Check the WEDDING CUE CARDS at this international fusion-styled adventure wedding

Posted by
Goofin' Off
Photos by Love Me Do Photography

The offbeat bride: Margaret, Itinerant worker

Her offbeat partner: Dave, Itinerant worker

Location & date of wedding: Ridley Creek State Park Mansion, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania — July 25th, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: We decided to eject most things about a typical wedding that we felt didn't represent or have much meaning for us, such as having an officiant, bouquet tossing, bridal whites, having a dj, father/daughter dance, or wedding rings. We wanted to reflect our casual attitudes and itinerant lifestyles with a eco-sensitive appeal.

Exchanging Vows

Dave and I made our own ceremony based on an old sailor's tradition for travel, and had our guests pronounce us. My siblings read the story about our world travels and how our paths crossed in South Korea. We wrote our own vows, each for the other person. Dave wore a white Nehru suit with a Tuxedo T-shirt, and I wore a dress not unlike a colorful ocean medley.

Three Mad Musicians

Dave designed Choose Your Own Adventure wedding invites mailed in envelopes made of recycled maps. We rented a bouncy Castle, served Middle Eastern food, and decorated with Asian paper lanterns, Japanese box lanterns, postcards from around the world with poems on them, Korean fans, and used pressed palm leave plates with recycled fabric for napkins. Dave's friends provided music for the ceremony and after-party.

Sealed the Deal

Tell us about the ceremony: Dave worked on a traveling circus ship that sailed down the Danube a couple of years ago, he told me about an old sailing tradition that the captain would do before a big voyage. He'd buy a bottle of rum from whatever port they were in, pour two shots and dump one in the ocean and one on the deck of the ship, before pouring and drinking a shot for everyone on the ship. This was a way for the Captain to give reverence to the capricious nature of the sea, and thanks to sturdiness of the ship.

Completing the Ritual

We adapted this by getting three clear glasses, and filling one with water, earth and air; the three ways people can travel. We then wrote ritual vows reflecting these three elements as part of each other's character, while pouring rum into the glass. Then we both did a shot of rum in a traditional Korean tea cup before exchanging vows that we wrote for each other. I wrote the questions for Dave to ask me, and he wrote mine crafting them to reflect funny parts of our character.

We also had our friends and family pronounce us with cue cards after our vow exchange, which was a hoot, and people really enjoyed it.

Pronouncing

 

Pronouncing 1

 

Pronouncing 3

Cue the Audience

Our biggest challenge: Definitely planning overseas was our biggest challenge. We did almost all our planning in South Korea, and it was rather stressful because we weren't certain we had gotten everything we needed until we arrived back in the US. We ordered a lot of stuff online, so we could not have done it without the internet, which is a testament to how we live these days.

Extreme Close-up

However, we also relied on my parents, who received all the packages we ordered, did a lot of errand running, including taste-testing three different middle eastern restaurants around Philadelphia, and took a plethora of pictures for us to ruminate on for decoration planning. The last two weeks before the wedding was a lot of hectic running around, but it really was all the committed efforts of family and friends that acted as our informal wedding planners and laborers.

Happiness

My favorite moment: When my siblings read the story of how we met, hearing all the places we had been to, and then meeting each other, it made me appreciate how fortunate and how capricious it was for us to have ever met and fallen in love. It was such a happy coincidence that brought us together, and it made me understand how chaotic life can be, and what can be found from such chaos.

Dinnerware

I was also bowled over with how much my family and friends did to run the wedding. We had practiced the ceremony several times outside in the grove, and as the cliche goes, it rained right before we were about to do it. Everyone immediately organized a back-up plan to do it in the ballroom, and it worked out better than we had planned. It was euphoric to have so many people care about making it a special day for us in our own eclectic way.

md0391

My funniest moment: Dave's best friends, Mike and Arlen, gave a side-splittingly funny after-dinner roast. Both of them are improvisers and actors, so they were able to orate with brilliant comic timing and impressions. Dave has a secret guilty pleasure of obsessively reading Archie comics, so his friends riffed on that, comparing him to various characters in the comic, as well as a few hilarious stories about Dave forcing his friends (who are all on average six to seven feet tall, including Dave) to sleep in the same bed during sleepovers, which is a tradition that still persists today. They also balanced their roast with kind words about Dave being their brother, and giving him away to me.

Getting Roasted

My advice for offbeat brides: Don't try to do everything by yourself. Friends and family will be there to help and all you have to do is ask for help.

Make your own traditions that reflect how you met, and who you are as people, and try not to worry to much about the expectations other people may have. I'd advise don't do what you don't want. We didn't see the point in buying rings.

If it ever does rain, as it might, ask your photographer to take photos of you in the rain. We had a lot of fun with our photographer out in the rain.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

Offbeat Wed Vendor

This page features vendors from our curated Offbeat Wed Vendor Directory. They're awesome and we love them. If you're a vendor let's get you in here!

Meet our fave wedding vendors

Comments on Check the WEDDING CUE CARDS at this international fusion-styled adventure wedding

  1. The tuxedo shirt is awesome with the white suit. Your dress colors are stunning. A bounce house?!!? Awesome!

  2. ahaha. My Dad actually asked me if I wanted a bounce house at my wedding next summer. I said no, but that is neat that you had one. 🙂

  3. I love EVERYTHING. Just… everything. This wedding is seamless in its creativity. Those invitations (especially the superintelligent dolphin race) had me chortling heartily; those outfits had me sighing; and the details like the cue cards, the rum toasts, even the story of how you guys met… it all FITS. You both deserve huge congratulations for creating a wedding that is as down-to-earth as it is whimsical. This was awesome to read!

  4. AW GAWD! I got goose bumps (or as I like to say “people bumps”) all over! What a sweet and moving wedding. Sounds so intimate, I’m sure it will remembered forever by all who attended!! Congratulations!

    • people bumps! haha! gonna have to borrow that. this weddng was amazing!!!!!! everyhting about it!

  5. SOOOO want to steal the cue card idea. And complete props for being an Archie addict … as, I must confess, so am I. Amazing, wonderful, fantasticness. In fact, this was immediately forwarded to some of my favorite people because I just couldn’t be that selfish.

  6. I *love* the elements/travel/nautical blessing with rum included. I’m pagan and my boyfriend is a Jewish former-Merchant-Mariner, so I totally dig the use of those nice, organic symbols in a more traditional blessing-beverage type ceremony. The additional nautical tradition is a great touch, too. Thanks for the nifty idea!

  7. Congratulations!
    Huzzah for your parents doing all that leg work!
    The ‘rum ceremony’ seems to have translated really well, I’ve very intrigued by it.

  8. I really needed to read this today. We are 39 days away from our wedding in the middle of no nowhere Mexico, which we have been planning from Shanghai, with help from our parents in North Carolina.

    It has been one heck of a bumpy ride, and the latest issue is that the airline that was getting most of us down there has declared bankruptcy in the last two weeks, so now we’re scrambling to find some alternative.

    It was really nice to know, though that it can be done. And done so beautifully for that matter.

    Margret and Dave, you really make a lovely pair, and congratulations to you both!

  9. I love this wedding!
    You both look amazing — I love the outfit choice!

    Really like the pouring of the shot, too..

  10. Amazingly inspirational! I’ve never heard of the rum toast but I’m intrigued. My boyfriend is allergic to champagne, gives him a terrible headache, so I was wondering what sort of alternative there was for that toast. I’m definitely going to borrow many of your ideas! The bouncy house is great, especially if there will be many children there, which there would be for me!

Comments are closed.