The Offbeat Bride: Lisa, musician/retail manager/student

Her offbeat partner: Alan, musician/shop assistant/student

Date and location of wedding: Young & Jackson Hotel, Melbourne, Australia - - May 16, 2015

Our offbeat wedding at a glance:

Our theme was urban vintage glam with rock 'n' roll attitude. Think red lipstick, a gold wedding dress, the groom in a top hat and tail coat, one of Melbourne's oldest pubs, and a soundtrack of Foo Fighters, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, AC/DC, Queen, Bowie, Nick Cave, and Blondie.

Possibly the most offbeat thing about our wedding was choosing to both change our surnames. Alan felt strongly that, as we are equal partners in marriage, he should change his name, too. What started as a nickname from a friend years ago became our new name: a combination of our original family names!

Both our ceremony and reception were held at Young & Jackson, arguably the most iconic pub in Melbourne. "Chloe" (the famous nude portrait) oversaw our wedding.

It was important to us that we experience the excitement of the day together, so we got ready together at a hotel in the city, travelled to the ceremony together and even walked down the aisle together. We invited our families to join us at the hotel for a mini celebration before the ceremony.

Our beautiful city has often been the location for our celebrations so we wanted to incorporate it into our wedding day. We did the majority of our portraits before the ceremony, simply cruising around Melbourne's laneways on foot with our photographer and Maid of Honour. It allowed us to have a laugh together and share in the anticipation in the lead-up to the ceremony.

Tell us about the ceremony:

Our celebrant, Melissa Jacob, was amazing in helping us to create a ceremony that felt honest and authentic. As we are both rock musicians (we met playing in a band together), music was especially important to us. Instead of readings, we had two musically gifted friends from the local scene perform their own original songs (which were significant to us) during the ceremony. We walked down the aisle together with Foo Fighters' "Everlong" pumping from the PA - we first bonded over a mutual appreciation of Dave Grohl.

Our mothers were our ring bearers, presenting us each with a ring to give to the other. We invited our brothers to be our witnesses; opting for a less traditional bridal party, our brothers were our Best Men and my oldest, closest friend was my Maid of Honour/Right Hand Woman.

Alan's dad had sadly passed away a year before the wedding, but we wanted him to be there in some way. We had a candle burning on the mantle behind us during the ceremony, next to the boutonniere he would have worn.

Tell us about your reception:

The reception started as soon as the ceremony ended, with the intention to party. We opted for a cocktail reception to allow everybody to mingle, and chose to serve many, many canapes, along with cupcakes for our wedding cake, after hearing horror stories about guests not having enough food. Fortunately there was plenty for everybody.

We had very carefully curated an iPod playlist for the night, which covered classic rock, motown, grunge, '90s pop, and everything in between. We hadn't officially planed a first dance, however when Queen's "You're My Best Friend" came on, everybody took a step back and we shared our first dance.

My brother is a lawyer and no stranger to public speaking, so he kindly assumed the role of MC for the evening. Our bandmate and good friend, Adam, gave a speech about how he introduced us years ago; Jasmine, my Maid of Honour, recounted how I had been oblivious to the fact that Alan wanted to be "more than friends," despite our chemistry on stage.

We decided that a bouquet/garter toss wasn't really us, although I wore a veil, and chose not to wear a blusher for the ceremony, so Alan and I had our own spontaneous "lift the veil and kiss" moment later on the dance floor, cheered on by our guests.

Vendors