The Offbeat Bride: Blaire, Fourth grade teacher

Her offbeat partner: Adam, Real Estate Agent

Date and location of wedding: The Belle Hollow, Clarksville, TN - September 26, 2015

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

Our wedding was a book-themed Potterphile wedding. I am a huge bookworm, always have been, and Adam supports my habit. My favorite series is Harry Potter, hence the tattoos (I have his glasses and scar on my left arm and the Deathly Hallows/Snitch on my right arm). So we decided to make my love our wedding theme!

We took books that we purchased from a secondhand bookstore and spray painted them gold as our centerpieces. Pro tip: Rustoleum metallic gold is the best. We stacked them on top of old books from my mom's library. The flowers and garlands were then put inside hollow books for a secret garden effect.

Each of the tables had a runner made of torn pages from trashy romance novels held together with packing tape. We specifically tore out pages with the steamy scenes! Bookmarks were our favors which matched the design on our wedding invitations. The invitations were made to look like a stack of books. Our guest book/print looked like stacks of books, too. The guests were asked to sign the spines of the books.

We had two wedding party members, a Best Man and a Matron of Honor. They were beyond wonderful. My godmother was our flower girl and my godfather walked me down the aisle in memory of my late father.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our ceremony was both heartfelt and funny. My godbrother was our officiant - he's the well-dressed Scotsman. He was PERFECT. Adam and I wrote our vows, and his were hysterical. He makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world. He has two daughters, who are six and nine, and I said vows to them as well. We also had family medallion necklaces for the girls, but I was so nervous that I forgot to take them to the altar with me.

Our music for the ceremony was strictly by The Vitamin String Quartet. We are huge fans of The Office and I remarked how much I loved the way they incorporated Dwight's love of rock and roll into his and Angela's wedding ceremony. That sent us on an internet scavenger hunt for instrumental rock and roll songs, which led us to The Vitamin String Quartet. I walked down to "Storybook Love" from The Princess Bride. Adam, his girls, and our wedding party walked down to "Daughters."

After the ceremony, our officiant served us communion. But he also had a special surprise. In his jaunty badger sporran, out came a bottle of whiskey and three shot glasses! We snuck into the bride's dressing room to take some shots before we began our more formal pictures.

Tell us about your reception:

This was the second wedding for both of us and we were committed to making it full of love and laughter. Our first dance was to "That's All" by Mel Torme.

Our dessert table was Harry Potter-themed. We had a two-tier wedding cake, 75 cupcakes (strawberry margarita, wedding cake flavor, cookies and cream, and chocolate salted caramel) along with 30 golden snitch cake pops. We fed each other bride and groom-themed snitches from the top of the cake. We also had an "open bar" for the kiddos. It included Snape's Snickers, Bertie Bott's Ever Flavor Beans, Harry's Hersheys, Ron's Red Vines, and Granger's Gummies. It was set up to look like the trolley from the Hogwarts Express.

Our very favorite parts came at the end. I had the idea of saving extra book pages from the runners. Our guests then surrounded us and tossed the pages in the air! Our last shot of the night was us kissing in the rain. Our first official kiss as a couple was in the rain, in a Walmart parking lot, and we were stoked to recreate the shot on our wedding day. Our photographers were so gracious, setting it up and making sure it was perfect.

What was your most important lesson learned?

Our biggest wedding challenge was an issue that falls under the "better or worse" part of the our vows. I am bipolar and large amounts of stress can set me off.

We learned VERY early on an important detail: a bride can become very excited with the possibilities of what the wedding can entail, while a groom sometimes just holds on for the ride.

Adam explained it like this: when he had his daughters, he became fully invested the day they were born. He couldn't feel them growing in the mother's belly, he had to trust her and what it felt like. But the day they were born, he fully got it. The same was true for our wedding. He couldn't, at times, understand the vision in my head. After a few rough discussions, we realized that he was a "bottom line" kind of guy. Thinking aloud and running ideas by him stressed him out which in turn stressed me out which put me at a higher risk of having an emotional meltdown. Once we came to that conclusion, we were much better at communicating about the wedding and our ideas.

I also learned that pictures really ARE worth a thousand words. I poured over plus size brides for months, comparing my own body to theirs. What I learned when we got our pictures back was that the love he and I share is what shines through. All the stressing I did about my arms and how to pose to make myself look "skinny" meant nothing.

Vendors

• Photographer: The Kellys' Productions
• Wedding dress and alterations: Bridal Warehouse in Franklin, TN
• Venue: The Belle Hollow in Clarksville, TN (included catering, tables, chairs, china, beer, and wine)
• Linen Rental: Grand Central Party Rental, Inc. in Madison, TN
• Flowers: Import Flowers, all centerpieces and bouquets were made by my Matron of Honor!
• Coordinator and all paper products:Sarah Buis of Sweet as Honey Studio
• Hair and makeup: Good Sister Bad Sister Glam Squad in Nashville, TN