Unique/alternative Weddings

Can you explain to me what a unity puzzle is I am intrigued and puzzles are special to me too. love it

I will not be doing all traditions. I am skipping the walking down the aisle part, the bouquet toss the garter toss, and not doing the parent dances. My fiance's mother died when he was young so I don't want to do those. no speeches or cake fights. no dancing or alcohol. I just wanted it to be dinner with my family and friends in the mountains.

We had this puzzle made {Unity Puzzle} with our first names, new last name, and wedding date on the pieces. So, for the “ceremony” we had a song playing and we put it together, then placed it in a frame (only took about a minute or less). Once complete, we sat it up and had it displayed outward towards our guests. We got a lot of “awww”s and “ohhh how neat”s lol.

It is now in our bedroom

If you want to add additional things to the puzzle, you can have additional pieces made. When you click the link, you can see all of the options.

Just looking through your pics...this is the Willowby by Watters dress I was talking about

I've been looking into a bunch of different unique ideas and options in hopes of striking a unique chord in a more traditional wedding. Of the ideas I've come across, some of my favorites include paper flowers instead of real floral bouquets, alternative guest book (we're doing a puzzle guestbook because puzzles are big for us), dessert bar or ice cream bar instead of cake, unique cake toppers, scavenger hunt cards at the place settings, lawn games, alternate unity ceremony (not candle or sand), getting creative with the venue choice, or going non traditional with the wedding party attire (I love the mismatched bridesmaid dresses with prints in the same color family). So many ideas!

We eschewed the wedding aspect altogether (before it was cool due to COVID - lol) and are going with a planned elopement. We are hiking up to our favorite mountain spot and camping after the ceremony. Just us, photographer + her husband/second shooter, and a friend officiating, oh and our dog.

The main elements are traditional - I have a white dress and a dried flower bouquet and we will write our own vows. We might do a first dance to one song. Freeze dried backpacking food and crumbled cookies are most likely the dinner menu.

We were going to host a taco and margarita reception party at a local cantina on the water a month later with about 60 people - but that was tabled in March and we probably won't reschedule.