75 Ways to Make Your Wedding Unique

Dish It Up!

26. Fiona's caterer created a one-of-a-kind dinner buffet that included recipes taken from the bride's family cookbook. Next to each dish, Fiona placed a card bearing the name of the recipe and the name of the relative it came from.

27. To complement her vivid apple-green color scheme, Kate served sour apple martinis at the cocktail hour.

28. Julie advises getting imaginative with your drinks: She named each cocktail after her and her husband's favorite hiking trails, hobbies and vacation destinations. Raise a glass to creative drinking!

29. Melissa, who has a serious sweet tooth, took a playful tack by serving cinnamon buns instead of bread rolls at her reception dinner.

30. Your favorite restaurant just might turn out to be the perfect caterer—the sushi for Kate's Asian station came from the special place where she and Barrett celebrate Valentine's Day every year.

31. Spotlight your passions: John, a wine-enthusiast, picked vintages from his personal wine cellar to serve at his and Catrien's intimate country wedding.

32. Catrien indulged her gourmet groom's taste for artisanal cheeses—she arranged for an after-dinner cheese course of delicacies from France and Italy.

33. Want to encourage table talk? Take a tip from Alexandra and Sebastian, and serve food family-style, so guests have to pass it around—it never fails to be an instant conversation starter.

34. Sirie wanted her and Chuck's party to rock the city of Santa Fe—so she had her caterer pass trays of tequila shots.

35. Kate and her husband love flavored coffee drinks, so at the end of the night, they surprised guests with a lavish coffee bar complete with yummy liqueurs and chocolate shavings to top everything off.

Style Sense

36. Don't be afraid to be colorful! Guests of Melissa and Dave's received hot pink invites in orange envelopes.

37. "My invitations took more work than anything else!" exclaims Lona, who sent hers in boxes lined with purple fabric and filled with white seashells.

38. For an ultraromantic reception Ellie and Steven decorated the garden of their house with cherry blossom boughs, and achieved a glow with hundreds of candles in hanging lanterns.

39. Put those artistic friends to work! Fiona asked her sister to hand-paint parking signs in her orange and turquoise wedding colors.

40. Julie also asked a friend to take care of making the signs at her reception, with some quirky, fun results: He marked the restrooms "Divas" and "Rangers."

41. Beyond ribbons and flowers: Kate dazzled guests by hanging a green glass chandelier over her wedding cake.

42. Think your wedding has to have a subdued "bridal" palette? Not if that's not your style, says Lona, whose main wedding color was vivid purple. She even convinced her groom to wear a rock-star purple shirt with his white suit.

43. "Table 1" and "Table 2"? Boring. Julie and Jeff printed the names of California parks on vintage Park Service postcards and placed one on each table.

44. Instead of escort cards, Florida bride Lona wrote guests' names and table numbers on white seashells.

45. Planning to pitch a tent? Remember that the options are endless. Kate had a clear-topped tent over her black-and-white dance floor, surrounded by smaller tents of apple-green fabric.

46. Julie honored her husband's Park Service background by insisting on in-season, native California flowers. Each dinner table had several clutches of brightly colored blooms in green vases.

47. Brooke and Patrick wanted organically grown flowers (Patrick works on an organic farm). On the morning of the wedding, the couple picked out bunches of freshly cut, pesticide-free blooms at a local farmers' market.

48. Instead of using floral centerpieces at her rustic Texas wedding, Catrien filled jam jars with fruit-laden branches from pomegranate trees.

49. Fiona designed her own centerpieces, creating a fiesta feeling with punch-colored crepe-paper flowers she had custom-made in Mexico.

50. Lona went for fresh flowers, but turned them on their heads! For one table, the "centerpiece" was a bed of purple tulips that hung upside down from a wrought-iron frame.

51. Julie and Jeff evoked a California country atmosphere by using a cozy blend of mismatched, rustic wooden chairs at their reception.

52. Why not make a grand getaway? Alexandra and Sebastian roared off in her father's 1950s Chevy truck. Ellie and Steven decorated their old-fashioned Mercedes with red-and-white crepe flowers.