I am confused.

I am confused by the attitude that surrounds weddings and costs and ideas and things. Maybe that's what makes me offbeat — I have this habit of loving everyone and being insanely optimisic even when it's probably not warranted. I give second chances. I love and trust until given reason not to. Every new person I meet, and can carry at least a five minute conversation, I say is my new best friend. I write a daily blog about something happy that happened to me that day.

My problem lies in all the intense bitchiness that lives in the wedding world. "My wedding is better than yours because of such-and-such" and all of the things that go into such a feeling.

I was reading a blog where a woman commented that she had a courtroom wedding and blames opulent weddings for the high divorce rate.

Then there are the haters on both sides of the world. My wedding (and marriage) are better than yours because I chose to have a BBQ instead of a five course sit down meal. [At Offbeat Bride, we call this "one-lowsmanship" -Eds] My wedding (and marriage) are better than yours because I paid for three party rooms and the ghost of Louis Armstrong to sing our first song.

Can we all just chill the fuck out and be nice to each other for like… five and a half seconds?

If I was rich, I can't say that I wouldn't spend $50,000 on a wedding. I'd like to say I wouldn't, but ideas change when disposable income does. My beautiful made of honor will be in our less-than-$10,000 celebration and was recently the maid of honor at a $50,000 celebration. They did the whole spiel: Catholic mass ceremony in a church with friends, family, family friends, parent's business friends, people they've never known, country club, five course sit-down meal, uplighting, etc., etc. And you know what?

That wedding? … Absolutely beautiful.

The couple has been together for nearly ten years, and they earned every second of that celebration. Just because they did things differently than me doesn't make them any better or worse. It's just different.

We're all awesome, beautiful, wonderful brides planning celebrations. We're not all that different — we're just throwing different parties.

The wedding industrial complex that tells us we need to lose weight, invite people we hate, and buybuybuybuybuy is slightly evil, yes. But it's not all evil, and the women who don't read Offbeat Bride are brides too. We all are. We're all awesome, beautiful, wonderful brides planning celebrations. There are bad apples in every bunch but mostly, we're not all that different — we're just throwing different parties.

So I guess my issue is that everyone on every spectrum needs to realize that we can all get along. I promise. We really can. I love your wedding. Whoever you are. I love it. Whether it had all the bells and whistles or was private vows at the top of a mountain. Whether it had a DJ or an iPod. Whether it cost $200 or $200,000. It's one of most beautiful days in the history of ever. We don't need to be subtracting from other people's celebrations to help make ourselves feel better. We can appreciate everything even if it's nothing we would ever do in a million years.

The girl with the big poofy dress, the fancy dinner, the expensive wine, the 14 bridesmaids? That's not me. But you know what? Her wedding is going to kick just as much ass as mine will because that's her celebration. If you can stand in that ceremony and say that the person across from you is the person that you're supposed to be across from on your wedding day — then nothing else matters.

Related posts:

• Your wedding is not a contest
• Win the Judgey Olympics: transform your petty wedding snarks into personal growth
• What polyamorists can teach brides about getting over petty wedding jealousies

Since we're getting married on a patio on a cliff over the ocean, we thought it might be a bad idea to have our guests chuck grains at us and thereby feed dried rice to all kinds of birds, fish, and otherwise. I considered flower petals, seeds, confetti, etc., but either it's gonna induce a sneeze fest or be a bitch to clean up. Then I saw ribbon wands! Wow! What a wonderful idea!

It took about 3.5 hours to make 50 ribbon wands, which wasn't so bad. Here's how you can make them yourself…

What you will need:

• Ribbon! I used two 4 ft sections per wand that I cut ahead of time and separated by color.
• Wood dowels. I got 12" long, 3/8" diameter ones.
• Eye screws
• A thumb tack or push pin
• A hammer
• A glue gun
• A candle

Get started by turning a wood dowel on end and push the thumb tack into the center as far as you can. If you can get it almost all the way in, then you're good. Pull the tack out. If not, tap the tack into the dowel almost all the way in.

Then, pull the tack out. You should end up with a hole like this.

You make that starter hole to avoid splitting like in this picture.

Once you have the hole, take an eye screw and screw it into the hole. It gets kinda rough after a while so you may want to wear work gloves.

After that is in place get two 4 ft sections of ribbon in the colors of your choosing. The ends are probably frayed and that is where the candle comes in.

