The Offbeat Bride: Rachel

Her offbeat partner: Adam

Date and location of wedding: Pennridge Community Center, Silverdale, PA - May 21, 2016

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

Our tastes and styles are so eclectic that I needed the constraints of a theme to make decisions more easily. We decided on a steampunk circus wedding. We encouraged our friends and family to dress in costume, too. This worked out really well, especially because we did not do a seating chart. The costumes were an instant conversation starter.

I was working with a shoestring budget for flowers and centerpieces, but also had a passion for the details. So I handmade all of the decoration over many months. I used scrapbook paper that I had lying around to make pinwheels, rosette garland, and boutonnieres. I think there were over 2000 rosettes in total. For added flare, one of our friends painted head-in-the-hole photo boards with an acrobat, lion tamer, strong man, and a couple joined at the hip.

We invited the wedding party to spice up their outfits at their discretion with corsets, goggles, timepieces, and hats. I wore my Doc Martens.

The entire affair was a sensational DIY fun house full of costumes, intrigue, and sing-alongs.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our ceremony was my favorite part of the night. We wanted to keep it short and sweet, with as much flavor and meaning as possible. Preceding the ceremony, we had a playlist on an iPad with faded instrumental songs in and out including songs by Mogwai and Maserati.

It was important to us to write our own vows. Adam is a very spontaneous individual and really did not want a wedding script. I pleaded with him to write his vows beforehand, but it turned out that I was the one who forgot my printed vows at my parents' house. Whoops!

I liked the idea of some structure, so that no one was caught off guard and each person knew what they were going to be saying and doing. In the end, I am glad we had a script but also let our ringleader officiant (Adam's Cousin George) ad lib a bit.

In lieu of a flower girl (we didn't have children at the wedding), we asked Adam's grandmother, Nans, to walk down the aisle with a sign that read "Adam, here comes your bride." We were so happy she agreed.

My parents followed Nans by walking me down the aisle to "Rise to Glory" by Earth. Also, during the ceremony, Adam's sister Holly Rick-Rolled him upon my request. Needless to say, he was surprised and I secured the victory in that ongoing battle.

At the end, guests threw popcorn instead of rice.

Tell us about your reception:

The vibe of the room was really lively. Our wedding party entered to Gogol Bordello's song "American Wedding." Adam and I walked into the instrumental portion of "Combustion" by Meshuggah, which is one of our favorite bands.

We had everything served buffet-style. Sit-down dinners take up so much time and felt stuffy to us. Our family and friends are a bunch of partiers and the more time they had for drinking and dancing, the better.

The cliché of clinking glasses for kissing makes my blood curdle, so our DJ had the brilliant idea of "serenading the bride." The guests were invited to sing a song to us with the word "love" in it. Whenever we heard the word, we had to kiss. This worked well for our group because so many of them are musicians.

Our party favors were orange circus peanuts in vintage peanut bags. Paper rosettes dotted the ceiling over the dance floor, and the centerpieces were miniature hot air balloons (made with small lanterns and tooth picks) with succulents riding in their baskets. These were surrounded by baby's breath and pinwheels in jars with a length of "admit one" tickets curled inside.

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