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The offbeat bride: Ingo Pixel, Makeup Artist
My offbeat groom: Andy Pixel, Software Developer
Location & date of wedding: 7/14/07. Henry Art Gallery and Twilight Exit, Seattle.
What made our wedding offbeat: We tried everything we could to stay away from traditional wedding vendors and to involve our friends, family, and amazing network of talented and helpful individuals to make it all intimate and special.
Our wedding was in the sculpture court of the Henry Art Gallery at UW, and the reception was an all-night karaoke party at the Twilight Exit in the Central District, where we live. I had bright pink hair and wore my mother's wedding dress from 1968 which was been drastically modified by our friend Erin Skipley of Yoshimi Designs.
One of our best friends married us, the photographer, Jenny Jimenez is a friend, the owner of the Twilight Exit, the caterer, the karaoke DJ, the day-of coordinator, the driver, the videographer — they were all family and friends. By utilizing family and friends, we saved a great deal of money and it was incredibly personal and meaningful for us.
We also both changed our names to Pixel to celebrate our love for the fusion of art and technology. Our parents didn't really believe that we'd do it, but it's all legal now!
Our biggest challenge: The budget was definitely the most difficult hurdle. We spent probably half of what any other couple would have spent on a wedding this size, but it was still about twice what we'd originally planned. But is was worth it, we had a wedding that was quintessentially US, and that's all that matters. Debt is debt, it'll get paid eventually!
Making the wedding our own was really challenging as well. Not using traditional wedding vendors meant that we really didn't have anyone around who knew exactly how weddings work from beginning to end. We had to kind of make it up as we went along. Luckily my groom is really organized and was able to make many many lists of tasks and everything was done on time and gracefully.
— That said, we still have a stack of approximately 800 wedding invitations as the cheap printer we found was commercial and required a minimum order of 1000. I may just have to paper a room in them!
My favorite moment: The best moment was right after we read our vows; there was applause! I've never heard applause after vows, it was fantastic. We knew we had done everything right at that moment.
My offbeat advice: The best advice I can give is to make sure that you don't compromise your vision. This is YOUR day, make sure that it reflects who you and your groom are as people. The best compliments I got were people telling us that the wedding was so very US. That was the most important thing for us and we made sure that every detail of every moment was painting a picture of us.
Enough talk — show me the wedding porn: Meet the Pixels! Take your time with these photos, my friends. I had trouble picking my favorites — there are hundreds of amazing shots. Enough wedding porn for a month. Seriously.
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Now THAT is what I call a wedding! Great hair, bouquet, suit, attitude… and I love that she reused her mum’s dress!
I haven’t had a chance to lok through all the pics (saving that for after work) but, oh my word… it looks like they had SO much fun! This is what a wedding should be (in my eyes). Dancing and singing and having fun… celebrating your commitment with all your friends and family!
You guys rock.
Holy carp! This is AMAZING! I agree with Jennifer…THIS is what a wedding should be! I’m still browsing the pics, but had to come back and gush. Gorgeous!
DUDE! Best. Wedding. Ever.
thanks Ariel for the post and thank you ladies for your kind words!
We really did have the best time. Our entire goal was to throw a great party and just enjoy ourselves and the fact that we had the amazing privilege to have all of our loved ones in one place at the same time!
what an awesome wedding party!! i love that you redesigned your mom’s dress too. love it!
Thanks so much for sharing. This website is awesome. I’ve been looking for a site like this to send my clients to for ages and it’s so great to know that there is so much creativity and variety to weddings all over the world and people are not stuck to the same ole same ole.
So, SO Awesome. Congratulations!
[…] For an evening/indoors reception, you definitely have your work cut out for you. Old habits die hard, and people come with their expectations clutched like little sequined handbags from hell. A couple ideas to keep the non-dancing guests busy could be a wedding photobooth (how much did you love the one at Katie’s wedding?), fortune tellers (psychics are fun!), or even wedding karaoke, as per the Pixels. […]
They’re beautiful together! Amazing pictures.
[…] with the work of Seattle wedding photographer Jenny Jiménez — she shot the infamous Pixel wedding. But oh, she’s done so much more than that, including placing in the PDN Top Knots wedding […]
WOW! Absolutely amazing! I am in love with her! LOVE her hair, makeup, DRESS, bouquet… Love it all!
[…] and Ingo = AWESOME SAUCE. Read all about the Pixel wedding on one of my favorite wedding blogs, Offbeat Bride. They were so much fun to work with, gave me […]