On our Facebook page, I recently asked readers what they wanted to see more of from Offbeat Bride. One reader chimed in immediately with this feedback:

I'd like to see more "plain and boring" wedding pictures. I see lots of amazing decor and themes, but what about folks who consider getting married as the most important part of the wedding?

I love looking at pretty stationery and centerpieces, offbeat or conventional, but the idea of DIYing/paying so much for details is daunting. How about some super simple weddings for folks like me who couldn't care either way, as long as we're married? Or folks with absolutely zero budget? Or no professional photog? I'd like to see some inspiration on how to make a beautiful statement both on the cheap, and on the easy.

I understand these are least likely to be submitted to Offbeat Bride due to lack of "wedding porn," but I think it's definitely worth reaching out to these types of brides. We all like to see beautiful weddings, but if that's all we see, people tend to feel as though they have an expectation to live up to - offbeat or not.

We have several archives dedicated to featuring this kind of weddings :

We've even posted specifically about skipping photography (oof, the wedding photographers LOVED that one!), and posts about making do with budgets ranging from $100 to $500 to $1000.

We're always looking to publish more simple/minimalist weddings, but the reality is indeed that we don't get a ton submitted.

Why don't people submit boring weddings?

From my conversations with readers and community members, my understanding is that folks who opt for more minimalist, pared-down weddings don't seem to be as interested in showing them off online as those who invested a lot of resources (time, effort, money, or otherwise!) in the little details.

This makes sense, right? If you've spent ages on every little detail, sharing the wedding after it's done is one of your big rewards for all that effort! If your wedding was a simple and scaled down affair, maybe there's not as much motivation to share it.

Here's another uncomfortable truth: while we love featuring simple/minimalist weddings on Offbeat Bride and readers love the idea of us featuring more) the reality is that traffic to those posts is consistently lower. We continue to run them because we believe they have have a tremendous value in portraying the wide range of aesthetics that go into offbeat weddings, but we take a major traffic hit when we make the choice to feature a wedding that's less visually compelling. We are, after all, a media outlet. And media outlets are dependent on eyeballs. People say they want something, but don't click when we do it - what's that all about?

So why don't people READ boring weddings?

Clearly, we all love the concept of celebrating "plain and boring weddings," but why? As the original comment points out, "people tend to feel as though they have an expectation to live up to" something, so is the issue here that we need to soothe reader insecurities?

Our traffic patterns show us that "plain and boring" weddings don't actually get much traffic, but readers consistently request content that's more traditional, less showy, more minimal, and lower budget. Sometimes I worry the requests come from a place of feeling small: "Please show me a wedding that will make me feel better about what I'm doing." Ouch.

At Offbeat Bride, our mission is celebrating weddings that are an authentic expression of the people getting married. Our mission has nothing to do with theme weddings. We don't focus on unique weddings, and in fact they make me nervous. We focus on the intent and thought that went into the celebration, which is why our wedding submission form asks so many questions about the process, and only one about the wedding details.

Our goal is to feature weddings the inspire and amaze - sometimes that's visual, and sometimes it's not.

Tell you what. I'll make you all a collective deal: We'll work to feature a fair balance of less visually BOOM POW!! weddings, if you promise to always click through and actually read the wedding profiles of those less-visual weddings, to find the beauty in the intent.

Also, ultimately the weddings we feature are a reflection of the weddings submitted to us. If you feel like folks like you aren't represented, you can change that! Submit your wedding to Offbeat Bride.