Hold the ribbon over the flame just long enough to melt the frays and seal the end of the ribbon.

Pull both ribbons up until the eye is in the middle of the ribbons.

At this point you're going to tie them into a loose knot.

Make sure your glue gun is hot and add a spot where the ribbon and the eye meet.

Then pull the ribbons tight (Carefully though! Hot glue is hot) and you're done!!

You can add so many things to make these even more fabulous like bells and flowers, but we are just fine with these as they are.

Photos by Darren Threlkeld and Mike Soliman

The offbeat bride: Trisha, Optician (and Tribe member)

Her offbeat partner: Matthew, Software designer

Date and location of wedding: The Monday Club, San Luis Obispo, CA. It was built in the 1930s and designed by Julia Morgan, the designer of Hearst Castle. — February 19, 2012

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
We started by deciding what about other weddings we liked and didn't like, and figuring out what we could add to make our wedding reflect us.

Color was an important addition, and not just one color, but lots!

We both love vintage design, especially WWII era, so that was a theme for us.

We also did lots of DIY. My amazing bridesmaid, Alexis, spent probably hundreds of hours with me gluing paper flowers, rolling magazine pages, spray painting various garage sale finds, and sewing dresses. We made all the bridesmaid dresses, invitations, hair accessories, bouquets, centerpieces, and I baked and decorated the cake.

Instead of a DJ, as a gift, my grandmother got us a jukebox. A full-sized jukebox! We used it as the sound system for the reception, and set up our own playlists for the whole wedding. It now lives in our kitchen.

We took some traditions and tweaked them to fit our personalities better. I've never liked the tradition of the garter removal and toss, so instead of that, Matthew tossed a talking stuffed Chewbacca wearing a garter. Since that was such a cool prize for the guys, the bouquet I tossed included a Sephora gift card for the girls, and the tosses were for anyone who wanted to participate, not just single guys and girls.

Matthew also designed photo booth software, and we set up a DIY photo booth area with lots of fun props and a printer that automatically printed the pictures. This turned out to be a huge hit. People had so much fun with it, and going through the pictures the day after the wedding was so much fun.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was keeping everything organized and on time. Neither of us are very organized, and we decided a few months before the wedding to hire a day-of coordinator. This turned out to be a very good thing. She helped us set the timeline for the day, helped keep our plans and thoughts in order, and made sure everything ran smoothly while we were busy on the wedding day.

My favorite moment: The ceremony was very meaningful because our officiant was a dear friend of ours, and he customized the ceremony for us. He ended the ceremony with "where they're going, they don't need roads," and we walked away to the Back to the Future theme (my all-time favorite movie).

It's supposed to go on the middle finger.

My funniest moment: During the ring portion of the ceremony, Matt kept trying to put the ring on my right hand. I had to correct him and tell him it was the other hand. Then, when it was time for me to put the ring on his finger, he pointed to his finger and said, "this one."

There was also an impromptu breakdancing competition between all the kids at the reception.

Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? I was really stressing about the music in the weeks leading up to the wedding. I was worried about having enough music, and that the music we were choosing would be entertaining to everyone because I tend to have really random taste in music. Everything turned out fine though, and everyone had a lot of fun at the reception.

A Month of Mixbooks:
As part of our partnership with Mixbook, this couple has been given a free wedding photo book to show off their wedding photos. We'll be featuring some of these Offbeat Bride Mixbooks in a few weeks!

My advice for Offbeat Brides: The most important advice I have for other DIY weddings is to decide early what you really want to do yourself. Figure out what things are most important for you to DIY, and set dates for when they need to be done. Have backup plans for the other things, so if you don't have time to do them yourself, you're not scrambling at the end. We made sure to have all the crafts finished by two weeks before the wedding, so during that last week I could focus on the cake and nothing else since the cake was one of the most important things I wanted to do myself.

