These days, brides can have any kind of wedding they want.

Some are booking ceremony sponsors, using eco-friendly napkins, plates and utensils that can be recycled, and saying their vows on the pitcher’s mound or atop a ferris wheel. Even the sky is no longer the limit for those exchanging nuptials in outer space.

But is it just a passing trend?



SPONSORED WEDDINGS

The newest trend, highlighted in 2005 by Modern Bride Magazine, is to have the wedding sponsored.

“I thought it was hooky,” said Enid native and OU student Brook Breitenkamp, who is planning a sponsored wedding with her fiancé Chris Carlsen for Sept. 22. Carlsen was inspired by the magazine’s article and told Breitenkamp “it was something to think about.”

The couple intended to have a low-budget ceremony since they were footing the bill themselves. As Breitenkamp talked to friends at Enid’s First Baptist Church, the more she realized she could have a sponsored wedding. She contacted acquaintances and branched out to area businesses in need of a boost.

“I tell them I’m trying not to get indebted for this wedding,” Breitenkamp said.

In return for discounted or free services, Breitenkamp offers advertising at her wedding. She will list the vendors on her Web site, give them a spot in the program handed out to guests during the ceremony, and invite a representative from each company to mingle at the reception to drum up additional business.

Breitenkamp has been successful for the most part. Most owners mistake her for a telemarketer until she explains what exactly what she’s seeking. Several have been supportive, but several kindly have told her “no deal.”

In big cities like New York and Los Angeles, the sponsored wedding trend is commonplace, so much so that brides now have to take an unusual angle to attract vendors.

Elsewhere the brides must contend with traditionalists who consider sponsored weddings tacky or crass.

Peggy Post, great-granddaughter-in-law of etiquette expert Emily Post, told The New York Times last year that “It really takes away so much of the beauty and dignity of a wedding.”

A reader commented online to the same story: “Does it occur to this young woman that if you can’t afford a $30,000 wedding, you shouldn’t have one?”

Breitenkamp isn’t fazed by the naysayers. At the end of August she had already secured more than $1,000 worth of product and services.

“Our wedding will be nice,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of things I didn’t imagine I would get.”

— Ruth Ann Replogle, News & Eagle lifestyles editor



ORGANIC WEDDINGS

Another trendy style is to go green at the wedding.

The bride chooses a gown that could be worn again to parties, the groom organizes guest car pools in hybrid vehicles, and the couple picks an outdoor Japanese garden over a big, energy-sucking reception hall.

Everything about Kristy Wang and Nik Kaestner’s big day in San Francisco was decidedly “green” — from locally grown, organic vegetables and harvested fish to homemade tablecloths that were later turned into dinner napkins.

“Every time we make decisions, we’re trying to decide what would be the least wasteful,” Wang said recently. When it came to the wedding last May, “We didn’t want it to be about consumption.”

Going green is a growing trend in the multimillion-dollar wedding industry, and businesses are cashing in.

New York’s OZOcar offers hybrid limousines; Boulder, Colo.,-based Organic Vintners helps wine lovers find all-natural vintages; and the Houston-based Green Hotels Association can find accommodations at places committed to saving water and energy and reducing solid waste.

Around the nation, caterers are offering pesticide-free menus, and fine china and linen napkins instead of throwaways. Web sites help newlyweds set up donations to charities that benefit the environment, so guests have an alternative to heavily wrapped presents.

Eric Fenster, co-founder of Back to Earth Inc., an organic catering and restaurant business in Berkeley, Calif., said his company can plan everything from flowers to lighting. Employees often spend a few minutes telling guests how the wedding is eco-friendly, and some couples make a group activity of trash time, throwing plates made out of sugar cane and utensils made from potato starch or corn plastic into compost piles.

“All those things can end up in a compost and get turned into fertilizer instead of ending up in a landfill,” Fenster said.

“The goal of trying to do something about climate change is the mission of our generation, just like going to the moon or winning World War II was the goal of previous generations,” Kaestner said. “I wanted other people to see that you can still do these things and have a great wedding.”

— Connie Mabin, Associated Press writer



DESTINATION WEDDINGS

It wasn’t long ago that attending a friend’s wedding meant spending a Saturday night eating prime rib and dancing to cover versions of “Louie Louie” and “Brown Eyed Girl.”

Now, it might involve three days in Mexico or a long weekend in Maine. There could be scuba diving, cruises, square dancing or a marshmallow roast at a national park.

With a growing number of couples opting to exchange vows far from where they and most of their guests live, saying “yes” to an invite has taken on a whole new meaning.

“Destination weddings” can be fun. And time-consuming. And terribly expensive. Those most likely to be invited to a lot of weddings — people in their 20s, say — also tend to have the least seniority at work and the least disposable income.

Some guests, of course, are happy to pack their bags.

“I love the opportunity to travel and go somewhere I wouldn’t have gone, or just to have an excuse to go somewhere that I like,” said Tamar Kummel, a massage therapist from New York City. She plans to attend a friend’s wedding in California and another on Cape Cod later this year.

“If you didn’t have this invitation, you’d never go,” she said.

But there’s a downside. Kummel’s boyfriend, Sean Harris, who works at an investment banking company, has a limited number of vacation days and sees a three-day wedding extravaganza as a drain on his time.

“He finds it really inconsiderate of people,” Kummel said.

— Melissa Rayworth, Associated Press writer