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The Offbeat Bride: Bailey, Grad Student, Theatrical Design and Technology Specializing in Costume Design (and OBT member)
Her Offbeat Partner: Chris, Grad Student, Theatrical Design and Technology Specializing in Lighting Design
Location & date of wedding: Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center Theatre, Stephenville, TX. Our undergrad theatre where we met! — December 20th, 2008
What made our wedding offbeat: First and foremost we had our wedding in the theatre in which we met at college. We were both theatre majors. We got married on the stage where we first met! We didn't want “theatre” to be our theme, but the place was very important to us.
I had a personal theme throughout the wedding. Many things had sewing references. I am a costumer so the cake had buttons, the bouts had buttons, my viel was made of ribbon (thanks Ariel!).
We cut corners left and right, but still had a very classy affair. We stuck to our budget! We spent under $7,000 on our wedding — well under the local average.
We chose to have a friend ordained online to marry us. Which made our families FREAK. But we aren't practicing any religion currently, so we felt it hypocritical to have a religious wedding.
My husband was very involved with the wedding. He had an opinion! He did the lighting design for the ceremony. He chose his attire and he insisted on wearing sandals (therefore all the grooms”men” wore Sandals). He chose all the quotes for the cupcakes. He even saw pictures of my dress before the wedding. He wouldn't let me try it on for him however.
He had a groomslady, our friend Sonya. I had a bridesman, my good friend Josh. We couldn't imagine it any other way! We wrote the whole ceremony ourselves. We called it the “script.” We insisted that David (friend/officiant) never use the words “man” and “women” when refering to marriage. We don't believe that, so why say it!
Our biggest challenge: One of the biggest challenges was distance. We are both attending grad school in Southern Mississippi. We insisted on having the wedding back in Texas, where most of our family is, where we met, and where we eventually want to live! Due to the over 500 mile distance we had some serious troubles with planning.
We relied so much on our mothers for help. His mother made the cake and coordinated with my mother on reception decor. My mother did the invites, decor, and lots and lots of rentals!
Neither of us really like Christmas, so having a wedding so close to Christmas was kind of a challenge. After three or more suggestions for BIG Christmas Trees, people finally realized we were not having a Christmas wedding!
My favorite moment: Our reading was my absolute favorite. A good friend of ours, Bethany, read a poem — “To Love is Not to Possess,” by James Kavanaugh — that we found and decided was perfect.
We also had what we called a “Vow of Support” from our parents and guests. The officiant asked that our parents take the new in-law and love them as their own. Then he asked that guests, “Will you encourage Bailey and Chris in their love?” Will you support them in their choice of one another? And will you continue to stand beside them, yet not between them?”
It was amazing to have all those people there and for them to actually vocalize their support and excitement for us!
My advice for other offbeat brides: Seriously reconsider a caterer! If you are going to serve food, people want it to be good food. Chris and I have been to lots of weddings where people catered themselves and the food literally got left on the back burner! Yes they are all here to support you, but they want good food in their bellies too!
We found a caterer/friend of a friend who provided a three meat BBQ plate with beans and salad for $9 a plate! If you shop around you can find good deals!
Which also reminds me: USE (in a nice way of course) your family and friends. If they offer to help, that means they want to!
Our friends and family contributed to the catering, flowers, officiant, photography, cake, DJ, bartenders and the day of coordinator. She is a friend from college and she loves weddings. She took care of the lobby display and made sure things ran smoothly as possible. Between her and the DJ everything went off really well!
Chris would like to add this piece of what he is calling “man advice”:
Bottled beer over keg! At the end of the night you dont have to worry about floating a keg, you just load the left over bottles into the back of someone's car and party the next three nights — well we did anyway!
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?:
- Wedding Rings from Titanium Knights
- Save the Dates from Magnetstreet.com
- Wine from D'Vine Wine
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:
About the Author: Offbeat Weditors
Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, the Offbeat Wed editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.
Whoa, coincidence — my husband and I met doing theatre. We wrote our entire ceremony. A friend married us. We had the vows of support.
Did you use "The Wedding Ceremony Planner" by Judith Johnson?
No we did not use any ceremony planner. We looked at a couple of ceremonies and adapted them to fit us!
I think you can totally do the food yourself and have it be really good, it just takes some planning. We did that and got nothing but complements AND we got cleaned out even though we had way more than enough food. I unfortunately had a cold and couldn't taste anything, but one person who is a total foodie, actually said it was some of the best food she'd ever had at a wedding.
The cost of a caterer varies a lot by where you live too. The cheapest caterer in my area (SF Bay Area) that I could find was $18/person. We did all our food for $5-$6/person.
Wait wait wait, did I see a picture in there of a toss bouquet with dollar bills in it? That is a genius idea to actually get people to participate in the bouquet toss. I might have to do that…
Really great ideas for the ceremony. I think writing your own script is the way to go – really have it mean what you want it to mean.
I had these grand plans to make the dollar bills look like roses! Didn't happen!
It really got the ladies out there!
You know, while almost none of this is my style or taste (except for those pretty boutonnieres), this one inspires me tremendously.
Why? Because it's such a clear-cut case of doing whatever the hell you want, and everybody else be damned. Groomsmen in sandals with suits? Granny shawl?
I don't have to love it, because these guys clearly did and had a ball.
No fear!
What a compliment! Thanks!
Is that pink nail polish on the groomsmen's toes? That's adorable!
Yes it is! Chris wanted to get pedicures… instead his cousin painted all their nails barbie doll pink!
I can't believe someone from STEPHENVILLE is on offbeat bride, it's crazy! (If you have ever been to Stephenville, you'd understand), and even more crazy that the venue is right down the street from me!
I probably drove right by, completely oblivious to the fact that there was an awesome wedding going on in the building right next to me.
Small world, huh?
You live in Stephenville?! I love that town. I never thought I would say that when I was going to school their, but I am dying to be back closer!
Baily, this is great! I love the theater theme. We nearly went more theater than we ended up but it was the jumping off point for our planning. Chris is such a cutie (love the pink toes) and he sounds a lot like my Will in his involvement in the planning. Making the wedding about us payed off when I hit on the idea that Will, as a theater major, should get married in a theater. He got really into the planning, including writing the ceremony and designing the schedule as a three act event. I showed him this profile of your wedding and he said "Cool!"
What Ragani fails to mention is that a "cool" from Will is like a RAVE REVIEW. 🙂
Yes, Megan is correct. I thought about mentioning it, but I think it has more impact coming from her. Will comes off a bit cool in his reactions, so as Megan says, a "Cool!" from him means he definitely approves. Since he thoroughly embraces his Grumpy Critic side, getting his approval is not a sure thing. Of course, this wedding appeals to his theater geek side, which is why I showed him in the first place.
Cool is a great review! Much preferred over " meh that looks weird" or "what a circus" my grandmother called our wedding a circus!
This is crazy. I never thought that I would see someone I know on this site. The ceremony and reception look so wonderful! I hope you and Chris will be happy forever!
Joelle (from WVPT)
Joelle! Holy Shit! I am so glad you are on this site! Are you on the tribe too??? Are you guys getting married?