how will your wedding be 'different?'

Anyone have any unconventional idea to make their wedding 'different?'

I tend to love the best man speeches, especially if they are chock full of GREAT anecdotes about the couple... has anyone ever seen a mini-roast done at a wedding? Having some old friends and/or family members get up to (quickly) share an embarrassing or funny moment about the bride or groom?

I think it might be a fun thing to do during the first course or something. My FH says I'm treating our wedding like open mic night LOL

What do you think?

I think that sounds like a fun idea. But I would be very selective about who gets to stand up and make the speeches. I would choose the people and tell them to prepare something. I know what you are going for with this but most people don't improv anecdotal speeches very well. Also, you have to limit the amount of time devoted to it or before you know it -- it just may turn into 'open mic nite'!

My unconventional idea is my guestbook. FH and I are both techies and we wanted to tie this in somehow. So I will be writing a little 'guestbook' program which will run on a laptop that will have a camera attached. Guests will be able to snap their photo, see it instantly on the screen, and write (on a writing tablet) their well wishes and advice. I thought it was a cute little hi-tech idea for the wedding. A digital guestbook!

OMG JIMMYS BRIDE --- my FH is a techie like you wouldn't believe!! I have to tell him your idea!! We have an iSight camera and i think it could work out great!

ETA-- of course, we arent going to rip off your idea!! I just think he'd sooo get a kick out of it!

thanks for your points about the speeches! all great ones!!

Wow that is really cool! I was just thinking of a pink cake.

FH and I are changing into matching pairs of our favorite sneakers (Old school Adidas superstars...mine are white w/ black stripes and FH has the black with white stripes!!)

Our fist dance is a country song, which is different that what our friends are used to

We are incorporating New York and Missouri. All of our table names will be either places special to us in both places. We are having a vineyard theme throughout the whole thing, it started with the STD and will carry through the invites, menus, placecards...and we are going to have wine bottles (one red, one white) at each table from the winery in Missouri that uses my FH's vineyard grapes. We are also having grapes hanging in our centerpieces and on our cake.

And we are having German food at our cocktail hour since we are both half-German.

Edited to say, we should have gotten married in October and had an ocktoberfest!

The order of our reception will be different from what most Li'ers..and Americans..are used to.

We're being introduced into the reception. Then all will sit down for an uninterrupted appetizer and main course (no dance sets in between courses). After dinner are speeches - best man, FOB, Groom--then first dance and a few dance sets. Then we'll dance with our parents, few more dance sets and then cake cutting and bouquet toss.

It's been very interesting trying to incorporate things from both our cultures. One would think that the English arent' THAT different! But of all our 3.5 years of dating we've never had this much trouble on agreeing on things!

Also, FH says we have to sing Hymns in church...so he's going to come up with a few!!

Mine will just be different from anything I know.
Mostly cause it’s a mix of two very different cultures.. Hispanic & Chinese.

We went from a fall theme to Asian inspired. Dresses are bright red with gold shawls, favors are chopsticks with red gold covers and Im working on getting our guestbook with gold Asian material as the cover and red tassels. STD’s and Invitations are both Asian inspired and the invitations will be written in both English & Chinese.

It’s not Asian per se because there’s going to be Tejano music from time to time and BBQ on a carving station. Im wearing what I THINK TO BE a very Spanish-style dress. I will NOT wear the traditional red dress or do the tea ceremony. Dad still wants Mardiachis (sp) but we’re not sure its in our budget.

Our bridal party :
Groom: Chinese
Bride: Hispanic/American Indian (My mother is full Spaniard)
Best Man: Indian (India, not American Indian)
Maid of Honor: African-American
Bridesmaids: Mexican & Chinese
Groomsman: Mexican & Chinese
Flower Girl: (if she can) : Indian/Canadian
Ring bearer: (if he can) Hispanic/American Indian & Irish
In these descriptions Hispanic means exactly what it was meant to mean ‘of Spain’ and Mexican means from Mexico. Trust me, there’s a difference.

Father of the Bride: American Indian/Hispanic (grandma was American Indian, grandpa only had half)
Mother of the Bride: German/Hispanic/French (and you can see it in her, she’s my stepmother)

My wedding is NOT the wedding to come to if you’re predigest or racist in anyway. I won’t even START on the religions represented. I figure each wedding is unique. In my own way (being an odd ball myself) my wedding is a true reflection of Jim & I, different in every way possible.

Our wedding will have a swing music theme. (We both love this type of music, the era, and swing dancing!) We're having an 11 piece swing band (NYC Swing), and are going to hire dance instructors to teach our guests the basics. Our first dance will be a romantic slow swing song, and then a fast swing song - which I am probably going to buy a cute little dress for! The tables will be named after famous swing songs and musicians. I'm going to try to use sheet music for our programs and menus. The favors will be a CD compliation of our favorite swing songs. I'm still working on the other little details!

I think the roast idea is very cute and unique! (As long as people don't get too carried away and keep it light and funny.)

I guess the biggest thing is that we had my FH best friend ordained online and registered with the city so he can marry us. My MOH is my friend Gregg and my FH's BM is his friend Meredith. I am sure that so of my reletives from TN and GA will be surprised to see this role reversal. We are also having 6 of our friends sing acapella a song that another friend or ours wrote as I walk down the aisle.

xelyndra - my good friend just had a chinese/American wedding...she has flaming red hair and her husband in chinese-canadian. They're going to have ADORABLE babies...

Their favors were chopsticks and she did fortune cookie place cards (in last month's Martha Stewart weddings). But, she did have a big cultural issue--she had the double happiness character printed on their invites...but, it was in black ink...which caused MAJOR problems with his family! Supposedly she put a death curse on the wedding...poor thing was soooo stressed out!

heidla--the acapella song sounds so beautiful. what a nice touch!

I also want to do a variation of the guest book, just not so technically advanced as Jimmy'sBride. I read in a mag once that you could have a Polaroid camera, and have people take pics of themselves and write something on the white strip at the bottom. You can even 'assign' someone special (who isn't in the BP but you want to give them something important at the wedding) to go around and take everyone's pictures for you. This way you know everyone gets in there. They can even do some during the cocktail hour, so they don't miss the whole reception because they are too busy taking pictures. Then you keep all the pics in a special album.

It can get a little costly, paying for all that film, but maybe instead of the disposable cameras on the table.

wow ladies, these are all so interesting!! thanks for sharing!