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The Offbeat Bride: Mysi, Fledgling Photographer (and OBT member “mysi anne“)
Her Offbeat Partner: Craig, Photographer, Journalist, Historian, Constant Student
Location & date of wedding: Lake Summerset Lodge, on Lake Summerset in Davis, Illinois. My parents have a summer house there and we wanted to honor their favorite place. — 7.11.09
What made our wedding offbeat: Our whole wedding was planned with this in mind: we'd each been to ONE wedding in our lives. We wrote our ceremony and during the vows, we each asked each other: “Will you navigate the Great Material Continuum with me?” (We fell in love watching seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).
My bridesmaids were ten year olds — my sister, Cassidy (also my *Maiden* of Honor), and her best friends. My *Maid* of Honor was my best friend, Lauren. Lauren wore a girly version of the newsboy style the groomsmen wore.
Our ceremony music was a cello and guitar playing Beatles and Zeppelin. We had a ring warming ceremony, which I highly recommend. I designed the little newspaper programs. Annnd, I put Craig's ring on the wrong hand and it got stuck. But it was his fault.
We went handmade and vintage (and Etsy) with everything. I wore my mom's dress and veil.
My mother and I spent fifty-four hours (not exaggerating) making recycled-paper-pomanders and favors (including dark chocolate re-sleeved with old book pages.) We filled the lodge with trinkets and loads of books. The dessert plates and tea/coffee cups were all thrift shops/garage sales/attics.
My favorite bit was our cupcake tower… which was an unruly stack of books with cupcakes piled on it.
Since we're both meatless, everything was vegetarian (mmmm vegan lemon cupcakes!) and organic from local farms. The flowers were locally grown as well.
Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was keeping it in wedding form.
We had to remind ourselves that in order for it to be a wedding, it had to be… a wedding. As in, a recognizable ceremony should probably occur. Or it wouldn't mean anything to the family and friends who were there to witness a union. We dealt with it by researching the bare minimum of what people normally have in ceremonies. Then we played it up and spun it around, with the help of our officiant, who drew it all together.
So we ended up NOT having a frog release ritual that would have made absolutely no sense, not even poetically. And we ended up HAVING a ring warming ritual, so everyone could be involved and hold/bless/kiss/talk to our rings.
“In my life… I hope I lie
and tell everyone you were a good wife
and I hope you die.
I hope we both die!”
-The Mountain Goats
My favorite moment: Our first dance song was “No Children” by the Mountain Goats, and it was PERFECT. I was afraid at first because, like most weddings, we had older relatives there. However, I said fuck it. This is about us. I recommend looking the song up. It's amazing.
We danced freely and I completely lost myself in him. You can see it in the pictures. We're jubilant.
My advice for other offbeat brides: Micromanagement.
You cannot have it all and it's inevitable that things will be left out. (For example… the chess/checkers/dominos that you forgot to set out on the deck for people who don't dance.) No one ever knew it was supposed to be there, so don't worry. It's okay. Just have chess/checkers/dominos at every other party you ever have. But don't fret about it during (or after) your wedding day.
Also, use an alternative registry. We got some freaking awesome handmade/secondhand/random stuff.
Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?: Of course! I'm so grateful to everyone who helped us. It's insane.
- Our invitations (printed on handkerchiefs!) were by HeatherJeany on Etsy.
- My dress was revamped by Dame Couture in Chicago.
- Our ceremony music was husband and wife duo Moeller Music.
- Our DJ was Kristin of Toast & Jam DJs. (She camped with us afterwards!!!!)
- Our WONDERFUL officiant was Cecilia Pohs from Madison, who added some Klingon wisdom to our ceremony. she does not have a website.
- Our vintagey pinbacks were custom made by Amy of ButtonEmpire.
- We had seed paper made by Claudia's Creations.
- Our catering was Sweet Sophie's in Milwaukee.
- After a few months of overload, we obtained an awesome wedding consultant named Angela from Top Shelf Weddings.
- Our beautiful wedding photographer was Amanda from Type A Images.
Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!:
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WOW, absolutely gorgeous! I seriously love the vintage teacups & plates and the awesome old books.
Lovely and cool wedding.
And THANK YOU< THANK YOU< for more great pictures of grooms in vests only, b/c that's our plan to. Looks terrific!!
I LOVE the yellow shoes and the lace on her veil and the yellow dresses and the grooms without suitcoats and their hats and the whole vintage-y feel. It's all so pretty!!
Love all of this. I am wondering if anyone can explain to me how an alternative registry works?
We had a bad link to the alt registry service. This should answer your questions. 🙂 http://alternativegiftregistry.org
Oh my god, I loooooove your first dance song! SO good!
How/where did you get the vintage newspaper template? Would you be willing to share? I love it sooo much! Please share!
