The Offbeat Bride: Jade, minister and teacher

Her offbeat partner: Tyler, listener services specialist

Date and location of wedding: Crawford's Barn, Sacramento, California - Februray 15, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

I LOVE ice cream, so we had an ice cream bar. I don't like cake toppers with generic faces, poses, and hair, so we made a cake topper of ourselves. It doesn't make sense to me to have the protector of the rings be a 5-year-old, so we asked our good friend Jimmy, and he gladly went and got his own teddy bear tie made.

I'm not much of a flower person, and I never liked the idea of a garter, so we tossed Superman and Batman plush dolls (our favorite superheroes, which is much cause for healthy debate). I am, however, a big reader, so we handmade our paper bouquets. Our favors were custom sunglasses. I made our unity sand display myself. We had a groomsgal and bridesguy along in our wedding party.

We arranged the chairs in a spiral for the ceremony and got married in the center of all of the people we love. I have a dad, a stepdad, and my pastor has been a very important father figure to me, so each walked me 1/3 of the way through the spiral and passed me to the next one just like they did in the course of my life. Because of this (and my dislike for dancing and being the center of attention), I decided not to do a father/daughter dance. However, when the dance floor was open for all, I got a nice personal dance with my stepdad.

Lastly, we wanted our guests to get to know each other since we're family now, so our centerpieces were one flat canvas per table and a few paints, laying over scattered comic book pages. Each table worked together to make us one painting to hang in our new home. We still love looking at them each day, and they're a great conversation topic when our painters visit and see their canvas on our wall!

Tell us about the ceremony:

As far as the ceremony itself, everything was pretty traditional. We had a unity sand ceremony, our closest friends, and we said pretty typical vows. We searched online, selected vows we liked, and blended them until we both agreed. A few of our notable changes were that rather than saying, "If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace," we chose to have our officiant say, "If anyone objects to this marriage, that's too bad. You should have spoken sooner." He also said, "By the power vested in me, by the state of California, the cities of Gotham and Metropolis, and by God, I now pronounce you man and wife."

One of my favorite parts of the ceremony is that, although we shared our first kiss when we got engaged, our first public kiss was at our wedding.

Our biggest challenge:

I am not much of a planner, but I tried to be as thorough as possible, so I was pretty confident in everything panning out. But as I was so very nervous, I forgot paintbrushes for our centerpieces, a funnel for the sand, and worst of all, I had lost my vows!

My amazing family took care of the missing items. Shortly before I needed them, my friend called and told me she found my vows in her laundry (how did they get there?!), and she was on her way with them.

Also, I told our pastor that when asked, "Who gives this bride to me married?" All three of my "dads" would say "We do." Only problem... I never told them about the plan! Luckily, they're amazing and just went with the flow.

My favorite moment:

We decided to start our day with a first look so we could spend the day together, not just the night. It made us so relaxed and happy to be together. We took our posed photos in the afternoon so that we could spend more time with our guests. I wasn't nervous at all until late the night before our wedding and the morning of. So, when I finally walked up to Tyler and saw the way he looked at me, it made the WHOLE day easier.

We wanted to write our own vows but wanted them to be private, so we said them to each other during the first look, and our photographer was very respectful. I'm not much of a crier, but when Tyler read me the vows he had written, it was my favorite thing I've ever heard, and I was quite emotional.

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