Pictures by Liz Pumphrey Photography The offbeat bride: Beth, mom and VP at a big regional foundation (and OBT Member) Her offbeat partner: Jay, actor and company analyst for fleet management corporation Location & date of wedding: St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Cincinnati, OH August 14, 2010 What made our wedding offbeat: What, being gray and bald isn't offbeat enough in our pretty young bride magazine world? We welcomed and planned for kids to be at the wedding. We did lots of DIY print design and flowers. We used simple (recycled and recyclable) decorations. The bride wore green (off the rack) and the groom wore a nice new suit (with a tie to match the dress, naturally). Tattoos were present but not visible . The wedding party was the bride's children only wearing clothes that made them happy and comfortable. There was no dancing and no bouquet garter chucking. Beth & Jay skipped the traditional organ music and went with classical guitar instead. Tell us about the ceremony: Well ... we had a straight from the book Episcopal wedding service, because that's my background. Jay knew this was important to me and so that's what we did, although he is not religious. I regret somewhat that we couldn't find other ways to bring Jay's personality into the service itself. It did end up being personal, since our priest had spent a lot of time in premarital counseling with us. He used a non Bible reading we liked in a very short sermon, and he added a prayer for the children we now share to what was written in the prayer book (deleting a part about having more, at our request!). We wanted something simpler with less pomp than traditional organ music, so we found a local classical guitarist, who was wonderful. Beth says, 'This is how we get them to leave the room.' Our biggest challenge: The snowball effect. We envisioned a small ish wedding, not because of money or anything else. We just thought our circle was more intimate. Our final invitation list was bigger than we thought. Then a higher percentage of people than we thought could make it and wanted to join us. As Jay said to the crowd at the reception, "We were planning to invite just family and friends the people we love. And this was as small as we could get it." So true. In the end, it was a good thing. We had done some things on the cheap, so things like a larger catering bill didn't really phase us. I admit that, as someone who manages projects and plans events at work, it was hard for me not to get out in front of Jay on planning and doing things a“ if youa™re like that, dona™t run over your partner in the rush to get things done! My favorite moment: Jay: Standing up there together with the kids. Beth: I'm a really stage frightey kind of person so, of course, I started to shake as we walked in and I knew my legs were shaking for all to see (knee length dress). As I felt my daughter leaning on me, and I could lean on Jay, all that nervousness just went away and I was happy casual summer dress, happy, happy. Smiling at all our family and friends as we walked in and out. Seeing our awesome cakes made with love by a friend! Hearing Jay's touching words about his late father, whose dog tags he carried that day. The groom's cake was Jay's favorite scotch made out of white chocolate. My funniest moment: We weren't sure my 6 year old son would be able to stand still as long as he did, with nothing else to do and "boring church stuff." He did great, but ten or fifteen minutes in, he suddenly pulled up Jay's pant leg and said "Are you wearing cowboy boots?" (He wasn't). Just a curious boy doing what little boys do! No one heard but Jay but he was tickled. At the reception, people's incredulity that the groom's cake was actually cake! It was so realistic. And I loved seeing people coloring and playing with the stuff we had put on all the tables for children. They saved wine bottles to use as vases and bought wholesale sunflowers for the centerpieces. Was there anything you were sure was going to be a total disaster that unexpectedly turned out great? We wanted to grow our own sunflowers. Which we did. And which all had already bloomed and died in the heat before August 14. Boo. I did have a few to take as host gifts to showers. But we had a plan B and my wonderful parents ordered sunflowers in bulk from our local Kroger store christian louboutains, paid for, and delivered them to us the day before! We had gobs of flowers to put in recycled green wine bottles for our centerpieces, buffet, extra vases, and I made, both, my daughter's and my bouquet with them. It was awesome to walk into that big sunny room and see sunflowers and happy faces everywhere! My advice for offbeat brides: Figure out what your vision is and stick to it. Think about what would make you happy that day when you remember it later. Don't tell people about the details if you don't want their input! It's fun to be surprised anyway. And when people (like parents) aren't paying, they don't get to say, right? But don't borrow trouble. People love you and they want to be happy for you. Plan your own happy day cute dresses for homecoming, but be considerate of people's needs so you don't throw people so far out of their own comfort zone that they're miserable you are the host of a big party after all, and that's what a good host does. And if there are traditional things you like and have meaning for you, by all means do them! It's not a contest to be offbeat. Have you been married before and if so, what did you do differently? Jay: My first wedding was actually more offbeat than this one. It was non religious, held in an old men only men's club, and used a Justice of the Peace. The best man was a woman and got hit on by the Justice of the Peace. Beth: Picked the right guy navy platform shoes! I had actually mostly done what we wanted and dropped the rest the first time, so I had some muscle memory for disregarding things that werena™t meaningful to us. How can there be kids but not candy? There can't miss sixty dresses! Care to share a few vendor shopping links? Groom's suit: Jos. A. Bank Bride's dress: Dress Barn (no, really) Bride's shoes: DSW Kids' clothes: Macy's, Gap Kids, Payless and Stride Rite. Photographer: Liz Pumphrey Photography Catering: Funky's Catering Wedding and Reception Venue: St. Thomas Episcopal Church Guitarist: Joel Greenberg Enough talk show me the wedding porn! Read more posts about: brides over 40 sexy lingerie for women, church wedding, colorful wedding, diy wedding, episcopal, green wedding dress, kids, ohio wedding, second marriage, simple wedding, yellow shoes Share on Tumblr About Offbeat Intern The Offbeat Intern cranks out wedding profiles, guest posts, and other user contributed content on Offbeat Empire sites. Related