Monday, November 08, 2010

Unique Weddings

I’ve got weddings on my mind lately. So I’m always on the lookout for interesting/unique/fun nuptials. For instance, a friend of mine told me about a ceremony she attended recently. The bride was in her forties and had never been married. The groom was in his fifties and was divorced. An older couple. (Although I find 'older' to be an extremely relative term these days.) Because of their age and their respective experience, I guess, they didn’t feel the need to have a traditional white dress ‘I’m going to give a meal to everyone I ever met’ kind of event.

Instead, they asked some of their guests to host tables. Hosting a table meant asking them to supply the meal and place settings for ten people. From all reports this made for a fascinating and fun dinner. Every table had a theme. It was like traveling to different parts of the world every time you strolled about the room. The bride, obviously not suffering from stage fright, sang a cappella as she walked down the aisle, and the groom did a little dance. I’m told it was a true celebration in every sense of the word.

Our girl Michele told me about a wedding where the pets of the bride and groom were honored guests. Wasn’t that it, Michele? They had their own seats?

My niece who lives on the North Dakota/Wyoming border just got married. She’s a professional fencer. In other words, she puts up miles and miles of barb wire on a daily basis. She and her husband are also pretty serious deer hunters. The centerpieces for their reception were a gelatinous candle in a glass jar into which a little curl of rusty barbwire and shotgun shells were incorporated. Very cute and extremely specific to their personalities.

I love the idea of making weddings personal and fun. But it’s a little intimidating.

My daughter, who is planning an October wedding, hopes to get married on horseback.

My son, whose fiancée is from Cameroon, wants an Arabic theme for their celebration.

So I’m looking for fun ideas. Have you been to any weddings recently? What was the most interesting aspect of the event? Was it the location, the dress, the cake, the guests? Enlighten me.

18 comments:

Cindy Gerard said...

What a fun post, Lois! And congratulations on not one but 2 upcoming family weddings! How wonderful!

Love all these 'out there' weddings - said a little prayer for the brides maids in the frilly HOT pink dresses :o) - and wish I had something unique to suggest but I'm drawing a blank. Me - I just love weddings - traditional, outrageous, quirky ... they all work for me. I'm looking forward to the suggestions you get today though :o).

Leanne said...

Great post Lois! I too love weddings no matter what kind. Love it when they especially reflect the personalities of the bride and groom. My daughter and son-in-law played a lot of card games during their courtship, so I thought it was cool that they gave a deck of cards as the wedding favor.:)

Leanne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Helen Brenna said...

Hey Lois! Fun post - I think I remember seeing the camo couple on some news show one night a while back!

I've only been to one wedding in years and years and it was fairly traditional. One thing they did at the reception that was cute ... had one of those photo booths. People took pics of themselves and then put them in the guest book. That made for some fun!

Kathleen Eagle said...

Weddings! Wonderful!

I haven't been to one in a while, but I try to catch a TV wedding show once in a while. Saw one a while back that was held in the b&g's favorite bar (in Texas, I think) famous for its huge mud puddle. Toward the end of the reception everyone jumped in and had themselves a a celebratory wallow.

Love "My Fair Wedding." Have you seen that one?

Hellie Sinclair said...

I tend to avoid weddings. But my co-worker just helped out with one and talked about a couple things that were just too neat to pass up if I ever got married. *LOL*

The first thing was instead a unity candle, they had a box (a nice wooden box) that contained a bottle of good wine and the bride and groom put in letters, then sealed the box. Basically the gist was if they ever decided to get divorced, they were open the box, drink the wine, and read the letters--like one last night to think it over. (I told her I was pretty sure I'd open that box before the first year was up.)

Second thing, HUGE sparklers. They lined the driveway with these sparklers and the bride and groom drove off with sparklers lighting their way. Awesome!

Anonymous said...

I don't really want to get married but if for some reason that changes I want to have a Halloween wedding. Everyone would have to dress in costume (no slutty or cheap looking ones) and I'd have cool decorations every where.


Stephanie G
Paranormal Haven

Unknown said...

Leanne, party favors! We didn't do that two hundred years ago when I got married. But cards are a cute idea.

I know a couple who gave away tea packets with the date of the wedding inscribed.

Unknown said...

Photo booths seem to be a hot item lately. I like it.

Unknown said...

Hellion, I looooove the huge sprinkler idea. How pretty would that be!

Debra Dixon said...

Lois--

Two weddings coming up? Yikes, what a busy time! But fun too.

My niece did the destination wedding thing which is so popular. And sort of drives me crazy. They did do a big celebration of the wedding in her hometown of Myrtle Beach, but if you went to both then that was two trips!

I don't have any great ideas for weddings other than one friend trained her dog to be the ring bearer. LOL!

Unknown said...

Stephanie, when I googled unique weddings I saw pics of several weddings where people were dressed in Halloween costumes for their nuptials. Very interesting. I think lots of people are bored with traditional.

KylieBrant said...

Having done two sons' weddings three weeks apart, it can be done but yikes! it's wild!

We were at a wedding last summer where the three dogs came down the aisle pulled in a wagon by one of the little ring bearers.

One of my daughter in laws had no close friends so she asked only her future sister in laws to be in the wedding. My son, nicknamed 'the mayor' had about 12 he wanted to have included on his side. My recommendation was to have the extra groomsmen just come out from the side of the church up front and join him before the wedding party walked up. Then they walked out in the recessional with the party.

My daughter, who isn't yet engaged, has proclaimed her intention of having 'brides-men' and having her brothers stand up for her along with some of her friends.

These days, it's whatever works. And I think that makes it more special for the couples!

Unknown said...

Love the bridesmen idea, Kylie. Why not?

We're considering putting the flower girls on ponies. But it would bad to have two little adorable girls having hysterical fits about sitting on a horse. Considerably worse if they got bucked off or something.

Christie Ridgway said...

I love the bridesmen idea too, Kylie. One of my books featured a secondary hero who was asked to be the "man of honor" for the bride (& the woman he loved).

The weddings I've been to lately have been fairly traditional, but my mom went to a wedding recently. The couple are both artist-types and they had wonderful Victorian costumes made. They asked the audience to dress in that style if so inclined. Lots did. It looked lovely.

KylieBrant said...

Christie--my oldest son was the man of honor at one of his friends wedding :) He refused to walk down the aisle but he wore a tux, read a scripture, sat at the head table and gave the speech for the bride :) It was really neat!

Unknown said...

I love the idea that men and women can be good enough friends that they have the opposite gender stand up for them at their wedding. Cute book idea, Christie.

catslady said...

I just went to my counsin's daughter's wedding this past August. They had 5 enormous black newfoundlands with each of the grooms. Flowers around their necks. The wedding was under cover but outside at an estate that is open to the public. A woman went walking by with two other dogs and we were all waiting for the dogs to take off lol. None of the grooms were owners - 2 belonged to the wedding couple, 2 to the bride's parents, and one to the groom's mother. and then when the priest said "does anyone object" - I swear one of the dogs barked lol.