The Offbeat Bride: Katie, IT Admin Support and Photography student (and Tribesmaid)

Her offbeat partner: Gordon, Retail Model Hobbyist

Date and location of wedding: Staglands Wildlife Preserve, New Zealand - January 26, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Gordon and I both have a love for animals, especially birds. We both wanted to do some sort of bird theme, so when we first visited a potential venue, it was set in stone as soon as we saw all of the flocked beauties everywhere!

We DIYed quite a lot of things to save money such as my brooch bouquet, flowers from a wholesale market, doing our own table runners, ties, and decor. I was watching our budget like a hawk, but I can really see how weddings get so expensive! Ours was mid-range and we did all we could, without sacrificing what we most wanted.

We had no bouquet toss (though we did consider doing a Companion Cube toss, but we got too attached to the toy!), no garter toss, no parent dances after the first dance, and we stayed together the night before.

Tell us about the ceremony:
The day was full of drizzle and a couple of downpours, so we made the decision last-minute to move our ceremony to our reception site, as it was more covered there. Gordon entered the ceremony to a Princess Bride track, and the girls and I entered to "Everlasting Light" by the Black Keys.

We had a peacock making a full circle around us during the ceremony. My best friend/maid of honour and another good friend of mine read A Lovely Love Story.

Our vows included references to tolerating each other (something we joke about) and we ended with "I love you," "I love you more," "I love you most," from .

Our biggest challenge:
We had two groomsmen pull out a month beforehand and some of our entertainment pulled out two weeks beforehand. My mum was also in and out of hospital the month of January and was still in hospital four days beforehand. I was pretty stressed trying to find out when she would be out.

One of our challenges, since my mother wasn't able to do some of what she was planning to do, was not having people understand the urgency to avoid last-minute mishaps.

My funniest moment:
A naughty goose kept things interesting. He/she kept trying to eat my dress, interrupted the ceremony by eating my bridesmaid's dress, kept trying to eat people's food, and at one point went for a ride on my train.

My favorite moment:
Having some time to ourselves after the ceremony was really nice. We had relaxed more at that point and having time alone was really lovely.

Our MC, a colleague of mine, was giving his speech and I was wondering what he was rambling on about. We then realized that he'd gotten us a letter from Buckingham Palace. He invited the queen to our wedding, so we got a framed "thanks, but no thanks" letter presented to us!

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links? Dress from Rasha Taylor Couture

Enough talk - show me the wedding porn!