Gen X vs Millennials: How Offbeat Brides of different ages are super different
In my work with Offbeat Bride, I’ve been around people planning their weddings for a decade. It’s to the point where I meet people (…adult people! People of very acceptable marrying age!) who are like “I’ve been reading you since middle school.” People have been reading this website since menarche, my friends!
As the years have marched on, I’ve started noticing this shift in weddings, that I think reflects a larger cultural and generational shift between my peers (which is sorta the tail end of Gen X) and my younger pals (aww, Millennials I love your beards and artisianal pickles). My undergrad degree is in sociology, so people-watching large groups is my favorite favorite in favorite town, and so pull up a chair and let’s muse on larger cultural trends, mmkay?
9 years of Offbeat Bride: we won (and why we’re done being special snowflakes)
January 1st, 2016 was Offbeat Bride’s ninth anniversary! That is a hell of a long time to be doing anything, and it’s especially a long time to be publishing a website. And yet here we are: nine years later! Still kicking! Still cheerleading! Still celebrating.
Things HAVE changed though, and we want to hear from you about it…
Thinking Bride: How Offbeat Bride helped me be more authentic
I actually found Offbeat Bride through a site (that shall remain nameless but not blameless) where the writer was mocking it. The tone of the mockery was, “Look at these weirdos who think they’re so special and different!” But here’s the thing: I WANTED my wedding to be special and different. Now, over a year later and as my wedding date quickly approaches, I shall literally count the ways in which Offbeat Bride has helped me. If it weren’t for Offbeat Bride, my wedding would have been a lot more…
“Not an effort to be unique, but an effort to be us”
The New York Times recently ran an article called Your Hand in Marriage, and Offbeat Bride got a nod for our DIY posts. That’s cool, but what really caught my eye was this quote from a bride named Lauren Ireland:
“I felt like there’s such a movement to homogeneous wedding styles with Pinterest and Etsy, which are wonderful tools but do seem to make things seem very similar,” she said.
Her wedding, she added, represented “not an effort to be unique, but an effort to be us.”