“I worked so much overtime trying to talk about how the rave scene wasn’t all about drugs,” says Ariel Meadow Stallings, who published and edited the rave zine Lotus in Seattle during the late ’90s. “It was very noble of me, and I still do believe it wasn’t all about drugs. But it is a drug culture. Even if you’re not on drugs, the culture of the party is determined by the fact that there are people there who are.”

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Ariel Meadow Stallings, 35, who runs a blog called offbeatmama.com, has observed that gender-neutral parenting has become a hot topic of discussion in the parenting community.

Stallings, who has a 17-month-old boy named Octavian Fetz Stallings, has strong feelings against “handing down an identity” to children, in her case shaped partially by the fact that her mother and mother-in-law are both in same-sex relationships. Determined to give her son a “gender-neutral start-off,” Stallings keeps her distance from trucks, balls and blues.

“So many assumptions about gender roles are just entrenched in our culture,” said Stallings. “Being gender-neutral encourages people to pause and think about their perceptions.”

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After checking out the new bridal gown line from Urban Outfitters called Bhldn, Ariel Meadow Stallings, who created the Offbeat Bride website, found something to like. This is someone who wore a custom blue corset over a green skirt and a multicolored ribbon veil at her nuptials.

“In the Bhldn (for “beholden”) line, you’ll notice a lack of structured taffeta and a welcome absence of the ubiquitous strapless white ball gown,” she said. “They’ve also got several tea-length dresses, a retro look that’s super-popular with the nontraditional right now.”

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Your wedding planning strategy — as with most things — can either be helped or hindered by your use of social media.

“While there are great reasons for using social media to plan your wedding (convenient! fun! easy!), since social media is so often used for marketing, it can be difficult to find the line between using the tools to effectively organize your wedding and treating your wedding like another Twitter hashtag publicity campaign,” explains Ariel Stallings, the author of popular wedding blog Offbeat Bride.

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Instead of trying to fit a certain mold, Ariel Meadow Stallings cut up a lime-green prom dress she found on eBay, and paired it with an iridescent blue corset.

After all, it was her wedding day. She wanted to look and feel her best. “And that means wanting to wear the color you feel best compliments your skin tone and your hair,” she said.

While most brides aren’t ready to walk down the aisle in anything more colorful than ivory, bridal consultant Susan Rogers said the wedding industry is slowly changing its tune.

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Sifuentes’ bowling alley wedding in January may not have been traditional, but the creative ceremony saved her thousands of dollars at a time when wallet tightening has become necessary for many American families. Her offbeat wedding is representative of a growing trend, wedding experts say, as brides are discovering cheap can be chic, and also inspire innovative party ideas.

“Necessity breeds ingenuity,” said Ariel Meadow Stallings, a writer who runs the online bridal site Offbeat Bride.

She explains what has ushered in the recent trend of frugal yet creative brides: “It’s the combination of the economy with the fact that through the ’90s, there was a big explosion of the wedding industrial complex.”

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Engaged couples throughout the Northwest are ramping up for summer wedding season, planning one of life’s biggest — and potentially most expensive and stressful — moments.

But some couples are bucking recent trends toward elaborate weddings, pushing aside traditions that don’t fit their personalities or budgets.

This is where Seattle author Ariel Meadow Stallings comes into the picture…

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… Yet these days, plenty of women who don’t necessarily identify as feminists are including more egalitarian moments in their wedding, says Ariel Meadow Stallings, author of Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for the Independent Bride.

Some, for example, ask both to parents walk the bride and groom down the aisle.

For them, she says, it’s not necessarily feminist — just modern.

“You don’t have to identify as a feminist to be squicked out by the idea of being your father’s property to be given away.”

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Ariel Meadow Stallings, 32, an author, blogger and marketing manager from Seattle, recently started a project she calls 52 Nights Unplugged after realizing her dependence on technology had “gotten a little creepy.” Every Tuesday night, she shuts off the TV, computer and cell phone and takes a short digital sabbatical.

“When I first told my husband what I was going to do, he was dubious,” says Stallings. “He’s the one who brings me the laptop in bed. But I’m in my 10th week now and it’s going great. I’m doing a lot more reading and crafting and even taking a dance class.”

Stallings calls her project a “raging success,” although there are still occasional twinges of online envy.

“My husband’s not doing the unplugged thing; he doesn’t feel he needs to,” she says. “So there are nights that I’m unplugged and he’s checking his e-mail and surfing on his laptop, and I’m like, ‘Grrrrr.’”

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