This wedding oh so perfectly merged the modern festival wedding trend with the 1960s hippie aesthetic. Kristel and Joe chose Black Oak Ranch as their venue, which is widely considered to be America’s longest running hippie commune. It is also known for it’s involvement in music and politics over the years, including serving breakfast in bed for 400,000 people at Woodstock!
“Black Oak Ranch has been our home for almost 30 years”, the bride told us. “Over the years we’ve hosted hosted many festivals and gatherings, including Camp Winnarainbow and The Hog Farm Pignic. It was the only place we wanted to have our wedding.”
When I decided to start theming each issue of the magazine, doing a gothic/ emo themed edition was a no-brainer. I mean If there’s one aesthetic that screams alternative bride more than any other, it’s this.
The shoot for this edition was so much fun. Accompanied by the Throwback Thursday Emo Spotify playlist, my team and I relived our teenage years putting together these looks on the gorgeous Nan.
Speaking of Nan, they are a non-binary model with albinism and when I found them, I knew they were the perfect face to bring our gothic meets high fashion vision to life. I also spoke to them for our Meet the Contributor’s page, and their answer to this particular question was so great (and too long to publish in full) I wanted to share it here too.
As a non-binary model with albinism how do you feel the fashion and bridal industry could be more inclusive and make everyone feel welcome and seen beyond tokenism?
Unfortunately, in the western world wedding traditions are often rooted in patriarchal values that celebrate traditional representations of beauty. This has led to minorities feeling pushed out, as if their version of love holds less value when compared to white, cis, heterosexual love. In the wedding industry people of colour have always been chronically underrepresented. From bridalwear designers never breaking through and have their work recognised, to bridal magazines actively choosing not to have couples of colour in their publications. Even on a personal level, black brides struggling to find a hairdresser to work with their hair or finding a dress that compliments their skin tone or figure. Our perceptions of beauty and wedding tradition are centred around the white ideal.
When the intersectionality of queerness and gender fluidity comes into play, the problem deepens. This has led to minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community feeling pushed out and underrepresented.
Even in progressive countries, queer couple are still often forced into the binary by the distinctly heteronormative and conservative nature of weddings; often being asked ‘Who’s the man in the relationship?’, ‘Who’s wearing the dress/ who’s wearing the suit?’. Forcing these gender norms and stereotypes on queer couples is so harmful and particularly problematic for non-binary people. Queer love doesn’t have to resemble cis-het love to be understood, valued and respected.
It’s clear more representation of BAME and LGBTQ+ communities is needed, not in just showing and displaying black and queer love in publications but by brand putting in the effort to embrace and accommodate all types of beauty. It’s not hard to change mesh lining to suit a deeper skin tone. It’s not hard to design gender neutral garments for weddings. Despite the belief that black and/or queer love doesn’t sell, there is demand and there’s a whole demographic of people whose expressions of love are being undervalued. There’s space for everyone in the bridal industry. We all deserve to feel beautiful and special on our wedding days.
WE COULD NOT AGREE MORE!
So, what will you find inside the issue? Well, as well as ideas on how you can add some more macabre elements to your wedding day look and style, you’ll also find real wedding inspiration for whatever kind of theme you’re going for. Not all the weddings are gothic themed as we want every issue to feature a broad and diverse range of weddings and people. There’s also plenty of practical advice on how you can bring your own creative vision to your day, especially if your loved ones aren’t exactly on board with your ideas!
Launa and Josh wanted an October wedding in Las Vegas with alternative details that referenced their favourite games, movies and TV shows. The bride chose a red sequin 50s inspired dress from FairyGothMother with matching Converse and carried a paper flower bouquet made by Paper Bouquets from Harry Potter pages to represent her, comic pages to represent Josh and Magic the Gathering cards to represent them together.
“We wanted a blend of vintage meets classic Vegas for our wedding and to add our own nerdy touches”, Launa said. “I had four bridesmaids all in a colour from each Hogwarts house, we had a reading of Joey’s speech from Monica and Chandler’s wedding and a poem about aliens called The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman. Our vows were the vows from the Corpse Bride with a Game of Thrones reference thrown in at the end and we did a candle lighting of a Jack and Sally candle from Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Nothing screams Rock n Roll Bride more than a Las Vegas wedding and Kerissa and Nick – with their money throwing, sequin dress and white suit wearing, desert photographing, marrying by Elvis day are rock ‘n’ roll through and through! They even hired one of our favourite Las Vegas photographers, Ashley Marie Myers to do their pictures.
Kerissa, a California girl met a tattooed boy, Nick from Missouri, when they both moved St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands in the same week. Nick proposed September 2020 in Tahoe and the two decided to run to the city of love to be married.
Midsommar may be a horror movie, but the aesthetic is anything but scary, which is why Shar and Scotty were so heavily inspired by it for their not-at-all Halloweeny summer wedding. When Covid hit, it made them realise what they really wanted (and didn’t want) for their day so they had their reception of cake and informal, unplanned speeches at the bride’s mum’s house and spent less than £2,000 to boot!
“Our wedding was just happy, bright, rainbows and smiles” Shar told us. “I wore roller skates, people wore cool hats and there were lots of flowers! Midsommar, if it wasn’t a horror, heavily inspired us as well as Frida Kahlo and Lana Del Ray. We wanted an informal, fun day and continued being defiant in the face of a global pandemic, we warned to bring some joy back into the lives of the people around us.”
German Jan travelled to Sweden for a design internship and met American Jordan who lived there. After three weeks together Jan had to go home, but kept the relationship going through text and phone calls. Three months later Jan moved to Stockholm so they could be together and six years later they were married!
The couple had two wedding days and two ceremonies – their more personal one at Skinnarviksparken park followed by cake, champagne and photos on July 2nd, and the legal one at city hall the day after.
👰 