Another piece of advice for brides and grooms who wear glasses: if you wear photochromic lenses (the ones that turn dark outside) and you are planning on wearing your glasses for photos, get some clear lenses with anti-reflective coating made for the wedding, even if you are taking photos inside. This way, you will be able to see your eyes in the photos much better.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? If you had asked me this question before the wedding, I would have thought my answer would have been, "don't try to do too much yourself," but I'm actually really glad we did it the way we did. Doing as much DIY as we did made the wedding all that much more personal, and saved us a lot of money. I also think it was important for me to keep busy in the weeks leading to the wedding. It distracted me from the whole "center of attention" thing with which I have a lot of trouble. I didn't have a lot of downtime to think and get myself freaked out, and I think that was a really good thing.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Darren Threlkeld and Mike Soliman
• Bride's dress: Moonlight Bridal
• Groom's tweed suit: Studio Suits
• Groomsmen's houndstooth ties: Etsy seller MeandMatilda
• Seed Bomb favors: Etsy seller Davita

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!

This business has paid a fee to be listed on Offbeat Bride because they feel their products and services are in-line with our philosophies and needs … and we agree. Here's more info about how advertising works on Offbeat Bride.

Even action figures in love choose A La Carte albums!

Since we introduced you to sponsor A La Carte Albums back in November 2010, there have been a few awesome additions to the business that we're excited to tell you about.

If you recall, A La Carte Albums' approach is kind of like album couture — they start with a (free no-obligation) chat about what you want from your wedding album, and then the owner Jane comes up with a number of different options to fit your vision. There's no fitting your album into template A or template B. (That's the "à la carte" part of A La Carte!)

Keep reading to see the four ways A La Carte Albums will help you will make the daunting task of creating wedding albums a cinch. (Spoiler alert: one of them their special discount for Offbeat Brides.)

Photo by Lilia Photography

1. Get the styles you want

A La Carte offers a wide range of album options:

• A multitude of vegan/vegetarian cover materials
• Five different kinds of books, from the very traditional matted album to cutting-edge flush albums with metal covers
• And a design-only option for people wanting to use a budget-friendly service like Blurb.com.

2. Keep it within your budget

A La Carte is committed to working with a wide range of budgets, from tight to luxurious. And always working within your chosen budget to get the effect you want, rather than trying to up-sell. As Jane put it, "You're going to be looking at your wedding album for a long time, I don't want people to look at it thinking 'if only I had made extra car payments instead.'"

Photos by Mark Kathurima

3. Fix up your pictures

A La Carte offers more than just album design, they can also fix problem pictures! Yup, from just basic improvements all the way up to major retouches (most popularly, wardrobe malfunction fixes — bending over to cut cake + strapless dress = a little more show than a lady wants.)

Since that feature has become super popular A La Carte has now added the more-a-la-carte "DIY assistance" services for people who need just retouching, or just help editing their hundreds of wedding pictures down to a reasonable number for a book.

4. Save money

OFFBEAT DISCOUNT: A La Carte Albums is still offering their 10% design discount for all customers who mention they found them via Offbeat Bride.

So while there is total creative freedom when you create an A La Carte album, there is also a lot of hand-holding to prevent decision fatigue. So drop 'em an email and see what you can create together!

I'm starting to think that wedding invitations inspired by favorite books are becoming a very fast favorite for me. I have to confess, I got a little teary-eyed over Andrew and Jackie's Giving Tree wedding invitations, made by Kim from NMI Creations. (Did you pick up on the special wording of "share" and "give" like for The Giving Tree? Subtle, eh?)

If you think the invitations are cute, wait until you see their matching Save the Dates AND the completed invitation suite with the hidden tear-inducing surprise!

I mean, come on, even the FONT is adorable! But I'm also loving the little leaf icon next to the RSVP choices and their initials carved into the tree. The cuteness abounds.

But wait — it actually gets cuter…

That hidden excerpt is just killer. That sent me over the edge. And then I read WHY Jackie chose this invitation inspiration:

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is my favorite. book. ever. I remember reading it with my grandmother, who told me that she met Shel Silverstein and he signed the book — only years later did I realize she was the one who wrote his autograph. I remember listening to the book in first grade when my teacher, Mrs. Millstone, read the book out loud to us. Although she must have read it every year since the beginning of time, her voice choked back tears through those final few pages. I remember finding the book again after my senior year of college, when I moved back home. Folding back the faded cover and yellowed pages in the midst of dust-covered dolls and textbook filled satchels, I finally realized that through the simplicity of its word, the messages were profound: Compassion, Sacrifice, Growing old as a pair, Acceptance, and Unconditional Love.

TEARS!

