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The Offbeat Bride: Rachel, Project Manager
Her Offbeat Partner: Matt, Photo Retoucher
Location & date of wedding: The Regency Grand, San Francisco — 2/22/09
What made our wedding offbeat: We had a theme wedding and asked all our guests to dress in red & black, “festive” attire. Everything about the event was a hybrid of Moulin Rouge with Tim Burton.
We designed the invitations ourselves, created 13 different centerpieces each reflecting Moulin Rouge or a Tim Burton film, and then designed icons to correspond to each centerpiece for the placecards. The cake was a physic-defying, topsy turvy creation that was gorgeous to behold and eat.
The ceremony began with all the guests surrounding us in a show of love and support. The entertainment included a balkan gypsy brass band play, a techno DJ, and bhangra dancers. Instead of flowers on every table, we made a huge flower arch for the doorway and a dramatic sculptural piece with feathers and vines. (And there were rose petals *everywhere*). I had a large gay man in his 30s as my “flower boy”. There really wasn't a “normal” thing about this wedding!
Our biggest challenge: Truly, the invitations were the biggest challenge. We are both designers, and wanted it to be perfect. The invitation is the first introduction people have to the event, and sets up everyone's expectations for the tone of the wedding. We had to find a way to communicate the theme without printing it on the invites. It took months of time and several heated discussions before we finally felt like it was “done”, but we wound up with an incredible package that blew everyone away – it was an 11 x 17 movie-style poster, which we rolled up, wrapped in red velvet ribbon, and sent in a bright red poster tube.
My advice for other offbeat brides: Research, research, research – find inspiration anywhere you can! I spent a lot of time watching movies (Burton, & Moulin Rouge of course) but also searched the web for images related to those films. I looked at set design books and essentially anything dramatic that *didn't* have to do with weddings.
And without sounding like I'm kissing up, the girls on the Offbeat Bride Tribe really helped out when I was stumped for one last centerpiece – its really helpful to hear/see what other offbeat brides have done!
Dress by Black Lotus Clothing
Cake by Gabrielle of Cake Coquette
Flowers by Church St Flowers
Bhangra Dancers
Photography by Brian Ng
Catering by Melon's Catering
And of course, bits n bobs from various places on etsy.com
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.
Wow, this looks amazing…I especially love both of your hats, the picture of your “large, gay flowerman”, and i’m getting extremely hungry looking at your gorgeous cake 🙂
Bhangra dancers is an awesome idea ! That should get everyone moving. A very offbeat wedding, congratulations!
This is by far the most gorgeous setting for a wedding I have ever seen! That stage is AMAZING! Congratulations on a most beautiful wedding!
LOVE your style!!! loveloveLOVE it <3
This wedding was so pretty it made my eyes hurt.
I was lucky enough to be a guest at this wedding and I was blown away by two things:
1. The bride and groom beamed at each other the whole time. They were lit up with happiness.
2. The guests were super eager to get on the dance floor! I’ve never seen a wedding where folks wanted to dance so badly.
It was a beautiful and kickass party!
The best venue ever!!! I am jealous, you could have sold tickets to this beautiful event.
I’ve said before on my own blog, some of my most favourite wedding porn, ever!
That cake is BEAUTIFUL
Fab looking wedding 🙂
*drools* Moulin Rouge and Tim Burton? BRILLIANT!
I LOVE that cake – like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It seems like a shame to eat it!!
fantastically gorgeous!
All around fabulous & what an AMAZING venue!!!
I’m a Bay Area gal & never knew this was in my backyard – swoon!
i absolutely adore your look – the dress is stunning and the hat compliments it so well.
very cool 🙂
FABULOUS!!!! Very theatrical but still charming and personal. I am amazed by the sound of those poster invites – what a great idea!
Hey Ladies – thanks so much for the compliments! I still love looking at the photos and am amazed myself at how well it all turned out!
Big props to my amazing helpers: Christina of Black Lotus for the dress, Gabrielle of Cake Coquette for the delicious and stunning cake, and of The Regency Grand for their secret upstairs red room!
I’m a Flower MAN, dammit! MAN! Not “Flower Boy.”
tee hee hee *giggles*
Can we see a picture of the invites? Please!
Hey, your cake got featured on the CakeWrecks blog’s “Sunday Sweets” feature!
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/05/defying-gravity.html
(I already put a comment in back to this blog entry.)
I got the link about this wedding porn in one of the forum sites about wedding, and it's nice to see for I've found a nice theme about a wedding. And at first, I'd never thought that there's really a couple who uses this kind of theme. And the outcome is amazing for it's extraordinary. And looking at the cake, it's really unique. Enough budget for that authentic wedding is really a need, I think. That's just states how artistic people are, and how they put importance in marriage.
[…] Matt’s awesome “Moulin Rouge” inspired celebration featured earlier this year at Offbeat Bride. Posted in diy paris theme weddings, wedding style, your parisian wedding | Leave a Comment | […]