Ariel Meadow Stallings - Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides
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Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides: summary, description and annotation
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Unenthused by a white wedding gown and bored by the hoopla of the Hollywood-style reception, Ariel Meadow Stallings found herself absolutely exhausted with the nuances of traditional nuptials . . . so she chose to take a walk off the beaten aisle. In this updated edition of Offbeat Bride, Stallings humorously recounts the story of the original offbeat weddinghersand shares anecdotes and advice from dozens of other nontraditional couples. She also includes a chapter on budget weddings in todays weak economy, along with sidebars, tips, tricks, and planner encouragement to help you figure out your special day. What results is a combination of hilarious wedding stories and tons of helpful how-tosa perfect mash-up of memoir and handbook.
At once practical and enjoyable, Offbeat Bride validates choosing the funky, different, and offbeat over the traditional, and leads couples through the planning processfrom unique ideas on how to announce their engagement all the way to answering the question, So, hows married life? Stallings is the ultimate guide to the alternative wedding of your dreams, and with Offbeat Bride, she brings you a book that serves both as an encouragement and celebration of aisles less traveled.
At once practical and enjoyable, Offbeat Bride validates choosing the funky, different, and offbeat over the traditional, and leads couples through the planning processfrom unique ideas on how to announce their engagement all the way to answering the question, So, hows married life? Stallings is the ultimate guide to the alternative wedding of your dreams, and with Offbeat Bride, she brings you a book that serves both as an encouragement and celebration of aisles less traveled.
Ariel Meadow Stallings: author's other books
Who wrote Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Ariel Meadow Stallings
Ariel Meadow Stallings
Ariel Meadow Stallings
Cathy Howes
Ariel Meadow Stallings
Michelle Park Lazette
Sharon Naylor Toris
Martin Jacobina
Gerin Carolyn
Abby Laura Leigh
Ariel Meadow Stallings
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Table of Contents
Dedicated to the Reverend Doctor
INTRODUCTION
Evidently, I like to do things backwards.
These days, most people first find Offbeat Bride online. Theyll search the web for something like black wedding dress or wedding invitation wording and stumble onto my website, offbeatbride.com.
From there they realize, Hey wait a minute, theres an Offbeat Bride book? and understandably assume that the book grew from the website. Because thats how things are often done these days. In actuality, however, the website was launched after this book was written.
When I wrote Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides in 2005, it was a relatively lonely process. I sat by myself in my Seattle home, cranking out chapters I hoped would encourage contemporary brides to feel good about their less-than-traditional wedding choices.
My companions during the process were primarily my research pool of about fifty lab rat couples (at the time, finding a whopping fifty people from across the country and around the world to interview about their nontraditional weddings felt like a lot). What I didnt realize was that the book would ultimately become the backstory for a website that would get me in touch with hundreds of thousands of nontraditional brides every month. The book writing would have felt much less lonely if Id known what was coming!
When I first launched offbeatbride.com, my goal was to complement the book with visual inspiration that I call wedding porn. Now dont freak outwedding porn is just photos from other offbeat weddings to inspire readers in their own planning. I use the term porn as a play on images that inspire desire, rather than images of naked people with plasticky genitals engaged in sexual activities. I wanted to use the web to show readers how they could think outside the box in terms of wedding gowns in every color, dcor in all degrees of DIY, and venues ranging from artist lofts and movie theaters to cemeteries and bars.
When I started the website, I didnt anticipate that wedding porn would have an unexpected side effect. See, while I wrote the book assuming readers would be wrestling with feeling too weird, wedding porn seemed to make readers fret that their weddings were too traditional!
Heres an example of an advice question I received from a website reader:
I feel sort of like an offbeat poser. Im wearing a white dress and although were not getting married in a church, our ceremony looks pretty traditional. Do you have any suggestions for how I can make my wedding more offbeat?
When I wrote Offbeat Bride in 2005, I never could have anticipated that anyone would feel like they needed to be more offbeat. Its amazing how the wedding industry has shifted in the years since then. Its wonderful to see individuality being valued more, but it comes with a tiny hint of bittersweet.
See, this book isnt here to tell you your wedding should be more anythingoffbeat or otherwise. I encourage you to question wedding shoulds and you gottas on both ends of the spectrum. You dont gotta DIY every piece of wedding decor any more than you gotta pay someone to cover your wedding chairs with froofy covers.
Your wedding is not a contest or a race. You dont need to prove anything to anyone, and the only prize is the commitment of your partner... and you get that regardless of how far you choose to walk off the beaten aisle. I want to encourage you to craft a wedding thats honest and authenticnot to tell you theres anything wrong with coveting a white dress or recognizing your faith in your ceremony.
Being offbeat is about expressing yourself through an authentic wedding that reflects you and your partner and your commitment. As an engaged woman, you dont need another voice saying youre failing. You dont need the voice of tradition telling you youre wrong for wanting to have pie instead of cake any more than you need the voice of nontradition telling you youre copping out if you take your partners last name or want your dad to walk you down the aisle.
When youre shaping your version of a ceremony that has thousands of years of cultural tradition behind it, you need all the company and encouragement you can get. So wherever you are on the offbeat spectrum, I hope this book lets you know that you are not alone; that there are others like you, fighting the good fight to plan a wedding with intent.
Offbeat Bride is just here to be your crazed cheerleader standing on the sidelines, waving its wedding pom-poms and shouting Yes! The Hindu-Jewish ceremony culminating in a tandem skydive is a great idea! (Because oh yes, it is!)
One of the biggest lessons Ive learned from the women whove shared their stories with me (both those who contributed to this book, as well as the many more Ive featured on my website) is that its all relative.
Some of us face major battles with family because even though were planning a relatively traditional ceremony, weve decided to have an Internet-ordained friend officiate instead of a rabbi. Others of us go balls-out and have weddings underwater or ceremonies in the mud at festivals. Nontraditional is completely contextual, and I never cease to be amazed by how people who deviate just a little from the norm can catch just as much flak as those who go way, way off the map.
Offbeat Bride isnt a how-to guide or a step-by-step wedding planner. For that stuff, Ive always found the interwebs and its many interactive tools and checklists to be more effective. Although I offer tips in each chapter, I dont expect that each one will apply to every wedding. Your wedding should ultimately reflect your opinionsnot mine.
Offbeat Bride is mostly the story of how my husband and I stumbled around trying to craft a wedding that felt right to us. We did it one way and learned a few lessons, but how you apply those lessons to your own offbeat wedding plans is up to you.
Once you read the book, I hope youll join me at offbeatbride.com so that we can drool together over the worlds best offbeat wedding porn and wave our pom-poms together. And maybe, after your offbeat wedding, youll even share your story with me. I cant wait to see how you and your partner shape your own celebration!
Ariel Meadow Stallings
Seattle, 2009
Seattle, 2009
PART 1
OTHERWISE ENGAGED
THE PRESSURE & THE PROPOSAL
Knowing When (& Whether) to Say I Do
Andreas and I had been together for less than a year when the questions started. I spent the afternoon of Christmas 1998 with my mother, two of my aunties, one aunties lesbian partner, and Andreass mother, Nancy. (Andreas was with his father for the holidays.) My Auntie Cherie, perhaps wishing to make me squirm in front of the mother of my boyfriend, asked me whether Andreas and I planned to get married.
I stuttered through my evasive answer. Well, were really committed to each other and we might have a ceremony someday to acknowledge that, but Im not sure if we need or want the legal institution of marriage to make it official.
There. Whew. I was committed, but we were nonconformists. The end.
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