Our Non-Traditional Wedding

Last week my husband and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Yeah… wow! During those years, I’ve made some new friends and reconnected with some old ones – some of whom have inquired about our nuptials. Seeing as I have yet to make an album that neatly sums up the experience, I thought I might take this opportunity to share the event here. So. What kind of wedding would you expect from someone like me – with a tendency towards the “artsy fartsy”, a highly non-gender-stereotypical personality, and zero expectations of ever getting married in the first place? Elopement? Vegas style? Shotgun? (Ha!) One of the advantages of being in my position is that I never had any of those “fairy tale wedding” dreams that most other girls do – I could start completely from scratch and make my own rules. At least, so I thought.

The Bride and Groom enjoying a rare quiet moment.

You see, when the time came for David and I to get married, we sat down and talked in great detail about all of the other weddings we had been to – what we liked, what we didn’t, and what we just didn’t see the point of (which was pretty much the same discussion we had about the institution of “marriage” itself, but I digress). We came to the conclusion that we wanted our wedding to be a celebration of who we were – both as part of a couple, and as members of our “tribe” – so we proceeded to make a list of all the fun ways that could happen. Of course, weddings being the socially ubiquitous construct that they are, not everything went quite according to our plan…but let’s not get mired in that, shall we? And so, without further ado, here are the “Top 10 Things” that helped to make our wedding very “Kate and Dave“.

1. We Paid For It Ourselves – This changed a lot of the rules right from the get go. Not only did it give us the freedom to say “No, we are going to do it THIS way”, but it also made us take a really good look at what we wanted to spend our hard-earned money on. Not that we didn’t accept the generous offerings from both sets of parents when they were presented – which we are still very grateful for – the wine and wine glasses, the food, and ultimately our rings. But it was on the stipulation that we had final say in how things were done. We decided that we wanted a “Backyard BBQ” feel to our day – because it both fit our personalities and our budget. And we relied a lot on the help of our amazing friends and family to get stuff done. It was really a communal effort, and we are still thankful for such a great community.

Some of the members of our fantastic community, who helped with everything from decorations to food to entertainment to hair/makeup.

2. We Were Selective About Traditions – Being a former art student, I was very curious about the symbolism involved in such an event, so I decided to do some serious research into the traditions of your “typical” wedding before we chose which customs we would honour. What I found was that many modern-day wedding customs are derived from archaic practices which… weren’t exactly our cuppa tea. Like how the “joining of hands” is symbolic of a purchase being made by the groom from the father… how the veil, from earliest times, has denoted the subordination of a woman to a man… and, well, the whole “giving away the bride” thing really doesn’t need much further explanation, does it? Suffice to say, we didn’t take any traditions for granted, and we went with the symbolism that best fit our beliefs.

“Customs & Traditions Cheat-Sheet”  which helped clarify our vision.

3. We Aimed To Keep It Short And Sweet – One of the things we wanted to avoid at our wedding was all of the waiting around – during the paper signing, during the photo taking, between the ceremony and the reception, etc. So, we got all of the legalities out of the way the day before, we held both parts of the wedding at the same venue one right after the other, and we had a friend of ours perform the ceremony – which ran a grand total of 11 minutes from beginning to end, if I recall correctly. Sadly, there were things we could not control – like when people arrived and like people expecting both a receiving line AND family/group photos and thus, making them happen… so we didn’t end up starting the reception quite as speedily as we had planned. But at least the bar was open while our guest had to wait.

Signing the papers the day before, us and our “Faux Preacher” friend, the multi-purpose venue, and the impromptu receiving line.

