Rock n Roll Bride - The ultimate guide for alternative brides

Hippy

A Relaxed Southern Wedding: Anton & Megan

Kat

March 13, 2012

I'm so excited to share the incredible warehouse wedding of Anton & Megan with you today. I just know you're going to love it! It's simple, beautiful and just the kind of celebration I'd love to be invited too! "Anton and I have been dating since my senior year of high school," Megan wrote to me. "We met in February 2006 at a show his band O'brother played. Neither of us expected to be those people that are highschool sweethearts but now we both feel really lucky to have found each other so soon. We can enjoy being young and married - something that doesn't seem so common anymore - as we grow old together."
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An Eco & Animal Friendly Wedding: Danny & Sandy

Kat

February 28, 2012

Being animal lovers, and with the bride's Mother running an animal rescue sanctuary (where the couple actually met!) an eco and aminal friendly wedding was perfect for Danny & Sandy. The bride explained, "We wanted everything to be eco-friendly and cozy! We stuck to bamboo plates and wooden utensils, and decorated with hay bales with burlap on top for seats, a bonfire, and mason jars with teelight candles hung in trees and lights draped throughout my backyard."
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A Burning Man Inspired Wedding: Christine & David

Kat

February 21, 2012

TThere's so much about Christine & David's wedding that I utterly adore - Christine's Wai-Ching wedding dress, the metal-welding ceremony, the Burning Man inspired after-party... seriously, if you don't love this wedding you're bonkers. "Well, we started off by not trying to be anything other than ourselves," Christine told me. "The only thing I knew I wanted was my Wai-Ching dress and a gluten-free cake, and David just wanted a raucous party. Neither of us had expectations of what our wedding should be, so we just took the parts of the traditional wedding that we liked, ditched the parts we didn't care about, and made some things up along the way."
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A Laid Back, New Age, Irish Wedding: Britta & Oscar

Kat

February 2, 2012

When I grow up I want to be as cool as Britta & Oscar please. They not only got married at their own home in Dunmanway, Ireland but they put the whole wedding together themselves including building their own marquee! "We built the structure with ash poles and tied tarpaulin to the poles with zip ties and lots of rope," Britta explained." It would not have been possible without the help of our friends especially Will Dukes who pretty much did most of the hard work as Oscar had broken his leg a few weeks before the wedding.... convenient you might say!"
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A Shamanic Wedding Ceremony in Guatemala: Daniela & Mark

Kat

January 30, 2012

How utterly beautiful is today's real wedding? This is the kind of wedding that makes my heart sing - no fuss, no details, no over-the-top-bridezilla-stresses - just the most important thing...love. The bride, Daniela, told me all about their special day. "There were only the two of us at the ceremony, the lady who married us, the lady who owned the land and our photographer. The ceremony itself lasted about 1.5 hrs and consisted of several parts: lighting the fire, being cleansed with special leaves and incense, hearing the 20 nahuales of the Mayan Calendar being read out, telling each other our love and exchanging our rings, being wrapped in a green shawl which represented Gaia. We began and ended the ceremony with chocolate, a block of which was also burned in the fire. Chocolate is sacred in Mayan culture."
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A Bohemian Hoedown Wedding: Reenie & Edwin

Kat

January 23, 2012

As soon as I saw bride Reenie in that incredible floppy hat I knew I had to feature her wedding. I love seeing brides that make really unique styling choices and I don't know about you but I can remember ever seeing a bride in a hat like this before. With her fabulous head wear she wore a 1970s style dress, which was the very first thing she bought, from Nataya for just $199! The October wedding was held at Hampton Hall Farm, Jefferson City, TN and their laid back hippy vibe makes me wish I was there. I love how homely and cosy it all looks and that the whole family got involved. The photos of them all having a pre-ceremony sing-along on the porch are just the best!
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“Joyfest 2011” A Weekend-Long Festival Wedding: Jen & Rob

Kat

January 18, 2012

"A weekend of celebration" was how Jen & Rob described their festival wedding to me, and that couldn't have been a more perfect description. Stokes Barn, specialising in self-catering group accommodation, in the Shropshire hills played host. "We knew we wanted something different," explained the bride. "We wanted to celebrate with the special people who enrich our lives and who share and understand our values and beliefs. We had the idea of a festival type celebration where we could create a magical, memorable and warm weekend (whatever the weather!) of celebration, relaxation, much merriment, Peace and Love!"
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A Hippy, Eco & Vintage Styled Shoot

Kat

August 3, 2011

This beautiful shoot with an eco hippy vibe tugs at my heart strings. Isn't it just beautiful!? I die over the summery details - the coloured glass, the cute props (owls for the win!), the yummy confectionery and the stunning florals. Photographer Nikita Gross used digital, Holga and Polaroid photography to capture the whimsical and retro vibe of these shoot...and I'd say she's done that perfectly! "We used tons of yellows and greens to keep with the natural vibe," she explains. "All of the decor was found at local thrift stores. Earlier this year myself and Jen Pritchard of Your Wedding by Jen created Cincinnati's first Alternative wedding Expo, Love+Bash. This is one of the table concepts from the show."
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Pyucin & Dylan’s Sustainable, Eco-Vintage Wedding

