Love Under the Moon: Becoming a Groom

Upstairs, the groom, the dads, and all the groomsmen were in their own hotel room getting ready. 

Way back when we chose the tuxedos, we decided to stick with a simple and classic look. The guys wore black tuxes with black vests and ties, but Mr. Coyote chose silver for himself. He wanted to stick out a bit from the guys and it happened to be one of our accent colors. 

Mr. Coyote and I chose not to purchase wedding gifts for each other, but at the last minute I decided to pick up something small for him. You see, after we bought cufflinks for the guys and the dads, Mr. Coyote started feeling left out -- he kept complaining that he would be stuck with the standard cuff links that came with the tuxedo while everyone else had their own awesome cuff links. And so I secretly hopped back onto Etsy and found the perfect links for Mr. Coyote.

Personal Photo / Cuff links purchased from Etsy shop Mancornas

I called my brother down to my hotel suite while we were getting ready so he could give the links to Mr. Coyote. He was definitely surprised and even though he was mad at me for breaking the "no presents" rule I think he was okay with my exception!

FIL Coyote checking out the links.

I absolutely love this photo of FIL Coyote helping his son put on his boutinerre. 

After the guys were all dressed and spiffy they headed over to Franklin Plaza to get ready for the first look. 

And now there was nothing left to do but wait for the bride…

*All photos are by the fabulous Upstate Photographers, unless otherwise noted.*

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. We later wind down with our families back at the hotel.
• My bridesmaids get pretty and I get a special message from Mr. Coyote.
• I try to cope when things don’t go quite as planned, but thankfully I quickly bounce back and then it was time to become a bride.

Love Under the Moon: Becoming a Bride

After I dried my tears, I opened the door to a whirlwind of activity. The videographer had already arrived, the photographer was on her way in and the bouquets and boutonnieres were entering the room in shifts. I apologized to everyone for my outburst and then spent some time pinning and pulling my curls down. Most of my bridesmaids were munching on sandwiches (courtesy of Momma Coyote) and BM P quickly pulled one out for me. Even though I didn't have much of an appetite (I literally took about three bites) I am so glad we decided to bring some food in. Huge tip for future brides: Even if you're not hungry just remember that your bridal party will be! A well-fed bridal party is a happy bridal party. :)

I had moved past the whole hair and makeup debacle (and even managed to fix it up a bit myself!), but that didn't stop the tears from coming. Honestly, I didn't even know why I was crying anymore, but the second someone directed a comment or a question toward me I started to cry.

Random Person in the Room: "Hey Miss Coyote, aren't puppies cute?"

Miss Coyote, sobbing: "Oh my gosh! Puppies?! I love puppies so much. Can we talk about something else? Just thinking about how cute puppies are is making me cry."

It was pathetic. So pathetic that when Dennis, our videographer, noticed the charms on my bouquet and asked me about them I only got about halfway through explaining how the bee charms are passed from bride to bride, how the coyote charms reflect my unique avatar and how amazing the community is before I became totally overwhelmed and started crying again. That's right. I cried over Weddingbee. I hope you're happy.

I did what I could to keep myself distracted while my bridesmaids finished getting ready and soon enough, it was time.

I've done enough yapping in my last few posts so I'm just going to let the photos tell the rest of this story. 

When scheduling out a timeline of the day with our photographers one of the first things they asked me was if I had a corset dress. When I responded yes they immediately told me to tack on another 30 minutes of "getting ready" time.

I thought they were joking, but you guys, you would not believe how long it took to get that damn dress on.

I know this sounds strange, but looking back, it was one of my favorite parts of the day.

I had some of the best ladies in the world surrounding me and had finally reached some zen-like state that is unattainable on any other day than your wedding day.

 

While I was busy becoming a bride, the men were in a hotel room upstairs having their own fun...

*All photos are by the fabulous Upstate Photographers, unless otherwise noted.*

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. We later wind down with our families back at the hotel.
• My bridesmaids get pretty and I get a special message from Mr. Coyote.
• I try to cope when things don't go quite as planned.

Love Under the Moon: The Perfect Storm

Here's the thing Hive. Life is not perfect. Weddings are not perfect. And no matter how much time, love, money and effort you invest in your wedding things can and do go wrong. Many times the things that go wrong are out of your control and the only thing you can control is your reaction to the situation.

Our wedding day was beautiful. It was filled with happiness, love and pure joy. But things did go wrong. And unfortunately I did not always react with grace and poise. I considered just glossing over this part of the day, but I think that wedding blogs already sugarcoat the difficult parts of wedding planning and I cannot truly express the feelings and emotions of the day without sharing the whole story with you. I am ashamed to admit that I let such a minor detail derail me so easily, but when you work so hard for things to turn out a certain way it's difficult to let go when they don't go as planned.

