Vintage carnival vibes at this historic amusement park wedding

Offbeat partner: Caitlin

Offbeat partner: Scott

Date and location of wedding: Glen Echo Park in Glen Echo, Maryland — May 12, 2018

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: I had gone to so many "country chic" weddings leading up to ours and they all just blended together to me. We wanted people to have fun and have a ton of options during the reception, or at least things to see. If it was up to my husband we would have had a wrestling wedding, but we landed on a carnival theme because we felt like there was so much we could do with it. We picked a historic site, Glen Echo Park, which was once an amusement park in the 40 and 50s and still had some of the lights and structures standing.

Tell us about the ceremony:
Honestly? I borrowed so much from Offbeat Bride. We're not religious so we knew we weren't going to have a typical ceremony. I'm very independent and chose not to take my husband's name and wanted the ceremony to represent that we are two different people coming together equally. I combed through probably every post in the archives and took probably 95% from this post.

One thing I regret is our officiant had a mic and we didn't! I assumed we would have one but next thing we know we're up there with no mic and no one could hear us (ugh!).

The vows gave me a lot of anxiety, I can't lie. I took I copied bits and pieces and added some of my own details. However, my husband wrote his the night before on the hotel notepaper and we lost it. I can't remember anything he said because I was so nervous and the video did not pick up his audio. Guess I'll never know what he said!

My vows:

Neither of us would probably say it was love at first sight, but I think we can agree it was love at first fish stick. (Our 2nd date was watching Doctor Who and making fish sticks and custard).
I never thought I could find someone who could love me as completely as you do. I struggled with loving myself and accepting love and, instead of running from that, you embraced me and loved me twice as hard. Thank you for always believing in me, for making me feel stronger, and for helping me to believe in myself.
There are so many reasons to love you.
I love you for falling in love with me despite my insecurities.
I love you for dealing with my tendency to be too clingy and my sometimes overactive tear ducts.
I love you for accepting my past and for encouraging my hopes and dreams for the future.
I love you for texting me every morning to just tell me you love me and I’m beautiful.
I love you because you remind me that life is short and to try and get as much from it as you can.
I love that you tell me the truth even when you know I might pout about it.
Because of all those things and the millions more I’ll never have enough time to say, I make these vows to you.
I vow to be there. I will be there for you through the exceptional times and the miserable times.
I will be there with you through the silly times and the stinky times, which, on occasion, is the same time.
I vow to love you. I will keep on loving you for the million little things you do that make you unique and make me smile. I will even love you for the little things you do that make me frown because they are also part of who you are.
I vow to encourage your passion whether that's becoming a rock star or learning Japanese.
I vow to support you. I will support you in every endeavor emotionally, spiritually, and financially. I'm including physically because we both know I can in fact physically carry you.
Our one guarantee in life is that we will have both good and bad times (and death and taxes). The beauty of a partnership is that someone is there to help you make it through it all, the highs and the lows. I couldn’t be more grateful that it’s you by my side to do that with.

We had these two readings: “Love” by Roy Croft and “To Love is Not to Possess” by James Kavanaugh. I walked in to “Grow Old With You” by Kawika Regidor

Tell us about the reception:
As I mentioned, Glen Echo was once an amusement park, so we got married in the old bumper car pavilion. We rented the historic carousel, and as favors bought everyone two tickets to ride. We also had two caricature artists come in, which was a lot of fun. Our wedding party was introduced as circus acts (bearded lady, lion tamer, sword juggler, etc.).

For the garter toss, my husband pulled out 15 handkerchiefs. Our food was BBQ buffet (though I didn't get a chance to eat a thing!) in addition to a candy bar. Our goal was to not have anyone go home with "junk" as favors that we knew they would throw out later.

One funny story is that it was one of the hottest days in May — I'm talking INTENSE, and this resulted in a mishap. Let's just say extreme heat coupled with alcohol, candy, and riding around in circles on a carousel did not end well for some. Thankfully, we were not charged for the individuals who got sick on the historic carousel.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding?
I was obsessed with Pinterest and had so many DIY ideas. I love to DIY but I can also be particular and wanted things to look perfect so I didn't invite anyone to help me. As I got closer, I really started to beat myself up over the projects that didn't look perfect. My balloon tassels were spaced weird, the calligraphy on the sign looked squished, my 3-foot wooden letters weren't smooth and perfect, etc. Not every project is going to be perfect, but I can promise you no one is looking at everything with a magnifying glass. Not a single person has EVER said anything about the things I was agonizing over.

Also, you can not control the weather. I did not expect it to be hot as hell on May 12th. My makeup ran, my curls uncurled, and my husband was 95% sweat stains. People still talk about how hot it was. All you can do is embrace those surprises.