Amelia & Javier’s Offbeat Outdoor Maryland Wedding

“… it never felt offbeat or nontraditional, it just felt like us.”

Amelia & Javier took “offbeat wedding” to a whole new level with their insanely awesome outdoor Maryland wedding at the Patapsco Female Institute – the ruins of a girls’ school. That’s right – this couple got married and had their wedding in preserved ruins.

How freakin’ awesome is that?!

Well, it gets better – in addition to the badass venue location, they used lots of green and natural brown decor, including herbs instead of flowers for their bouquets & boutonnieres. I so love this offbeat detail for an alternative to flowers! A very special thanks to Amber Wilkie Photography [via Two Bright Lights] for this offbeat Maryland wedding submission!

 Amelia & Javier’s Offbeat Maryland Wedding at the Patapsco Female Institute Ruins

Vendors:

From Amelia:

I love the quote Capitol Romance had posted on her blog – “A wedding is a party, not a performance…” I think that sums up what we want (and didn’t…) :)

Amelia’s gorgeous &unique wedding dress from a 2nd hand shop!

my dress was second hand for 3 reasons. first, i just couldn’t see spending crazy amounts of money for a dress i would wear for a few hours.

2nd, another commitment we made was to try and use things that could be repurposed.

oh, and 3rd, i LOVED it!

Amber told me that the couple had wanted their dog in the ceremony, but the venue wasn’t really keen on the idea … so he got to hang out with the dudes while they got ready instead! love this!

About the couple:

 what’s to say? people get together for all sorts of reasons. they get married for all sorts of reasons. we became friends. we fell in love. and we didn’t want to “be married”. we just wanted to marry each other. we’re not perfect but that’s what makes this work.

we just wanted a party.

we didn’t want colors. we didn’t want matchy-matchy. we made a commitment to each other at the outset of the planning process that we would only do the things that we wanted to do. we wouldn’t do things because it’s tradition or family wants it. it ended up being entirely ours and oh-so special.

the venue just fit our organic, relaxed vibe. it was a blank canvas that we could make into ours.

how much do i love these alternative bouquets from herbs! yes, herbs!

Click inside for the rest of Amelia & Javier’s offbeat Maryland wedding by Amber Wilkie Photography.

i love how much effort they put into their beer choices!

for drinks, we did wine and beer but we chose beers that were from special places for us – longtrail from vermont for our family and winter vacations, dogfish and duclaw for where we currently live, presidente for my husband’s family which is half from the dominican republican, sam adams because I grew up in boston.

love these personalized totes ~ a GREAT wedding favor idea!

we wanted good food.

i hate weddings where the food is boring, dry or tasteless so we did something that would be cooked onsite (for the most part). we did BBQ. sounds like a disaster in a wedding dress, right? but it was fine – and delicious.

our desserts were made by a local company and it was a mix of donuts, cupcakes and cheesecakes.

and it was a Party with a capital P.

Some of the couples DIY/handmade details:

we did homemade all-natural bug spray, we did our own burlap napkin ties, we used a designer on etsy for our invites, name cards, menus and favors (recyclable grocery bags).

Our table numbers were bottles of wine that people could open and drink.

we had candles in mason jars throughout the venue.

and this was quite possibly my favorite quote from a bride ever:

it never felt offbeat or nontraditional, it just felt like us.

we only did things we really wanted to. no cake cutting, no garter throwing, no bouquet tossing. we didn’t do printed invites or save the dates, we did e-invitations. we didn’t do a normal registry, we did a honeymoon registry.

Congratulations Javier & Amelia ~ thank you so much for sharing your personalized, handmade Maryland wedding with us! A special thanks again to Amber Wilkie Photography & Two Bright Lights for making this Maryland wedding feature possible!