Kat

July 6, 2011

Pyucin & Dylan were married at Shelldance Orchid Gardens, Pacifica, CA. It was important to them to pick a venue that they didn't have to decorate themselves too much, as Pyucin explained, "When picking a venue, our goal was to keep it sustainable. We didn't want to purchase a bunch of decor that would be thrown away the next day, and we wanted to make sure that the site represented who we are. Thus, we went in search of a unique site that was within our budget, and we were so happy when we discovered this little green house. The Shelldance Gardens is a non-profit organization so we were happy to contribute to a good cause, and, on top of that, the site is so beautiful that it barely required any extra decoration. It is so green and earthy - it really reflected our love for nature and the outdoors."
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Joli & Gary’s Amazing Backyard Wedding

Kat

June 28, 2011

Joli & Gary eloped in San Francisco. They had planned to have a big wedding party afterwards with their friends and family at a biker bar in Palm Springs, but then Joli got pregnant and everything changed. So 7 months pregant, the couple had a kick ass celebration in the backyard of their Los Angeles home. They described their party as a celebration of "Love, Freedom, Wild, Raw, Family, FUN, Village, Community!" and that's exactly what it was.
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Peace & Love – Allie & Bo’s 1970’s Bohemian Wedding

Kat

June 13, 2011

There are some weddings I see that are just so adorably gorgeous that I squeal a little bit with delight when I'm allowed to share them with you...and this baby needs to be shared! I just know you're going to adore it as much as I do. Allie & Bo's wedding had a distinctive 1970's hippy vibe - an era that they live and love in their everyday lives. The bohemian, DIY details make this day simply perfect for them. As bride Allie explains, "I like to consider myself a modern day hippie with a bohemian bent. I wanted something sort of whimsical and vintage for my wedding. I grew up with stories from my grandmother of the passions of the hippie movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s. She encouraged me to be original and taught me an appreciation of nature and an independent sense of style. Bo and I love to hike and camp and we eat locally grown food, so it was important for us to plan an environmentally friendly wedding."
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Carly & John’s Laid Back, Offbeat Wedding

Kat

May 5, 2011

Carly & John's wedding had a laid back and simple vibe. It was important to them to keep their day genuine, and all their planning and thematic ideas really came about organically. The ceremony took place in Edogawa Japanese Gardens, East Gosford, Australia. "We didn't really have a theme, everything kinda just happened organically with us making decisions about venues, outfits and decorations as they came up," Carly explained. "In the end it was a blend of colour, asian themes with a Rock n Roll twist. The wedding fully represented us as a couple. The ceremony was completely hand crafted for us by our celebrant Sarah Tolmie (love and life inspirations). Instead of the traditional ceremony Sarah started the ceremony with acknowledging aboriginals as the the traditional custodians of the land where we were married, followed by her sharing our story of how we met and how our love grew. She then read out why both of us love the other to our guests, and then instead of vows we used askings that would be the foundations of marriage and how we would strive to behave through out it."
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Farley & Niko’s Hippy-tastic Rainbow Wedding

Kat

December 17, 2010

The thing I love about all you Rock n Roll Bride's is the diversity of all your weddings. Every morning my inbox is flooded with so many different wedding visions that it my days are never dull! Farley & Niko's wedding was planned in only 8 weeks. They explained, "We decided to go for it when Farley's Dad was diagnosed with pancreas and liver cancer. We therefore hadn't saved for it and had to cut corners where ever we could. We did have some very generous donations form family members which made it possible. I think we did it all within £4000 (that's 120 guests all fed)."
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A Hippy Chic Family Affair

Kat

October 29, 2010

Rissy & Mike's wedding was a real hippy and family affair. They involved everyone that was important to them in order to make it totally perfect. First off, Rissy carried their son, Casey down the aisle with her. "I was wearing Casey in a sakura bloom sling," Rissy explained. "Wearing him down the aisle and during the ceremony was very important to us because we wanted him to be with us as we all became an even closer family. We also practice attachment parenting which puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of baby wearing." With having a young baby, it was hard for the couple to go out and buy everything they could for the wedding, therefore about 99% of their wedding supplies were bought online. "Clothes and decorations pretty much everything else as far as decorations I bought at Anthropologie and World Market," Rissy continued. "I didn't want to hire a wedding planner as we didn't want to pay for one and I really wanted the event to be "us". I felt like I could do it best. The few things that were really important for us to have was an outside wedding on the water or in the woods and a dress that buttoned down the front so I could breast feed in my dress."
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Rachael & Rafe’s Pagan Handfasting Festival Wedding

Kat

September 14, 2010

Rachael & Rafe were uninterested in a traditional religious or civil ceremony so decided to get married on their own terms. They were wed by one of their closest friends, Tara, in a pagan hand-fasting service which took place outside, in a small copsed wood locally known as "The Spinney". They knew very early on in their planning that this was where they wanted to get married as the couple had spent some time living on a narrow-boat on the river, and for that period The Spinney was their garden, "It was where we hung out, relaxed, partied and where our children played. It is full of trees and love and so naturally the first place we both thought of for our ceremony" the couple told me.
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Sue & Shonagh Whimsical & Wonderful Wedding – A Touching Tribute

Kat

June 1, 2010

Sue & Shonagh actually got married in May 2008, however following the sad passing of Sue's Mum Hilary to Cancer just recently, with the full co-operation of the couple, both myself and photographer Caroline thought it would be a fitting tribute to share their whimsical and wonderful wedding with you today. Sue (in the tartan dress) and Shonagh (in the blue dress) were neighbours of Caroline and as soon as she heard the couple we getting married she jumped at the chance to photograph it. Another friend, who also lived in the same building, Vonny Mullock, made both the brides' dresses. Sue got ready in their flat and Shonagh got married in Vonny's flat. The couple met on the landing between when they were both ready and headed out together to get married.
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