of the guests passed the rings around and put their hopes and wishes for us into them.

We also asked my wife's grandfather, with whom she's really close, to do a reading for us. It was so sweet and was a Madeline L'Engle quote from The Irrational Season. My wife's mother also did a reading that was her aunt's poem.

What I loved the most about the wedding were the little special details. I used lace from my mom's wedding dress to wrap my bouquet. I wore my grandmother's necklace. My uncle was our photographer. It was those pieces that really meant the most to us.

Tell us about the reception:
Dinner was outside in the beautiful back garden patio area. We did the food family-style which was the perfect thing for us. We got to avoid the long conga line of a buffet without the fuss of a plated dinner. Before the wedding, I was dreading going to all the tables and making small talk with everyone as I'm definitely an extroverted introvert. But when it came time, I was so grateful that everyone was there and so happy to see them that hugging and saying hello to everyone was one of my favorite bits.

We didn't do a cake cutting — it was basically a free for all multi dessert bonanza which was great except for one thing. If I were to do it over, I would have had one of the staff reserve me a piece of that amazing looking fruit tart before it was all gone.

After dinner and toasts, we headed upstairs into the ballroom where we had a five-piece swing band. One of the best parts of the night was my friend who taught a basic swing dance lesson and really got everyone into dancing. I laughed so hard and it was so wonderful to see all my loved ones dancing together.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
The biggest wedding planning challenge we had was deciding when to trade time for money or convenience for money. We tried really hard to keep our budget under control, but due to some needs for convenience and time saving, we ended up making some more expensive choices. Luckily, we had monetary support from our families who weren't controlling at all about it. I also learned a lot about when to compromise and what to put into the f*** it bucket. I put a lot of things into the f*** it bucket which ended up feeling great because most of those things ended up not mattering in the end.