Photos by Amanda Hess

I LOVE first look photos. They always register genuine emotion. Rachael and Chris tried an interesting twist for their first look: a blindfold! Talk about increased anticipation. Plus it just looks like fun.

You can see the rest of Rachael and Chris' retro cocktail party wedding here.

We teased some of the awesome details of this wedding a while back. Now we're showing the whole story of the homemade dress, the planning on Skype, and the classic style.

Photos by Nikki Mcleod

The offbeat bride: Gillian, TV Production Assistant

Her offbeat partner: Mark, Political communications guy

Date and location of wedding: St.Salvator's Chapel, St.Andrews, Scotland, UK — May 28, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: He's a rural corn-fed American from military school, and I'm a quirky Brit in Scotland. We planned the wedding across the ocean using Skype, which came with extra challenges. We got married in a very traditional, all-inclusive venue, but it made the transatlantic planning so much easier.

We were able to add our own details: my mum made my dress, my veil, the little bridesmaid's dresses, and her own outfit! My sister-in-law, who was maid of honour, made her own dress and I didn't even see it until the day of the wedding. I designed the invitations. My aunt made our cakes and had to drive them halfway up the country two days before the wedding in the back of her Mini Cooper.

Tell us about the ceremony: It was a traditional Church of Scotland ceremony which was led by the same reverend who had married my mum and step-dad. We had friends read a couple of beautiful poems that had been written for the Royal Wedding: The Vow by Wendy Cope and A Lang Promise by Jackie Kay (read in Scots by a big, burly Scotsman).

Our biggest challenge: Mark and I met at university in the UK, but since graduating have been separated by the Atlantic, which is really inconvenient to say the least. We spent many hours deciding wedding details over the web and working out what was important to both of us. Coordinating people all over the world was a huge task with the cakes, the bridesmaids, the dresses, and the groom all coming from different places.

The biggest decision was which country to get married in and where to live afterwards. Getting married in Scotland was important to me, but it has meant we have been apart since then while I wait for my visa to move to the U.S. Spending our first year of marriage apart is heart-wrenching, but the memories of the wedding and our beautiful photo album have kept us going.

My favorite moment: The process of having my mum design and make my dress for me was really special. She loves dressmaking as a hobby, and I always knew I wanted her to make it for me. We worked really well together. I told her I wanted a really simple mermaid style dress that looked a bit like a vintage swimming costume, and had fantastic blue netting underneath. She gave me exactly that.

As both the chapel and venue are seriously ancient, confetti was a no-no, so my mum and I made "yay" flags for our guests to wave as we left the chapel. They were made using old fabric from the attic like bits leftover from my old high school prom dresses, and even from my mum's wedding dress! They were nice little mementoes with memories attached to each one.

My funniest moment: Two friends crashed our wedding! Years ago I had joked with them that if I ever got married they'd have to track down where the wedding was and crash it. I had totally forgotten about it until I walked out of the chapel with my new husband and spotted them waving "yay flags." Our photographer caught the exact moment I spotted them and realized I'd have to explain the pact to Mark, which was hilarious.

My advice for Offbeat Brides: Plan your wedding with your husband, find out what's important to him, and share the experience. All the debates are totally worth it when people ask you both who designed which bit of the wedding. Mark chose all the flowers and the card for the invitations for instance, because they were important to him. Plan it together, even if you have to do it over Skype!

A Month of Mixbooks:
As part of our partnership with Mixbook, this couple has been given a free wedding photo book to show off their wedding photos. We'll be featuring some of these Offbeat Bride Mixbooks in a few weeks!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Nikki McLeod
• The dress pattern was adapted from Vogue 2931 and the silk was from Butterfly Bazaar in the garment district in New York. My mum put up a guide to making the dresses here.
• Maid of Honour's shoes: Irregular Choice
• Husband's kilt: Slanj Kilts
• Invitations/programmes: Designed with Adobe Illustrator and the cards were from PDA Card and Craft. They do a huge range and you can buy by the sheet!
• Flowers: Impulse Flowers, Dundee, UK

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!

*Insert sound of my soul being crushed* Image courtesy of Bellestyles.com

Every once in a while, I peek my head out of the safe, offbeat cave I've carved for myself here in this corner of the wedding industry and I get a terrible shock. See, I spend so much time over in my little niche that I forget about the rest of the wedding world and how icky it often is.

