Rise of the Anti-Bride

by Anne Marie O’Connor

Their invites were printed on paper from a carbon neutral company, using a friend‘s antique printing press (powered by a foot pedal, not electricity). “Instead of renting glasses, we are going to use jelly jars, which will be used for canning after the wedding,” she notes. “Our decorations are glass bowls we borrowed filled with glass rocks with an LED light underneath. Also, we’ve been saving blue wine bottles to be candle holders.” The flowers are from a local grower, the caterer is serving local, organic food and they’re planning on serving wines from the nearby Finger Lakes region and beer from a local Rochester brewery.

“After nine months of wedding planning, I think a ‘simple wedding’ is an oxymoron,” Bechtold has concluded. “But not too much about our wedding is traditional, which we’re hoping that that will make it even more memorable.”

PARTY OF TWO

Holly Helin, 32, and Max Frixione, 35, had been together for seven years, but the Portland couple had never felt any urgency to get married. “We were already living the life of married people–we shared a mortgage, a dog, a cat and bank accounts,” Helin says.

But when Helin miscarried a baby last year, they changed their minds. “In going through that very painful experience, we decided that we wanted to be closer as a couple, that we wanted to get married to each other,” she explains. “We also wanted the recognition from our families that we are indeed committed to each other in the traditional sense.”