Mariesa & Gary's TV geek wedding (with a broken foot)

Some of you may recall when Gary and I got engaged, I went a little crazy. ;)



Gary loves to tell this story:

He proposed at the end of the Rock N Roll Half Marathon while we were on vacation in Virginia Beach. That was the Sunday before Labor Day, 2008. The next morning when we boarded a plane back to Birmingham, I got on with at least six bridal magazines in my carry-on bag. The planning started almost immediately. As I always interject when he tells people this, of course it did. I'm a planner. I was excited. And I had been waiting a whole lotta years for him to propose.



As I flipped through bazillions of magazines and surfed a ton of Web sites, I realized just how non-traditional I really am. I kept coming away with that "this doesn't apply to me" feeling. Most of it didn't. I was 37 when we got married. Gary was 51. We have both been married before. But mostly, we really wanted it to be as personal as possible. Not a lot of the information out there will help you plan that kind of wedding event. So, being who I am, I decided to speak up about who we are and what we were planning, how far we were going outside of the box and why it was so important to us. And I spoke loudly. All within about six months last year, I was bravobride.com's Bride of the Month, got our engagement story featured on theweddinglens.com, was interviewed for Modern Bride, Redbook and Bride's magazine (March 2010 issue, "Crazy Love," on newsstands now), and I was quoted on msnbc.com (this one was about the honeymoon, not The Wedding).



But through the whole planning process, there was really only one Web site community where I felt like I truly belonged. The women and couples featured there were my people. I was one of them. They had ideas and passion and fun with their weddings. They were creative and different and understanding and supportive - no matter how freakish I was (or was not). Beyond being married to Gary at the end of it all, I really, really wanted to see our wedding featured on offbeatbride.com.



And yesterday, it was.



Thank you, Ariel and Megan, for providing this service to offbeat brides everywhere, for a truly memorable wedding planning experience (okay, the good parts I'm thanking you for, not the crap) and thank you for choosing our wedding to feature. As I said yesterday to Megan, you chicks rock!



Real Weddings: Southern US: Mariesa & Gary's TV geek wedding (with a broken foot)