We Are Going to Dance and Have Some Fun

So... while we are in the limbo-like process of nailing down dates and details for our big day, Andy and I have been putting some thought into the incidentals of the reception. Things like shoes, theme drinks, favor packages-- the details that will make our wedding special, unique, and personalized.

Of course, one of the most important "details" is our choice in music. We have already decided that there will not be any Hokey-Pokey or Chicken Dance, none of that corny stuff. Our goal is to pick music that is fun, uplifting, and clearly dance-able, while still making sure it's music that holds some special meaning to us and, of course, is also enjoyable for our guests. In the past few weeks, we have been compiling a sort of "rough draft" of song ideas that we think would be fun for everyone without resorting to the tired wedding reception cliches.

Thanks to a site I just discovered called MixPod, we're able to publicly share the playlist with you here. Keep in mind that it's just a list of the available songs for the pleasure of blog visitors... what you see/hear here may not necessarily be the same versions or edits we ultimately choose.

So, here's what we've come up with so far... keep checking back as we continue to add to it:

We would love to hear any thoughts, questions, comments, suggestions, et cetera.

Feel free to leave a comment, or contact one of us directly.

 

Wedding Weirdness

Andy and I are fascinated by interesting lists about bizarre things. It all started when I introduced her to Cracked, where breaking their articles down into numbered lists is standard operating procedure.

From there, it became kind of an off-and-on nightly ritual for us to find an interesting or funny list from Cracked or some similar website, and read it together. At some point, we discovered a site called Oddee.com which seemed more like an aggregate site that collected lists of stuff that had already been published on other sites. A bit lazy, in my opinion, but honestly, the best way to get a wide-angle view of some of the most insane things ever unleashed on the internet-viewing public.

It recently occurred to me that over the years, Oddee has collected several lists of bizarre wedding and wedding-related stories and features. Most of these are too insane to wrap my mind around, others seem really fascinating and innovative, and still others are just pathetically depressing lessons on "How NOT To Do Your (proposal/ceremony/vows/dress/DJ/et cetera)". After recently re-reading through some of my favorites, I thought I'd share a few:

10 Most Bizarre Wedding Rings

 

Cute idea, but a little less than tasteful.

 

7 Wedding Proposals Gone Bad



Whoops.



World's Strangest Marriages and Relationships



This guy married a pillow. Seriously.



You can find many, many more of Oddee's lists of strange proposals, weddings, etc. here. Enjoy.

It's nice to look at all the insane choices people make in this world, and all the horrible failures, and be fairly certain that Andy and I will not be counted among them.

Something Blue

I saw the coolest thing in one of the wedding magazines I picked up on my last trip to MA and I thought it might be perfect for our reception. This couple had a blue and white winter themed wedding and they served their champagne with Blue Curacao. Since our colors are blue, sand, and chocolate brown I thought it would work just as well for a beach wedding.

My Wedding Shoes

Andy and I are very set on the idea of having a much more casual wedding atmosphere. In fact, we are hoping for it to be more like a celebratory party than any kind of formalized sequence of events.

In that spirit, we have been discussing what we're going to wear. Thanks to numerous bridal and wedding-planning magazines, we realized that it would be perfectly fine to do whatever we want, as long as it's tasteful and somewhat consistent.

I am looking at going semi-formal. Nice pants, jacket and tie. Probably not going the tuxedo route. They can get pretty uncomfortable. Most of the weddings I've been to have included me as a member of the wedding party, which meant tuxedos. In nearly every case, I can recall removing at least the jacket and vest or cummerbund, and untucking the shirt so I could dance more comfortably during the reception.

When it comes to wanting to dance for hours, though, the most important thing is the shoes. Formal shoes, especially rentals, are amazingly painful after a few hours. Sure they look great, and they have nice slippery bottoms for dancing enhancement on polished hardwood floors, but they HURT.

Not wanting to approach our special day as something whimsical or to be taken lightly, I asked Andy what she'd think about me adding my own special "sauce" to whatever outfit I chose, by adding some custom-made Converse All-Stars. Anyone who knows me well knows that this particular style of shoe is a staple of my casual wardrobe, and I felt it would be a nice touch to personalize the wedding plans.

She seemed supportive of the idea, so I went to Converse's website and started designing some shoes using our theme colors: A light blue (theirs is a little more saturated than what we chose, but oh well), sand, and dark brown.

I wanted brown laces too, but Converse doesn't offer them.

Here's a 360º view of how they turned out so far. (requires Flash)

Memories of the Beach

When I was little, my parents took me to Ocean City, MD just about every summer. Some of my fondest memories are of those trips. Riding all the rides at Trimper's on the boardwalk, drinking the best lemonade ever, going through the Haunted House, and just having a blast in general.

I'm not really a beach person in the sense that I spend hours perfecting my tan so that someday I can be the makings for a lovely purse, but the beach just seemed like the right place for us to get married.

