Real Wedding: Ariel and Paul

I found this wedding that was featured on the Etsy Handmade Weddings blog via Offbeat Bride, and loved it's uniqueness - it's a DIY vegan punk wedding. Ariel and Paul were married in Tilden Park in the hills of Berkley, California with a reception at the Hillside Club. From the bride Ariel: "Our courtship was a string of midnight coffee and donuts, drunken bike rides, and sweaty punk shows. So when Paul and I decided we wanted to have a wedding, we had the daunting task of organizing a DIY vegan punk atheist wedding that wouldn't alienate our parents and extended families...We incorporated as much of our families' heirlooms and tokens of past generations as possible. We decided to use vintage California as our overall theme, and tried to have as classy a wedding as two scruffy punks can manage."
"The invitations were letterpress printed by the sweet friends of Paul at Portland's Stumptown Printers. I wanted them to look fancier than the hand-addressed alternative, but didn't have the money for a calligrapher. So I picked up an old 1960s cursive typewriter for cheap and hand-typed them all myself. I thought I was going to lose the use of my fingers after all that typing, but I love how they turned out!"
"Paul's mom Merry gave us her beautiful collection of vintage California postcards and photochromes to use as response cards. It was Paul's idea to use vintage stamps too. We found some wonderful sheets of old stamps at the local hobby store that cost face value."
"My dress was an homage to old Hollywood in a warm off-white, and lucky for us, it was a floor sample that happened to fit like a glove, so we saved a lot. My pretty retro birdcage veil was made by somethingboldveils, and I wore my mother's pearls with my mother-in-law Merry's pearl earrings."

"We had the ceremony up in Tilden Park in the Berkeley Hills in front of a big willow tree. We wrote our own vows, and had our very stately friend Nate act as officiant. (Holding his notes in a Ramones book to look more official, no doubt!) The vows were all about our love for each other, the joining of families and our desire to declare our commitment in front of our community. It was heartfelt and sweet — almost everybody cried."


"The reception was held at the Hillside Club, which is a Tudor style hall built in 1906, destroyed in a fire and rebuilt in 1923. It really helped to have two spaces so inherently pretty that we didn't have to worry about decorating much."
"Our very favorite vegan chef Antonio serves up all organic, vegan and locally grown fare at his stand, Flaco's, in the farmer's market. We had him whip up some faux chicken tamales, mole drenched soft tacos, pineapple jicama salad, mushroom ceviche, and big glass jars of strawberry agua fresca and horchata! All of the carnivores and veggies alike raved over the food!"
"To go with the food and theme, we got glass bottles of coca cola made in Mexico and big batches of sangria that my bridesmaid Kristina and I made the morning of the wedding. We took a case of red wine and cut up pounds of oranges, strawberries, nectarines, and berries, and threw them in a bucket to steep. We filled rented pitchers halfway with lemon lime soda with ice and topped it with the fruit infused wine. The result: very pretty and tasty centerpieces!"

"We cut our raspberry and chocolate vegan wedding cake from Black China Bakery with Paul's grandfather's Masons sword. I kept thinking "I'm actually cutting a vegan cake with a sword!" while laughing."
"We got the infamous DJ Lebowitz to play at our reception, doing piano adaptations of a slew of punk songs, from bands like The Ramones, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag. Our families enjoyed it just as much as our friends who were calling out song titles and singing along to their favorites. We danced our first dance to the Ramones version of "Baby, I Love You." That moment summed up everything about our wedding day for me, and I started crying: I was surrounded by my family and friends smiling and having a wonderful time, in the arms of the man I love, and it felt absolutely perfect."
The photographer was Andrew Kercher, "a great photographer, and mellow dude."

I love that even as an "anti-wedding" couple, they were able to make a wedding their own, and were so creative in everything they chose to do! Congrats!