Offbeat Bride interview about Renaissance weddings on NPR's Here & Now and Houston Public Radio

Offbeat Bride interview about Renaissance weddings on NPR's Here & Now and Houston Public Radio

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As a lifelong Renaissance Faire goer, I always have a soft spot for Ren Faire and fantasy weddings, as evidenced by the abundance of them (13 pages!) in this archive. Here are a few of my favorite Renaissance weddings that we've featured:

We love to jam about wedding trends, so when Houston's Public Radio and NPR's Here & Now wanted to talk shop about geeky fantasy weddings and weddings at Ren Faires, we were so down.

Ariel has talked a bit about how maybe offbeat weddings are more mainstream now than ever. A lot of the groundwork of making a weird wedding totally okay has been paved and we're seeing more and more acceptance of wild and woolly weddings all over. Okay, we know grandma's not full in a "let's get freaky" mode quite yet, but it's getting there.

Here was the gist of the audio interview I did with Houston Public Radio's Amy Bishop (You can LISTEN HERE; I start yapping at 3:22):

"As the years have gone by, offbeat, alternative, and non-traditional weddings have kind of become run-of-the-mill in a way," says Catherine Clark, Senior Editor of Offbeat Bride, an online magazine all about unconventional weddings.

Clark says that since more people are also getting married later in life, they don't always have to rely on the bride's folks to pick up the bill and there's less of an obligation to go the traditional route. A bride can trade in the white dress for a leather corset. A groom can wear armor and a sword. Gradually, the non-mainstream is becoming normal.

"It's a theme that I think is becoming more and more accepted," Clark says. "So, it's less scary to say to your grandma, 'We're going to have a fantasy wedding.'"

There's been a marked increase in the amount of people wanting to marry at the Texas Renaissance Festival. Five years ago, they hosted 28 weddings during the eight-week season. This year, there were 61. They'll generate more than a quarter of a million dollars for the festival.

Renaissance weddings are the shiz, guys. And of course we want to see yours!

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