Weddingbee Blog

Because our wedding is in the evening and a bit on the formal side I instantly knew that I wanted the dudes in tuxedos for the wedding day. Mr. Coyote is a bit disgruntled about having to wear anything other than jeans and a black t-shirt, but said he will happily wear a tux for our wedding day. His only request was no bow ties, what a good sport!

Damn.

While I really, really love the classic tuxedo with bow tie look:

Photo by: Elizabeth Messina on Kiss The Groom via Lover.ly

I’m not the one who has to wear this thing so I’m letting Mr. Coyote take the reins here. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few teeny tiny suggestions for him.

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Sometimes I get so pumped up about an idea or a project that I don’t give myself enough time to really think it through. I just kinda start working on it and assume that it will turn out perfectly. This is one of those projects.

Many a bee before me has shared their take on photo sharing cards, but I particularly liked Mrs. Snow Cone’s so I quickly whipped up a similar business card-sized design of my own in Photoshop (stole the wording and everything. Thanks Mrs. Snow Cone!):

(front and back images for the business card)

I researched a few different photo sharing sites, but in the end I decided that a Shutterfly share site would be best for our needs because it’s free and offers unlimited storage (yippee!).
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So I’ve talked a bit about the leading ladies in my life and what they’ll be wearing on the big day, but I haven’t mentioned a word about the dudes! And they are some very important dudes who definitely deserve to be introduced!

But first, a word on learning to be not-so-traditional. I come from a family that does things the traditional way and this means an even number of ladies on the bride’s side and an even number of men on the groom’s side. Because I had six ladies that I really wanted to stand by me on my wedding day I automatically assumed that we would find six groomsmen for Mr. Coyote. I knew that he didn’t have a large circle of dude friends (in fact, most of his friends are ladies!), but I have a large family with an endless supply of cousins who would be more than happy to stand with us on our wedding day.

When I brought this up to Mr. Coyote he didn’t quite agree. While he gets along great with my family he just felt strange stacking his side of the wedding party with my family members. And since he comes from a smaller family there really isn’t anyone on his side who he would like to ask. We had come to a bit of a stalemate on this issue so I told him to sit down and think about who he would really want to be in his wedding party and this is who he came back to me with:

Best Man M:

Best Man M and Mr. Coyote have been friends for as long as they can remember.
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So, I’m about to get real with you today Hive. I hope you’re ready!

You may or may not have noticed by now my little badge of honor. Honestly, you probably haven’t. It’s glaringly obvious to me, but we are our own worst critics. I have been told many times that it’s not noticeable (but the self-conscious part of me thinks everyone is saying that just to be nice).

Anyways, I’m done being vague.

Here it is:

See it? No?

How about now?
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Well, friends, it is T minus three weeks until the Coyote bridal shower, and you know what that means! Items are slowly starting to disappear off of our registry, and some gifts are even starting to arrive at the house:

Now, I have mixed feelings about registry stalking. On the one hand, I think it is a very, very bad thing to do. It’s kind of like sneaking into the basement a few weeks before Christmas and purposefully peeking under that random lumpy blanket that you’ve never seen before and discovering an entire stash of unwrapped gifts. Not that I ever did anything like that. Nooooope. Never ever.

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A few weeks ago my wedding dress arrived (SQUEEEE!!!) and Momma Coyote, Bridesmaid P, and I popped over to the dress shop to retrieve it. It’s been hiding out in my parents’ closet until I take it in for alterations, but last weekend MOH D stopped by. It was the perfect excuse for me to try it on again and model it for her. A few hours later some family friends stopped in as well and I was encouraged (without much prodding) to show off the dress and try it on again. As I carefully tread down the stairs for a second time that day MOH D whispered in my ear, “Now don’t go showing it to anyone else, it has to be a surprise!”

I have to say, I quickly protested. There are so many other people I would love to show my dress off to before the wedding day. First of all, I’m happy to try it on again for any of my bridesmaids that want a sneak peek as well as FMIL Coyote. I would also really love to show my grandmother. She bought the dress for me and I know it would mean the world to her if she could see me in it before the wedding day.

Honestly, I’m not really sure why the dress needs to be a big surprise to anyone other than Mr. Coyote. And while Mr. C won’t be seeing me in the dress before the wedding day, this could also be debated. How many times have I witnessed a groom make an appearance on Say Yes to the Dress? I mean, come on, it really doesn’t get any sweeter than this.
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As soon as I arrived at my parents’ house last weekend I was greeted by a small pile of packages. Because I’m so far from our venue I find myself sending certain packages to my apartment and certain items up to my parents’ house. Our cake topper, for example, was sent to my apartment because I wanted to make a veil and bow tie for my little figurines. All things shower-related and anything that doesn’t need to be immediately opened by me is sent to my parents’ house. And so, a small mound of packages have started to accumulate in my old bedroom.

One of those packages was the wine box for our wine box ceremony. I’m so, so happy with it, but not quite ready to share it with the Hive yet. Sorry to be a tease!

I did find something else that I do want to share with you, though:

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A few weeks ago we scheduled our rehearsal with our venue and immediately began to hunt for rehearsal dinner locations. We thought about hosting it at my parents’ home for a hot second, but decided that it would be too much work for them the night before the wedding. Plus, most of the wedding party will be staying at the hotel next to the venue and the drive to our parents’ place would be pretty far for the out-of-towners. It just made more sense to keep it close to our venue. Of course, for us this meant relying on restaurant websites and Yelp reviews, but we did find a few locations that seemed suitable. We eventually narrowed it down to a seemingly nice Italian restaurant just a few blocks from our venue.

Since Momma Coyote and I happened to be in the area this weekend we decided to take a quick detour and check out the rehearsal dinner location in person. I have to say, I’m glad we decided to drive by because the place was not at all what we were expecting:

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This past weekend was one of many upcoming wedding whirlwind weekends. Living three hours from our venue and the rest of our vendors means that a majority of our decisions are made on weekends when we travel to my parents’ house. This weekend was no exception. Mr. Coyote was unable to make the trip, but I was able to spend lots of time with Momma Coyote, so it all worked out perfectly.

Our first stop was a visit to our fabulous venue, Franklin Plaza, to finalize some deets. While most of the meeting consisted of Momma C and I passing on info to our coordinator (ceremony timeline, menu choices, etc) we were also filled in on some new information.

For example, our coordinator explained to us that they would to able to handle our cocktail hour music if we wanted them to. Apparently they have their own sound system in that room and a soundtrack that includes artists like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Or, if we’re picky, the coordinator told us that we are welcome to bring in our own music. I have to say, I am more than happy to pass this task on to our venue, so Franklin Plaza cocktail hour music it is!

We also popped back into the cocktail hour room for a bit and our coordinator showed us the connecting “Board Room” that has a few different purposes for our wedding. First, the wedding party is ushered into the room for a few minutes while our guests leave the ceremony space and enter the cocktail hour room. Then our photographers can sneak out and snag any family members we want for our formal portraits. It’s a gorgeous room for photos:
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I’ve mentioned a few times that I will be having two maids of honor. I think I always knew I was going to have two, even before Mr. Coyote was in the picture. I don’t have any sisters, but I can say that MOH A and MOH D come pretty damn close. I met BM D in 5th grade and BM A a few years later. For all of middle school and high school we were completely inseparable. Sleepovers, movies, trips to the mall, even vacations… Whatever it was we did it together. We were the epitome of BFFs.

Toddler Coyote and friends circa 2000.

Of course after graduation we went our separate ways, but we kept in touch and made sure to visit each other as often as possible.
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Because Mr. Coyote and I are not getting married in the Catholic Church (and hired our DJ to take care of the ceremony as well as the reception), it seems that our options for ceremony music are limitless. Wellllll, maybe not totally limitless. I can’t see our guests being too pleased with us strolling down the aisle to Pantera or Nine Inch Nails.

Image via The Giant Panther / Sorry, Trent. Maybe for the cocktail hour.

And so, I spent way too much time on YouTube trying to find the perfect song choices for our ceremony. After I had gathered up a good number of options, I sat down with Mr. C and we went through them all. I think we may have actually finalized our list, so it’s time to share some music with ya!

Prelude: I’m not going to be too picky about this part of the ceremony. I figure we’ll tell the DJ to throw in some Jason Mraz or Michael Buble and be done with it. And for the rest of the ceremony we’ve decided to go with the ever popular Vitamin String Quartet.

Special Persons (parents, grandparents, etc): I actually just decided on this last night. I had wanted to use Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest,” but Mr. C didn’t like the lyrics. Dude, what?? Whatever, I wasn’t going to take the time to figure that one out. Next! After a lot of searching we finally decided on a song thanks to our very own board member and Hostess Zippylef. Huge shout out to her. She saved the life of my ceremony with this post. A Vitamin String Quartet tribute to Elliott Smith?!! I. DIE. We’ll be using their cover of “Angeles” and I am so fa-reaking excited.

Bridesmaid Processional: This was one of the easier decisions we’ve made. “1, 2, 3, 4″ by the Plain White T’s has always been a favorite song of mine and sometimes Mr. Coyote will simply text me “1234″ to make me smile. Oh, and it helps that VSQ has an absolutely beautiful cover of it:

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I seriously love monograms. I think they are a great way to tie all of your stationery together and they’re so easy to make! Perhaps even a little too easy. I swear I made a million different designs (similar to Miss Hawk) and then decided that I hated all of them.

Hate it.

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Image via Our Hobby To Your Home & Wedding on Etsy

Chair signs. Le sigh. My latest (wedding-related) obsession.
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Dudes. DUDES!

99 days.

99 days separates Mr. Coyote and me from our wedding day. Seeing as we are making our way through a 672 day engagement (yes, I am a freak and actually did the math), the fact that we are now in the double digits is kind of a big deal.

At this point in the wedding game I have been experiencing a variety of emotions and I’d like to use some our friendly neighbor celebrities to illustrate them. First of all, I just need to say that I now truly understand what Ron Burgundy meant when he said that he was in a “glass cage of emotion.”

Image via Best for Film

The past few mornings have gone a little something like this:

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Earlier this week Mr. Coyote and I did a little shopping for our wedding bands. I was kind of super excited about this and was literally counting down the minutes until our appointment. We went back to David S. Diamonds (where we purchased my engagement ring) and met with our jeweler Ravin. Let me just say that Ravin is the sweetest, nicest, bubbliest (is that a word?) guy around. Even though we hadn’t seen him in almost two years he immediately recognized us, ushered us in, and immediately gave my engagement ring a cleaning. I swear, even though I clean it myself from time to time, it looked brand spankin’ new when he was done with it. He’s the bestest!

Now, I want to wear both my engagement ring and my wedding band together so I knew right away that I wanted a matching set:

(Personal Photo) / Remember this little beauty?

Ravin and I must share the same brain or something because without even saying anything he immediately pulled out a handful of wedding bands — all exactly like ones I had been drooling over online.

I quickly narrowed it down to two options:
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