The storm started to brew as soon as the makeup artist and hair stylists arrived. I booked with a company that provided both services. I really, really, really wanted airbrushed makeup for the wedding day and specifically chose a place that was known for their airbrushing. So, of course, the makeup artist arrived without her airbrushing equipment. According to her, no one told her that I had requested airbrushed makeup. (I later went back to the owner who told me that she most definitely made my request known to the makeup artist. To date, this has not been resolved and to be honest, I don't think it will ever be resolved.)

Fine. She didn't have her equipment. There was nothing that could be done so I put on a happy face and rolled with it. After my makeup was finished we moved on to my hair. I explained that my hair holds a curl really well (it does!) and that I wanted very loose curls.

Like this:

Photo by: GPT Photography on Bridal Musings via Lover.ly

Or this:

Photo by: Fondly Forever Photography on Inspired By This via Lover.ly

What I ended up with was this:

(I'm smiling here because I had not seen myself yet and didn't realize that I looked like Shirley-Fucking-Temple.)

The stylist led me over to a mirror, very proud of her creation. I stared at myself and my eyes widened. No. No. No. This wasn't right. I took a deep breath and told her this wasn't quite what I had in mind. She did her best to pull the curls out a little, but (spoiler alert!) my hair really does hold a curl and the damn things wouldn't loosen up. She kept trying to reassure me that they would fall as the day went on, but I know my hair and I know my curls just don't fall out like that.

By this point I was incredibly frustrated with both my hair and my makeup and I wanted everyone out. As I sat down with them to work out payments they informed me that the cost was another $10 per service, per person above what I had been quoted. When I pulled out the contract to show them that they were wrong they pointed to the clause that read:

"Holiday weekends (New years, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving) add $10pp/per service."

I understand weekends like Memorial Day and Labor Day when the holiday always falls on a Monday. You know exactly which weekend is the holiday weekend. But when the Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday is a bride to assume that the Saturday before is a holiday weekend? If you're going to play that game, couldn't the weekend after also be a holiday weekend? When I booked months in advance and then called again the week before to confirm, the salon owner failed to mention that there would be holiday prices. I would also like to note that not one of our other many vendors charged us holiday prices. I felt duped and I felt manipulated. I argued my case and the kicker is, after the makeup artist not bringing the right equipment and after my hair turning out the way it did, one of the hair stylists had the gall to argue back with me. In front of my mother. In front of my soon-to-be mother-in-law. And in front of my bridesmaids.

I was mortified and sent them packing in the most polite way I could. The second the door closed behind them the tears began to flow. My mother embraced me tightly.

"Oh honey, don't cry. You look beautiful."

I nodded and tried to hold back my tears. But being beautiful wasn't the problem. Yes, I looked pretty, but it wasn't how I pictured myself looking on my wedding day. And I paid good money to look the way I wanted to look. Instead, the stylists didn't bring the right equipment, did something totally ridiculous with my hair and then argued with me over the cost!

The situation pushed me over the edge. All of the emotions I had been feeling all morning, all week, all month, all year, culminated into this one moment. The tears fell steadily and no matter what I did I just couldn't pull myself together. And so, I did what any fully grown, mature woman would do. I shut myself in the bathroom and had a sobfest. Fortunately or unfortunately (I'm still not quite sure) I had scheduled for the videographer and photographer to arrive as the stylists were leaving so there wasn't much time left to feel sorry for myself. I dried my tears as best I could, took a deep breath and opened the door. The show must go on!

Note: I have decided not to share the vendor's name here on Weddingbee. That said, if you are a bride in the Albany, NY region and would like to discuss this further with me privately, please send me a message and I'm happy to talk to you about it one-on-one.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. We later wind down with our families back at the hotel.
• My bridesmaids get pretty and I get a special message from Mr. Coyote.  

Love Under the Moon: Here Comes the Sun

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling well rested and ready to conquer the world. HAH! Just kidding. In reality I woke up around 5 AM after a solid four hours of sleep and was too anxious to lay in bed any longer. I crept into the living room to write my last post as a miss and went over some last minute deets. I could feel the adrenaline bubbling under my skin. The day held so much promise! The sun was shining and it already looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, but how would it all play out? Would I dance a lot? Would I eat enough? Would I trip over my dress? After pacing around the room for a while I decided to hop into the shower and clear my head. As soon as I walked out I was instantly pummeled by MOH D.

"You're getting married todaaaaaaay!"

I gulped. Was this really happening? I felt my heart pounding and decided I should try to keep myself busy for the next few hours. It was only 7 AM and the hair stylists, makeup artist and all of my bridesmaids were not due to arrive until 9. I grabbed MOH D and we headed out to Dunkin Donuts to pick up coffee and bagels for all the ladies. (Poor MOH A had worked a super long shift at the hospital the day before and then drove two hours to our venue so we let her sneak in as much sleep as she could.)

