The Offbeat Bride: Maria, Tribesmaid

Her offbeat partner: Brendan

Date and location of wedding: Beach Palace Resort, Cancun, Mexico - January 11, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
I wanted to elope or just go to the courthouse, but Brendan wanted his family to be there to see us get married. His family lives all over the country, so it would have been weird to have them fly all the way out here just to come to a courthouse ceremony and lunch. I tried as hard as I could to find a cheap way to have a traditional (ceremony and five hour dinner and dancing reception in a large room) wedding in Boston but I found myself really stressed and upset about the prospect of planning a wedding that I didn't even want. It finally clicked when I read this post about inviting people to watch you elope. That changed everything.

We picked a really awesome all-inclusive resort in Mexico and they did the rest! We had about 20 people come spend a few days with us in Mexico during the winter and I wouldn't have done it any other way. We ended up spending about 1/3 of what we would have spent just for a five-hour reception in Boston on an awesome beach wedding and week-long honeymoon. Because it was our guests' vacation too, we made it a point to have everyone do what they wanted to do. Some people hung out on the beach all day with us while others spent the day drinking by the pool or going on tours of Cancun. We got to see a fire show, go zip lining in the jungle, play with dolphins, spend lots of time with friends and family, and drink margaritas by the beach. It was an incredibly fun and laid-back week that ended with us getting married on Saturday morning.

Tell us about the ceremony:
We held hands and walked down the aisle together to"Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel. We wrote our own vows and picked a reading for one of our friends to do so that the ceremony felt personal to us, "Union" from From Beginning to End by Robert Fulghum. We wanted a fun and celebratory song for the end so "Flathead" by The Fratellis played as we walked back up the aisle.

Brendan's vows:

You help me reexamine my own beliefs and open my eyes to different ways of thinking.
You are the one I want to wake up next to every day.
You make me happy in a way that no one else can.
You respect me, support me, love me, and treat me as your equal.
You make me laugh every day and I have the most fun when we are together.
For all of these reasons and more, I love you.

I promise to always consider you in my decisions,
I promise to always let you be the champion.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, when life seems easy and when it seems hard, when our love is simple, and when it is an effort.
I vow to be the best parts of me that fit perfectly with the best parts of you.

This wedding will not change much between us, for the vows I make publicly today I made in my heart years ago.
I know our marriage will be just as awesome, annoying, silly, crazy, and filled with love as the past six years, and I'm looking forward to all of it.
I love you more than anything and I promise to love you that much forever.

Maria's vows:

You are the most genuine guy I've ever met.
You're a good guy all the way to your core.
You always know how to calm me down when I'm stressed out or just being a grumpy butt.
You let me feel like a champion even if we have to play best out of 37 for me to win.
You respect me, support me, love me, and treat me as your equal.
You make me laugh every day and I have the most fun when we are together.
For all of these reasons and more, I love you.

I promise to hold your hand wherever we go and to always kiss you goodnight.
I promise to be your player two, even if I don't know how to work the controller.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, when life seems easy and when it seems hard,
when our love is simple, and when it is an effort.
I vow to be the best parts of me that fit perfectly with the best parts of you

This wedding will not change much between us, for the vows I make publicly today I made in my heart years ago.
I know our marriage will be just as quirky, amazing, infuriating, dysfunctional, and filled with love as the past 6 years, and I'm looking forward to all of it.
I love you more than anything and I promise to love you that much forever.

Our biggest challenge:
The biggest challenge for me was learning to let go of control. I wanted to plan every little detail in advance so the day-of I could just relax, but the resort had other ideas. Because of the language barriers and their generally laid-back attitude, I found myself really frustrated when they took weeks to answer my questions or wouldn't allow me to meet with the judge before our ceremony because they didn't even know who the judge was going to be yet.

About a month before the wedding, I just had to let go of the reins and trust that the resort would do a good job, and they did. We walked into the ceremony space having no idea who the judge was or what she was going to say but she was very nice and did a great job. They definitely flubbed a couple things the day-of, like the judge mispronouncing Brendan's last name during the ceremony and the restaurant giving us a completely different reception dinner from what we had discussed, but it all worked out. We got married when we were supposed to and the dinner was delicious.

My favorite moment:
The coolest part of the week was seeing our family and friends come together. Part of the reason we picked a big resort was so people who didn't like each other wouldn't be forced to spend five hours together in the same room. We had divorced parents, kids that had never met, and people with very different views of the world attend our wedding. My mom and dad hadn't been in the same room together in five years and by the end of the week they were having breakfast together with my stepdad like they were old friends. My dad and Brendan's dad met for the first time and found out they had a few friends in common. I was so sure that people would ignore each other or feel uncomfortable, but I was blown away by how much everyone got along.

My funniest moment:
Everyone had arrived at the resort by Friday night before the wedding, so we had an impromptu bachelor/bachelorette party at the swim-up bar on the roof. We went a little hard on the margaritas and didn't make it to bed until about 2:00 a.m. and we were getting married at 10:00 a.m. the next day. We woke up the next morning still drunk - like stumbling around our room with our best man/maid of honor downing muffins and orange juice trying to sober up before the ceremony. Luckily we made it to the ceremony on time, but it just set this goofy tone for whole day.

When we got down to the ceremony spot, there was this big wall that I couldn't see over, and since I still hadn't seen what our decorations would look like I wanted to sneak a peek before we walked down the aisle. So I jumped up to see - and realized that everyone had just seen my head pop up over the wall. They all started laughing, and that's when we started walking down the aisle.

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Enough talk - show me the wedding porn!

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