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The offbeat bride: Lizzie, snowboard instructor
Her offbeat partner: Chris, ski instructor
Date and location of wedding: Okemo Mountain Resort (the resort where we work), Ludlow, VT — March 7, 2012
Our offbeat wedding at a glance: We picked Wednesday, March 7 because that was our third year anniversary, and having our wedding on a weekday enabled us to have it on the slope without a bunch of strangers lingering about.
It was held at Okemo Mountain Resort where we both work as full-time instructors, and the reception was at The Outback (not the steakhouse), a rustic bar down the road from the resort. I didn't want a formal, sit-down meal, just a relaxed and fun time. I also didn't want people to feel like they had to stay late, since it was a Wednesday, so we did everything right away. The wedding party danced in, and we went right into our first dance and used the same song (“Married Life” from the soundtrack of the movie Up) for our first dance, father/daughter, and mother/son dance. Then we ate, made some speeches, and cut the cake.
Our whole wedding party skied or snowboarded down the aisle, and we stood under an arbor made out of our old skis and snowboards that my father and brother-in-law built. The aisle was marked off with ribbon and ski poles that were stuck in the ground.
I was lucky to find a jacket with both teal and white on it. Chris rocked a teal jacket and a Duck Hunt tie that showed his gamer side.
I made my own cake. It was a pound cake with butter cream frosting that looked like snow. The cake toppers (snowboarder bride and skier groom) were custom-made. I also made our favors which were an E&C made from sugar cookies.
We tried to keep the costs down as much as possible. The only flowers we had were the bouquets and boutonnieres. We also didn't have to pay for the wedding or reception venue, only the food, drinks, and DJ. We had an open bar for the first hour that Chris' grandparents paid for as a gift.
My brother in-law made our centerpieces by cutting different heights of birch branches and drilling a whole in the top for a candle. A set of three different sizes were placed on each table with simple table runners that I made. I tried to keep everything really simple and easy so that I wouldn't get stressed over the little things. And it worked!
Tell us about the ceremony: We are not religious at all, so I wanted a ceremony that was upbeat and reflected our personalities. One of the poems we read was “Oh Tell Me The Truth About Love” by W.H. Auden.
Here are our vows:
I Lizzie take you Chris to be my wicked awesome husband. As my best friend I promise to encourage you, and be open and honest with you; To laugh with you, and cry with you; Through zombie attacks and through powder days, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health, and to love and cherish you to infinity and beyond.
Our biggest challenge: We couldn't agree on how we wanted to do vows. I wanted to do the repeating thing and he wanted to write his own. This was a huge bone of contention for a few months. In the end, we decided to do both.
My favorite moment: My mom passed away when I was 13 so to honor her memory, and the memory of other loved ones, I added a pink rose to my bouquet as part of the ceremony. There were definitely some tears during that part.
My advice for Offbeat Brides: So many people are going to tell you to slow down and take everything in. I tried to make sure that there weren't a lot of little details that I needed to waste time worrying about, and that seemed to help.
What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? I definitely learned that Chris and I had a few communication issues we needed to work out in order to work as a team to achieve the outcome we wanted. Communication is SO important, and we were able to find ways to make it work.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?
- Dress: Macy's
- Bride's necklace: Etsy seller SerenityCrystal
- Bride's hairpiece: Etsy seller FloralJewellery
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
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I’m not a skier and could never stay up on a snowboard, but this may be one of my favorite weddings on here. It’s so 100% made for them huzzah!
Snowboarding and skiing down the aisle is the most original entrance I have ever heard of! What a fun wedding.
that is, in fact, wicked!
So cute! I Love how original this is (They must REALLY like it there to get married where they work! lol)
One of the unique weddings I have seen. It’s really beautiful!
I wasn’t planning on reading this post because I’m really not into skiing at all… but I’m so glad I did! It warmed my heart so much. The whole thing seems so genuine and heartfelt and fun and happy! I really loved this. 🙂
Oh my goodness this is one of the best weddings I’ve seen! Love love love it!
This is seriously one of the most kick assed weddings I have seen on OBB. Amazing down to the last detail. Also- bride who rocks it in her snowboarding gear… 10 000 coolness points!
Hello, thank you for a lovely post. I’m having a similar problem regarding vows, how exactly did you end up doing both ways for vows?
We took the more traditional “repeating” vows and changed them to reflect our personalities. This part is included above. These were said first then we read the vows that we wrote ourselves.
I LOVE IT! As a wedding videographer who also works at a ski resort (sunday river), I absolutely ADORE the idea of getting hitched on the slopes. Two of my good friends, a ski patroller & local bartender, got married on-hill at Sunday River, & had the reception at their bar afterwards. It fit them to a T.
Check out their photos for some more slope-side inspiration 🙂
http://www.yeahbudphotography.com/#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=9&p=1&a=0&at=0
Love it, great job wroking on the “poject”early.
How fun and unique! Love the pictures, a truly beautiful wedding!
Is the cake topper from an Etsy seller? It looks a lot like my tandem bicycle cake topper that I bought at etsy.
Lovely wedding!!!!!
They are from this guy. http://www.etsy.com/shop/DarylsRockWireWorks?ref=seller_info
I love that you guys used “Married Life” as a first dance song! Did you end up using the whole song, slow-paced part and all? I think it’s a lovely and appropriate song, but friends seem concerned that some parts are too sad.
We did use the whole song. We used the slow part to switch and dance with our parents. It worked out really well. It’s not sad, a lot of people at your wedding have probably never seen the movie anyway. I loved it and it wasn’t sad at all 🙂 I wanted to learn how to waltz but we didn’t have time.
I love your apre frock, totally gorgeous! You can feel the love & happiness through the pictures
This is so all kinds of [wicked] awesome! The pictures show just how happy you were and how much fun you were having. Unfortunately, I can’t show this to my dad because he’d probably want to completely change my entire wedding so he could ski me down the aisle (love this so much, that pic might be my fave!).
I love how you can totally wear your wedding attire again & again & again! Screw spending thousands of dollars on a fancy pair of shoes, tux, & dress– treat yourself & buy new outerwear & boots! I LOVE it!
Love this wedding!!! Looks like it turned out beautiful for you and you guys had a blast. We did basically the same thing. We got married in 2014 at a ski resort, on a Wednesday (For the no crowds reason), I made my own cakes, us and our wedding party skied or snowboarded, haha Love it!