4. We Chose A Venue That Suited Us – Neither of us is what you would call “religious”, so getting married in a church seemed…well, hypocritical. And yet, the idea of getting hitched in some bland hot-and-stuffy community centre was also less than appealing. It would have been great to get married outside, but we worried that our older guests may have trouble climbing a mountain or traveling, and you can never control the weather. After a bit of “thinking outside the box”, we ended up renting the Southern Alberta Pioneer Lodge – a quaint little log cabin building nestled above the Elbow River in town. It had two floors – one for the ceremony and one for the reception – plus a fully-equipped kitchen AND a large grassy area outside if the weather turned out to be nice. It was a perfect solution – although looking at the photos now and seeing all the stuffed animal heads on the wall… it’s kind of laughable at the same time. It definitely gave people something to talk about though. 😉

The lower level of the Lodge, all set up for the reception.

5. We Ditched The Dress Code – I’m pretty sure most brides would be shocked to learn that my husband’s outfit cost more than my own. In fact, I think I spent less than $50 for everything I wore – including my shoes! We just couldn’t justify spending buckets of money on clothes that may never again be worn. So, I went shopping at your every-day clothing stores (and found some amazing bargains I might add), and then we hired a friend to sew a coordinating vest for David that he could wear with a dress shirt and pants. We told our bridesmaid and groomsman to dress as they wished, and suggested that everyone who was invited wear jeans (which we changed into for the reception) – because with any luck, a soccer game might break out at some point. Of course, not everyone did, but what can you do?

The wedding party casual attire – including denim for the reception.

6. We Made The Ceremony Meaningful To Us – Guests were invited to gather around the big fireplace where a makeshift altar had been set up. The procession music started (Storybook Love from “The Princess Bride”, as it was – and is – one of our favourite movies). David and I entered from the other side of the room, on opposite sides, and walked toward the altar, crossing paths on the way. We faced each other at the altar, the music stopped, and our friend (the Faux Preacher) began to speak. “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…” recited in the manner of the Impressive Clergyman from the movie. At which point, everybody just lost it and began laughing hysterically.

Much laughter and smiling peppered with moments of solemnity.

The tension was broken, everybody was giddy, and we set the comical tone for the rest of the ceremony. Which, in addition to our own personal vows, included such Faux Preacher classics as:

• Friends, family… and Jason Offet… we are gathered here today…
• Into this union Dave and Kate finally dive headfirst, plummeting downward, ever closer to the jagged rocks of social acceptability…
• If any of you can show just cause why they should not be married, please leave right now and Dave and Kate will give you back the VCR you brought for them…
• Kate – will you take this man to be your husband, to live together like you have been for the past three years, and not get all weird-acting all of a sudden, just because you are married now?
• Dave – will you take this woman to be your wife, continue to do your part of the housework, and steadfastly resolve to partake in your computer use for less than one hour a night, unless Kate is already asleep?
• Keith – have you lost the rings?
• By the power vested in me by the ULC, TPB, ACLU and the RCMP, I now pronounce you wife and man. Kate, you may now kiss the groom.

Various photos of the ceremony, which brings us to…

7. We Let Our Guests Be “The Photographer” – Okay. Big moment of truth here. The only person I really wanted to take photos of my wedding… was me. Given that I generally dislike most photos that other people take of me, it seemed silly to pay a photographer hundreds of dollars to take some. Surprise – I can be vain too. Besides, neither Dave nor myself really loved most of the “traditional” posed wedding photos, so we’d figure we’d let our guests supply us with the more personal/candid shots that we really did like. So, in addition to passing around my two film cameras, and inviting a couple of people who were dying to test out their new digital cameras, we also supplied each table with a recyclable “disposable” camera. The results were exactly what you’d expect – a great hodgepodge of photos ranging from really good to really, REALLY bad. Ultimately, we got shots of all the big moments – and several of the moments we would have otherwise missed. And with the surplus of pictures, we ended up sending every guest photos of themselves in their thank you card. Not a perfect solution, but it worked well enough for us.

One of the “posed” photos that was required of us (can you feel the love? 😉 ), one of our guest photographers in action, one of those wonderfully crazy candid snaps, and my favourite thing of all – one of the photos taken immediately after people entered and signed the Guest “Advice for A Happy Marriage” Book.

