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The Offbeat Bride: Ali, Filmmaker
Her offbeat partner: Olivia, Actress
Date and location of wedding: The Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah — June 22, 2014
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
I married my gorgeous wife and partner of 10 years, on a bridge over a babbling brook at the top of a mountain in Park City, Utah. The mountain top was only accessible by gondola, so everyone at the wedding got to enjoy a mint lemonade (spiked, of course) as they soared up the mountain, through thick evergreens, to the peak.
I’d say my favorite part of the decor was the lesbian, fairytale, pop-up-book centerpieces. I found an artist on Etsy, Sweet Pea and Ivy, who had just done pop-up cards before and after many conversations I commissioned her to make 12 pop up books, custom, based around traditional fairy tales. However, instead of featuring a man and a woman for the love stories, these pop-up-books featured two women. I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out. We displayed them on white cake platters and everyone commented on how beautiful they were.
Liv and I bought a cardboard book at Michael's and covered it with a silver faux leather and adorned it with gems to make it look like a fairy tale book. We added foam to the inside and cut slits so that our rings would fit. One of our flower fairies carried this down the aisle.
Olivia surprised me and took to the piano during the reception, singing and playing “A Thousand Years.”
Tell us about the ceremony:
We got our legal paperwork done in LA (where we live), then had a semi traditional Jewish ceremony in Utah. My childhood Rabbi flew out to perform the ceremony, which was a very special treat.
The three girl fairies had custom pale blue dresses with petal skirts, and my nephew had a perfect little silver suit with a long lace vest. They all had handmade wire and lace wings that fastened under their clothing and fluttered beautifully in the wind as they walked down the bridge to our ceremony.
We also had a very special Ketubah that was hand-painted by my mother, a fantastic artist. She painted Olivia and I kissing at the top and had a friend of hers do the Hebrew lettering.
And lastly, I designed a fan that we gave out to all the guests featuring cartoon renderings of each member of the bridal party.
Tell us about your reception:
Liv and I did a choreographed dance to “Can I Have This Dance” from High School Musical 3. The tablecloths were silver and glittery and we had light blue linen napkins as an accent.
Our escort table was done in the theme of Alice and Wonderland, complete with pop-up book, ceramic rabbit, and white roses. I chose little silver chairs filled with mint chocolates as escort cards because I liked the twist of people taking a chair to find their chair.There was also a large candy table with a Hansel and Gretel pop-up book in the center (but where Hansel is a girl, of course) overflowing with deliciousness including a ton of European chocolate that my aunts and uncles brought over for the occasion.
Instead of a photo booth we had a flipbook booth. I designed the covers to look like fairy tales. Here's a link to one Liv and I made:
Our cake was blue, silver, and white, it had five tiers and the inside was a rainbow layered cake. At the end of the evening we boarded Gondolla #22, because it was the 22nd of June, which they had dressed with pillows, curtains, and balloons, and rode down the mountain.
What was your most important lesson learned?
I’d say my best bit of advice is the same advice I heard from pretty much everyone was to make sure and take as many moments with each other as possible.
As a bonus, here's a brief version of our proposal story: I'm a filmmaker so I told Olivia I was shooting a perfume commercial for a fictitious product called Royal Essence so I could include her in the video. I'd shoot her shots completely separate from the rest of the video so she'd have no idea. Then, to get Liv to the theater, I told her my short film had won an award and was being honored that day. I even made posters for the fictitious film festival and covered the movie theater exterior and lobby with them. She cried happy tears pretty much the entire day. Here's the video.
Vendors
- Photographer: Mitchell Burt, ZumaPhoto
- Videographer: Chris McClain of Chris McClain Productions
- Wedding Planner: Kasey Aune of Harvest Moon
- Bride and Bridal wear: Catherine Elhoffer of Elhoffer Designs
- Venue: The Canyons, Red Pine Lodge in Park City, Utah
- Hair and Makeup: April Benincosa of Vintage Rouge
- DJ: Paul Helms of DJPauly Entertainment
- Quartet: Rosco String Quartet
- Cake: One Sweet Slice
- Pop Up Books: Amy Wilkinson of Sweet Pea and Ivy
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.
Beautiful.
A beautiful take on the fairytale wedding theme. I love so much of this wedding!
Thank you all for the comments 🙂 It was by far the best day of our lives! We also have a pretty epic 8 minute highlight reel that really captures the setting and feel of the day if you want to take a look:
Not gonna lie, I teared up. That was beautiful.
THAT PROPOSAL VID IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!