Case in point: this HARDY HAR HAR hilarious sign that you can buy for your ring bearer and flower girl to carry down the aisle, announcing that HO HO HO, this is your last chance to run!

Now, I get it: this is comedy. It's meant to provide a little moment of levity in a serious ceremony. But it hurts my head, and it hurts my heart, and here's why…

This sign says to me, "Any commitment before marriage doesn't really count."

This sign says to me, "Commitment is terrifying and awful."

This sign says to me, "Marriage sucks."

Also, while there's nothing explicit about gender in this particular sign, in a traditional western wedding, the groom is the one who sees this coming down the aisle as he waits for the bride to make her entrance — so, you can extrapolate that this is extra HARDY HAR HAR because OH THOSE MENFOLK: THEY JUST HATE TO COMMIT. (Other versions of this "Last chance" sign concept are much more explicit in their gender-grossness.)

Ok, ok. I know I'm being a grump here, and taking this silly shit way too seriously. I'm completely confident that some of you find this sign hilarious, and that's cool: if cracking jokes about commitment tickles your funny bone, by all means keep giggling.

Far be it for me to say that weddings shouldn't be hilarious, or that we all have to put on our Somber Hats (somber-eros?) and our Very Uncomfortable Humorless Panties to talk about the sanctity of marriage. I just find comedy like this problematic because it plays into and enforces so many stereotypes and generalizations about couples and commitment and marriage. That marriage is awful. That you should run. That you've got up until the moment you say "I Do" to just be joking around, and that everything changes after you get married.

It all just reminds me of the Game Over tshirts, where it's hardy-har-larious that the groom "lost" the game by having to get married.

Again, I get it: it's comedy. We all have different tastes in HA HAs, and that's cool: no need to defend yourself if you think this sign is awesome. But I think I'll just stay hiding over here in my corner of the wedding world, where our comedy is stuff like this or this.

Jess and her two sisters derp it up in their retro '50s wear. Photo by Lulu Photography

It's a new work week and we're back to show off what the readers shared in our Monday Montage. It seemed like everyone was looking vintage fashionable and dancing. And then we're thrown for a loop by some superhero additions including superhero guests, superhero shoes (that you can actually buy), and even a Wonder Woman shoe tutorial. Let's get it started with all the best from the Offbeat Flickr Pool and the Offbeat Pinterest account.

Kelly rocks another retro look with a sweet little beret and cropped jacket. Photo by Kyle Carnes Photography

A little American Gothic is necessary when there is a barn available! Photo by Kyle Carnes Photography

Lisa and Simon's first dance looks like major fun.

Valeda and Courtney's first dance is more of the snuggly, giggly sort. Photo by Melissa Smith

Cassie and Jack's card 'box' is awesome, but the concert sign takes the cake. Photo by Paper Leaf Productions

Hello citizens, we're here to save your wedding from boredom! These guests at Barbara's wedding know how to make an entrance.

Pinterest can be a total tease with 'things that are cool but don't actually exist,' including awesome shoes we've seen. But this is a legit collection of superhero heels for sale on Etsy! Source: buzzfeed.com via Breannaon on Pinterest

The recipe for these super cool tea bag cookies is in French, but let the browser translate it for you and you'll have it. These could be favors or awesome additions to a dessert buffet. Source: sandrakavital.blogspot.se via Kat on Pinterest

Click these gripping Clicky Links:

• What we've pinned this week: a dress with which I have fallen in love and totally fun rainbow fairy ribbon wands.
• EquallyWed featured a woman's guide to bespoke suits from our friends at Duchess Clothier, including terminology and what to avoid!
• Want to see a ring made from a chunk of meteorite? It's out of this world… [boos from the audience for bad pun]. (Thanks, Cat!)
• Offbeat Home is balancing growing up and staying offbeat.
• If none of the superhero heels above flipped your switch, you can always DIY a pair of Wonder Woman-inspired pumps.
• Find us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Flickr!

Photo by Jenn Link Photography

Ooh, girl. You know I loves me some loud shoes and some pink hair and when you coordinate your loud pink shoes with your bright pink hair? You're basically guaranteeing that I have to go change my pants.

To see more of Offbeat Bride reader Ferretgirl's insanely gorgeous Richmond, VA, wedding (the coordinated hair & shoes are really just the tip of the incredible iceberg), head on over to Jenn Link Photography.