Life in the Fast Lane: La Famiglia

I want to take a second here to talk about families and weddings. Families and weddings go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong... No wait, that's Danny and Sandy. They go together like... barbed wire and salt? Hmmm, a little closer, but that's not quite right either. The point is, you can't have one without the other -- errrr, nope, that's Love and Marriage. Damn. Never mind. I'm really bad at this.

What I'm really trying to say is that my family is incredibly important to me. Many people see marriage as a time where two people begin their lives together and create their own individual family unit. And while this is true, I also see it as adding to and expanding a family unit that already exists. A lot of times when I say "family" I mean my parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins:

(Personal Photo) / My entire extended family... Just on my mom's side. (Well almost, one person is a cousin's friend and another is my dad's mom. But there are four people missing so it evens out. Kinda. I'm not sure. Math isn't my best subject.)

But when Mr. Coyote says "family" he usually means his mom, his dad and his sister:

(Personal Photo) / Big difference, eh?

I'm finding that wedding planning for us is almost identical to Tulah and Ian's experience in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In fact, I'm pretty sure when Mr. Coyote's family met my family for the first time it looked a little bit like this:

Video via YouTube

And when my mom and I were chatting about meal options for the bridal shower and rehearsal dinner, well, she didn't quite understand when I told her that Mr. Coyote's mom and sister are strict vegetarians.

"That's okay," she responded. "There's fish!"

Sound familiar?

Video via YouTube

It took a few explanations, and I think she is still a bit bewildered by the fact that they don't eat fish (the horror!), but I eventually got the point across.

Now, my family may not be Greek, but we are Italian. And sometimes it's practically one and the same. Actually, it's kind of like this:

Video via YouTube

Anyways, I know I'm kind of coming at this in a round about way, but all of this really boils down to one thing: the almighty guest list. We're inviting approximately 180 people to our wedding. About 150 of them are my relatives and family friends. 20 are mutual friends of Mr. Coyote and myself. The rest are guests on Mr. C's side. Didja do the math yet?

Mr. Coyote's mom is an only child and both of her parents have passed away. Mr. Coyote's dad only has his own father around and he is unfortunately too ill to make the three hour trip to our semi-destination wedding. His parents have invited a handful of friends and cousins, but I haven't met any of them before. I doubt they will make a trip upstate to watch Mr. Coyote marry a strange woman they have never met.

I am incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so many loving grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. And luckily, Mr. Coyote loves them all just as much as I do! But because of the huge gap in guests as well as our interest in merging families Mr. Coyote and I are of the "pick a seat, not a side" mentality.

I first saw this idea thanks to the fabulous Mrs. Hippo and I definitely think we will try to have a similar sign at our ceremony site: