I’m almost positive that none of Mr. O’s guys read the blog. But just to be sure…
Personal creation / What a flattering photo this is…we were talking about an ex-girlfriend, hence the finger-in-mouth situation you see here.
Moving on…
You may recall that Mr. Whale and I kind of have an obsession with manatees…
Visiting the manatees at the zoo! (Personal photo)
What I haven’t told you yet is that we have a few friends who share our obsession. In particular, the manatee craze began one strange evening as Mr. Whale, our friend Mike, and I sat down to watch the movie Muppets Take Manhattan. I wish I could tell you this really awesome story about how it all went down, but unfortunately it’s one of those epic inside jokes that wouldn’t really make sense…
ANYWAY, the point is that Mike and the Whales love manatees.
I realized a couple of months before the wedding that it wasn’t only about me being prepared for the wedding. It was also about the bridal party being prepared. After all the chaos that I have seen unfold at friends’ weddings in their last couple months, and knowing that our wedding was (slightly) out of town, I knew that getting everyone together and on the same page was very important.
So back in April, I sent out a Facebook invite setting aside a day in the last 60 days where the entire bridal party could get together, I could disseminate information (and also KNOW they got it), and everyone could have one last chance to hang out before the hectic-ness of the last 30 days set in. To be honest, I had visions of grandeur for this barbecue. I pictured myself having packets of handouts and schedules and lists. I figured we’d push a couple picnic tables together and I would stand in front of them like a CEO at a large board meeting explaining to them, in detail, what was going to go down. YYYYEAH. That did NOT happen. When it came down to it, it was more about everyone enjoying themselves: the guys at the barbecue, the ring bearers getting to play together in the sand, the girls talking about the disorganization of the guys, actually getting to sit down and (briefly) meet with M about cake (bottom line: I trust her to make it perfect with no direction whatsoever). While everyone was eating I went between two tables, bringing up the miscellaneous things I did need to discuss, trying to keep it casual and trying not to come off as a bridezilla dictator. But at the end of the day, the barbecue was awesome! And I’m so glad we had the chance and forethought to plan it!
Here are some awesome photos of the event!
GM R, MOH S, BM T & BM J (and S’s FI in the background)
Hive, I know it’s been a while. The truth is, we’ve been having some wedding-related family drama here at the Unicorn household. I’ll admit, the drama kinda threw me into a weird funk. I haven’t been as excited about my own wedding as I should be.
Thanks to a very supportive Mr. Unicorn, however, I am back in the swing of things! With only 37 days to the wedding—HOLY CRAP—I decided to get ORGANIZED! Insert fist pump here.
First things first, of course.
Our rabbi told us that a rehearsal for the ceremony won’t be necessary, and while this makes my inner bridezilla freak out just the tiniest bit, I do trust him. Instead, we’ll be having a quick mini rehearsal right before the actual ceremony. Since none of the bridesmaids or groomsmen actually know each other, I decided a diagram of the processional and recessional would be super helpful.
I fiddled around on Paint for a while, and voila:
Image created on Paint by Miss U Read more…
Picking gifts for groomsmen is TOUGH—especially when you have a picky groom! We always knew that half of our groomsmens’ gifts would be a tie for each guy to wear, so that was easy. I picked those up from Men’s Wearhouse—and with them already on sale, plus a 50% off coupon, they came to be about ten bucks each! Major score!
Unfortunately, the second part of this gift hunt wasn’t so easy. Mr. Elk wasn’t really a fan of the conventional groomsmen gifts available, mainly because he didn’t deem them practical (the only exception being personalized beer mugs, which he had already been gifted by his brother at his brother’s wedding. Of course a beer obsessed guy would want to give everyone that!). Mr. Elk has always been more of a fan of gifts that can actually get use, rather than cutesy, potentially more meaningful gifts, so we got to work. After days of thinking and searching, my brain was really hurting. But finally, we had an idea that he approved of—a multi-tool! After all the things I suggested were shot down, I was so glad there was ANY idea Mr. Elk approved of, so I immediately had him order these up…just happy to be done!
Last week Mr. Coyote received an invitation in the mail from Poppa Coyote:
While the ladies are enjoying Miss Coyote’s wedding shower…What is a man to do to pass the time??? Hmmmmm…What to do…What to do…Well, the shower just HAPPENS to be at a golf course! Pretty clever of me, eh? If you would like to join me for 9 holes of golf, please RSVP so that I can make a tee time!
The idea first popped into my dad’s head when Mr. Coyote’s father mentioned that he would be making the three-hour drive north with Mr. Coyote’s mom and sister for my bridal shower. As the RSVPs trickled in, Poppa Coyote noticed that there might be some other guys (out of town and local) that would be looking for something to do while the ladies were occupied with the shower. So a few weeks ago he printed out the awesome photo cards seen above and extended the invitation to all of the husbands and significant others on the list.
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.
Read more…
After Mr. Honey and I stole a few moments to ourselves with the photographers, I headed inside to warm up. The guys took this time to get their turn in the snow. It was fun because I got to observe the playfulness of the guys shoot from inside our venue.
They trekked through the snow—that was getting super deep super quick, to an open space just down from the venue.
The guys didn’t go anywhere that weekend without their mugs (I seriously nailed it with this gift!) filled with beer!
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I’m gonna take a break from all things bridesmaids-n-girls and switch to the dudes of the Honey wedding. All morning long, I was (un)selfishly basking in a bridal glow, getting pampered and pretty…all the while thinking my groom was basking in some sort of groom haze, drinking beer with his guys. When our photographers arrived at 10:30AM, Karlee stayed with the ladies and Zak headed over to take the guys-getting-handsome pictures. Only, he showed back up at the girl’s house a short hour later. I inquired as to why, but all he would say is they were busy…not getting dressed. He assured me it was fine, but that my groom was actually working…at the venue.
Apparently, falling snow had caused my groom to shift focus from getting dressed to getting the ceremony site just perfect. Mr. Honey didn’t have near the amount of visions I had for our wedding, but he did have visions of a perfectly crafted, snow-covered stage, so the morning of our wedding he was in his Dickies, leather gloves and snow boots, working up a sweat with some shovels. That’s my man!
Choosing our wedding party was a really easy decision for us. We both have one same-sex younger sibling and have decided to only have them standing next to us on our wedding day. Although we love our friends, our siblings are closest to us and have had the most opportunity to share with us as a couple. FBIL Boa will be his best man while Lil Boa will be my maid of honor.
This decision left me yearning for color-coordinated bridal-party pictures and the awesome wedding-party jumping photos I would miss out on.
Image via Mrs. Hyena on Weddingbee / Photo Danny Boy Photography
Based on my desire for these kinds of pictures and wanting to include our guests (which are 90% close family) more, we decided to do something a little unconventional. We will implement a wacky dress code; all guests will be asked to wear our wedding colors, shades of purple, green, and gray.
I had never really heard of gifting your spouse-to-be at your wedding before I became wedding obsessed and started going to every wedding website imaginable. I always figured an engagement ring/wedding band/wedding/honeymoon were quite enough of a gift. But then I stumbled upon the PERFECT gift for Mr. Elk and decided, why not?
Now to understand this gift, there are a few things about Mr. Elk you must know:
1) Mr. Elk loves me a lot, but if he had the choice between me and Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones would win EVERY time.
Image via dreager1.wordpress.com / The one and only
2) He grew up on Legos. They were his favorite toy!