8. We Served Foods That “Fit” – After looking over far too many catering options, we decided that they were all a little too “frou frou” (and hideously expensive) for the kind of day we were going for. We wanted to keep the atmosphere relaxed, fun, and totally kid-friendly, so instead of serving a formal sit-down dinner, we hired a chef to prepare the picnic kinds of foods we really wanted. We ended up having a buffet table filled with BBQ chicken, burgers, corn dogs, chips, salsa, corn on the cob, beans, salads, etc. We also had a sno cone maker – conveniently set up at the bar (for those “grown up” slurpee fantasies that we’ve all had at one time or another).

Picnic style foods: corn dogs, sno cones, corn on the cob, burgers.

The highlight of night had to be the wedding cake though. Not only did we decide to have it made out of Rice Krispie squares (thanks to the hard work and dedication of our amazing friend Kim – and a whole lot of non-stick “Pam” apparently), but we also topped it with… what else, but LEGO.

Our Rice Krispie wedding cake, the LEGO topper, our happy guests, and the cake after it had been sitting under a hot light. Ooops.

9. We Built-In Entertainment – We knew that no matter how hard we tried, there would be “down times” – periods when there was nothing really “going on”, when things were transitioning from one phase to another, or when people just wouldn’t feel like dancing anymore. How do you keep your guests happy during those lulls (aside from having the bar open, of course)? Well, you give them permission to play. Instead of going the formal tablecloth route, we lined the tables with paper and gave our guests crayons (we found some interesting stuff at the end of the night, that’s for sure). We also made sure that there was a nice pile of LEGO on each table (though, somehow it all seemed to migrate into a few larger piles). There was also a karaoke machine set up and made use of much later in the evening, when a lot of the guests had either left or been suitably “lubricated”. And finally, we put our guests work – instead of tinking glasses to get us to kiss, they had to come up and recite a poem or sing a song or what have you, thus providing even more entertainment. Hilarity ensued.

Entertaining with LEGO, crayons and toys, a poem, and karaoke!

10. We Honoured The Environment – Face it. Large gatherings (such as a wedding) will most likely have a giant carbon footprint. But, we tried hard to honour our green beliefs the best that we could. We considered a lot of options, and finally decided upon things like:

• keeping the event local and as small as possible, and having both parts in one venue
• having our rings made and opting for only a small diamond
• making the dress code casual
• asking that nothing (like rice or confetti) be “showered upon us” after the ceremony
• not using crepe paper streamers or balloons to decorate, and using either paper or fabric tablecloths and tulle for swags
• decorating mostly with compostable flowers from my garden (supplemented with a few store-bought) displayed in glass wine decanters which were later donated to Value Village, as well as using potted plants
• serving dinner on parchment-paper-lined wicker plates that, along with the serving vessels, were also later donated
• preparing only as much food as was needed, and donating the surplus to the Food Bank
• using sturdy, washable (i.e. reusable) plastic utensils
• serving drinks in Mason jars, and using the lids to wrap the jaw breaker wedding favours in (everybody could take home a reusable container, a wine glass, and LEGO)
• recycling beverage containers, paper table liners, broken glass, and anything else we possibly could when we were done, and either donating/reusing as many of the gift bags as we could

Sorting through flowers, decorating with fabric and potted plants, specialty-made rings, the dads with wine glasses and a Mason jar.

Whew. So. The day was far from perfect. Not everything went according to plan, not everybody was “on board” with our vision of the event, and we ended up making a lot of compromises in an effort to keep people happy (where on earth did the plastic red cups and paper plates come from?!) Oh, well. You can’t control everything I suppose. Even thought there are many more silly and entertaining photos I could share, I’m pretty sure you get the point by now. Looking back, if I was to do it all over again, there are a few things I would definitely change… but hindsight is always 20/20. Ultimately, we got married in a fun way in front of our loving community – what more could you ask for, really? Happy anniversary, honey!