I found this site that has some great pictures and historical information about Hampton Beach and the surrounding area.

http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/history/vignettes/NHhistoricseacoast.htm

If you're wondering what the weather will be like in October. It looks like the average high is 61 and the low is a chilly 39.

Enjoy!

Six Things You Will NOT Find at Our Wedding

You've heard of "dos and don'ts". Here is a list of "please, for the love of God, don'ts", courtesy of one of our favorite websites, CRACKED.
(Warning! This article contains some strong language and also a lot of fighting.)

Six Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Wedding

My personal pick for most cringe-worthy is the deliriously drunk bridsesmaid hogging the spotlight during what starts out as a cute little dance number between her and the bride. Incredibly awkward and embarrassing moments like this are part of the reason Andy and I decided to keep our wedding as simple as humanly possible, which means no wedding party, no idiotic staged photographs of the groom trying to run away, no Chicken Dance, no Electric Slide, and definitely, DEFINITELY no shoving cake in each others' faces.

EDIT: Ok, actually 7 things. We will encourage everyone at our celebration to have as much fun as possible, but please try not to destroy the entire place and injure the other guests like the following drunken Russian:

Enjoy.

Bridezilla!

I refuse to become a Bridezilla, and I don't see Rick turning into Groomzilla. We want this wedding to be as fun to plan as it will be for our guests. I've been pouring through wedding magazines searching for ideas that will make our special day memorable and FUN.

It's great that Rick wants to be involved in all the planning. This is not my wedding or his wedding, it's OUR wedding and that's the way we're approaching this.

So far we've decided that we don't want a pompous or stuffy wedding--it's just not us. We've also decided on our colors: blue and brown. Like the blog.

We hope you all will come along for the ride with us as we plan our big day. I know, I know, who wants to read a blog full of nauseating wedding dribble? We'll try to keep our sense of humor as we go along. We hope you will laugh with us (and at us if you choose) as we bummble along with our plans.

The Engagement Story

It recently became very, very clear to me that Andy was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I bought an engagement ring for her in late July, and booked us a room at our favorite place, Hampton Beach, for the last weekend of September 2010. The room was at the Ashworth, the place where I had envisioned us having our wedding reception. My plan was to take her back to Hampton for that weekend, and propose to her on the beach.

Just one problem-- I totally screwed it up. I panicked about the ring, worrying about whether she'd like it or not. We had looked at a few possibilities on one of her previous trips here, but the setting we both agreed on was no longer available. I had used my best judgment to pick out a worthy substitute, but I didn't want to mess up what would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. In a fit of anxiety, I told Andy that I had bought her a ring. The conversation over the next few days also revealed that she was not fooled about my reason for booking the nicest room at the nicest hotel in Hampton for us to stay at in September. She knew exactly what I was planning.

With both secrets out of the bag and our ideal wedding date of September 24th, 2011 unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances (my plan was to propose to her exactly one year before our wedding date), I decided to come up with something that would completely blow her mind. We have always enjoyed an extremely unconventional relationship, but I decided that when it came to the proposal, it had to knock her off her feet.

Andy was coming back for a visit this weekend, August 14th. We knew we wanted to have the actual wedding ceremony on the beach somewhere, but we weren't sure exactly what spot. So, I suggested taking a ride up to Hampton to pick out our perfect marriage spot (which actually ended up being in Rye, the next town north along the coast from Hampton). Here it is:

Check it out on Google Maps if you like.

When we finally found it, we looked around and agreed that, yes, this was it. IT. So, I took her hand and explained to her that since we were changing the wedding date, I thought it was only fitting to change the engagement date too. I took the ring out of my pocket and asked her to marry me.

After recovering from being absolutely stunned, she said "Yes." A million times. I have never been more happy in my life.

A passing stranger who was there with what I assume was his girlfriend approached me moments later. He said "I couldn't help noticing what just happened here. Congratulations! I proposed to my wife here too." He went on to explain that she had passed away, but it was still a special place. He asked me for my camera so he could take a picture of us, and congratulated us again before we went off on our own.

We stopped to collect some rocks and seashells as souvenirs of this momentous occasion. After a few minutes to collect ourselves and let the awesomeness of the moment sink in, we headed back to the car. As I was opening the door to get into the drivers seat, a strange old man made his way through the bushes that formed the border between the parking area and the rocky shore.

He looked at me and said: "Son, I don't know who you are... but you done good."

Andy and I have always believed that the Universe has somehow brought us together, and has been giving us signs all along that we were right for each other. I have to wonder about this strange old man in his safety-orange outfit and wide-brimmed fishing hat who appeared almost out of nowhere to offer his comments. Was he just a regular guy who happened to witness our special moment? Or, could it be that the Universe was giving us its blessing?

Engaged!

On August 14th, 2010, Rick asked Andy if she would marry him.

She said "Yes."