Can anyone explain to me how the photographer gets that awesome vintagey yellow tint to the pictures? Is it a degree of sepia tone? Or is there some other trick to it?
AHH! I love the Mountain Goats…. great song choice.
your first dance made me and the man cry. did i tell you we saw the song live and we cried AGAIN!?!
Yay Mysi Anne! Still loving the vintage style throughout.
I feel pretty lucky and awesome right now 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thank you all for the compliments.
Our photographer was a perfect fit for us. She is absolutely amazing.
I'm not sure exactly how she gets the yellow tones. When I do it, I usually add a layer of color, then fade the opacity. But there are a few ways to go about it.
Jeanette, I didn't use a template… I actually took a scan of an old newspaper and then erased the articles in photoshop and added my own, using some old typewriter fonts. You can see a bigger version of the program here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/astromysicism/400975…
I hope that helps. 🙂
P.S. Rashni was an honorary maid of honor. I love her so madly I could burst.
So beautiful. And my guy doesn't like suits…but always wears a jaunty hat. Thanks for the inspiration! I don't know any 10 year olds. Maybe my 20 year old could just wear an awesome yellow dress!! (She'll be my moh) Love it love it love it!!
Hi 🙂
I feel so lucky and awesome right now. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I owe it all to my amazing vendors and my honorary MOH, Rashni.
Our photographer was a perfect fit for us. She is amazing. I highly recommend her to anyone in the Milwaukee area (or a little further out. we were further out!)
Jeanette, I didn't use a template! I found a scan of a super old newspaper, then I erased all the original articles (except a couple advertisements) and added my own stuff using old typewriter fonts. You can find a picture of the program in the flickr set… if you go to flickr, you can click on "all sizes" and see if better as a large image.
love you all.
Ooh, I'm glad to see some vendors, etc., from Wisconsin! And the Madison area!!
Oh my god! DS9 love forever! My boyfriend and I started watching that as an activity when we moved in together last year. I painted him this: http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d14/katie_in_au… for christmas.
You guys are lovely! Yay!
Oh very cool! I grew up swimming in Lake Summerset, but haven't been back there in years. Awesome to see the brick walls…lots of memories there! I really loved all the yellow. Very, very lovely.
This is AWESOME. I love the groomsmen's newsboy outfits and that your MOH got to wear one! And the books, and cups and plates at the meal…aaah! SO ADORABLE. Everything looks very relaxed and personalized.
Plus, Star Trek (DS9!) love 😀
I love, love, love your Prayer for Marriage on the program. A thousand thanks – I have been looking for something that is so sweet and beautiful like that and I am grateful you shared it. A lifetime of happiness to you and your beau!
DUDE! AN ALTERNATIVE REGISTRY! I have actually been thinking for a long time how to get stuff I actually want (cast iron, vintage glassware, etc.) without making people pay megabucks. I come from a family of garage salers and thrift store-ers and even regifters, so I’d much rather have something I’ll actually use than a stainless steel rotating spice rack full of stale spices.
I had no idea that anyone had already invented it, though! Hurray!
P.S. Yellow is awesome. And hurray for gorgeous vintage-style weddings like yours!
Oh, just gorgeous! Many blessings to you two, in whatever way two take them. I loved the mustaches all around. And kudos for openly welcoming kids. They add such light and love to a ceremony.
Much love to you both!
What a beautiful wedding, you both look so joyful! Cheers to a happy + healthy life together ^_^
Such a sweet testament of what you and Craig are about. I feel like I know you better. Absolutely beautiful.
AWESOME. I told my mum recently that I wanted white milk glass for my wedding. Whoo! Thank you!
I seriously just got chills when I read the Mountain Goats lyrics!! I've wanted that song played at my wedding FOREVER! Awesome.
One of my favorite weddings ever!
I luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuve your wedding! The books! the vintage cups & plates! but above all, your boquet – it hit me right between the eyes it's so beautiful….
Mysi – so nice to see your wedding finally featured! It was one of my favs during my planning days:)
I LOVE the cupcake tower!!! We had books as decorations on the windowsills (and I think we had too many guests to have that work anyway) but I love the way that looks!!
What an absolutely perfect song! I love the Mountain Goats and this one in particular has great memories of myself and my love singing it to each other at a MG concert. What a great wedding.
Okay, whoah. I'm getting married next to a lake 7.11.10 (in California). And I'm wearing my mom's revamped wedding dress, and my wedding color is yellow. And I'm a vegetarian! Kindred spirits?! Your wedding looks amazing, it will definitely serve as inspiration for my own!
I love love love No Children and we really thought about dancing to it, but are dancing to The End of Love insted. I'm so glad someone DID use it, it's and amazing song.
This was beautiful, so original and timeless
This is probably the most genius wedding I've ever heard of. You guys are fabulous, and everything was beautiful.