We poured ourselves some coffee, laid out everything out and before we knew it there was a knock at the door. The hair stylists and makeup artist had arrived! My bridesmaids, Momma Coyote and FMIL Coyote trickled in shortly after and it was time to get to work!

It wasn't quite my turn to get prettified yet so I wandered around chatting with everyone and sipping on mimosas. At one point my phone buzzed. It was Mr. Coyote! And he had sent me a... YouTube link?

Video via YouTube

I should explain here that Mr. Coyote is a die-hard Beetlejuice fan and practically begged me to let him dress up like Beetlejuice for the wedding. While I am all about having the groom involved in wedding planning this was a little too much for me. I quickly put the kibosh on that one and gently suggested that it might make a better Halloween costume instead. To this day I am not quite sure if this video was Mr. Coyote's last ditch, passive aggressive attempt to change my mind or if he was just trying to be cute and was excited about the fact that it was our wedding day. I'm going to go with the latter. ;)

Other than a few random text messages I did not see or talk to Mr. Coyote until our first look. Did you talk to your groom before your first look or ceremony?

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then head to our rehearsal dinner where I shed my first tears of the weekend. 
• We wind down with our families back at the hotel.

Love Under the Moon: Winding Down

Our rehearsal dinner ended way too quickly and soon it was time to return to our hotel. My two maids of honor were spending the night in the hotel suite with me, but I wasn't quite ready for the evening to end so I invited my immediate family and Mr. Coyote and his immediate family back to the room for a bit.

Poppa Coyote quickly whipped out his new gift and happily played bartender for us.

He then rounded us all up and made a short, but sweet toast:

"To tomorrow, when two families become one."

Now, I am not typically a fan of scotch whisky, but you guys... This shit is GROOD. I mean good... And great. Great and good. It goes down so smooth and then makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Mmmmm. I initially cringed at the price tag of this baby, but after a glass of it, well, I'm a believer. That is some high quality booze, my friends.

Eventually everyone trickled out and headed home or back to their hotel room. Mr. Coyote was staying at my parents' house for the night and soon headed out as well. It was so strange saying goodbye to him and knowing that the next time I saw him it would be our wedding day! And he would be in a tux! And I would be in my wedding dress! There were too many emotions flying through my head and suddenly, as I hugged him goodnight, I felt my eyes brimming with tears for the second time that night.

I am so, so grateful that my besties spent the night with me because they instantly knew how to keep my nerves (and my tears!) at bay. We cuddled together on the couch, watched bad TV and took turns making Peppermint Patties. (<-- Try this you guys. It's seriously the world's best shot. You will not be disappointed.) Finally, somewhere around midnight, we wandered into the bedroom where we giggled and whispered under the covers as if we were teenagers again, until I quietly drifted off to sleep.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then chow down at our rehearsal dinner. 
• I give my father his gift and shed my first tears of the weekend.

Love Under the Moon: First Tears

I'm sorry if it seems like I am dragging this out a bit. I know you guys probably want me to get to the good stuff (and I promise, we will get there soon!), but I really feel that this particular part of the night deserves its own post. It was an incredibly emotional moment for many of us and it really changed the course of the weekend.

After we handed out most of the gifts I turned to give my father his gift. As soon as he slid the box out of the bag he was overwhelmed. He started laughing and yelling, "No. No way!" I started giggling and grinning like a fool, insisting that he open the box. There was silence in the room as his eyes perused the bottle and finally landed on the engraving.

Now, my father is an incredibly strong man. He is smart, he is funny and he is kind. He is many, many things, but overly emotional is not one of them. So even though I had given him an emotionally-charged gift I was completely floored when tears began pooling in his eyes. I could not believe that my gift (or more likely my impending marriage) had affected him so.

His reaction sent me over the edge and soon we were two pathetic, blubbering fools bawling and hugging and bawling and hugging while everyone else looked on in shock -- those who know my father know he is not one for such displays. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I don't have any photos of this exchange, but we did manage to snap a few photos post-tears.

We hadn't told anyone except my mother about the very special gift I had picked out for my father so anyone not close enough to see the writing on the bottle did not quite understand what was going on. In fact, our friends later joked that they appreciated the fact that my gift was a very nice bottle of booze, but was it really worth crying over?! Of course, once I showed off the engraving they teared up a bit too.

These were the first of many tears that weekend. Some were happy tears, some were not-so-happy tears, but it seemed very fitting that the first ones were shared with the first man I loved.

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last-minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.
• We practice getting married and then chow down at our rehearsal dinner.

Love Under the Moon: We Practice

Well hello there Hive! Sorry for the brief respite -- apparently married life isn't any less chaotic than engaged life. I could give you a long list of excuses, but I know you don't want to hear about any of that. You just want to hear about our rehearsal. Right?! Right!

When I arrived at Franklin Plaza for our rehearsal a few members of our wedding party were already milling about, looking clueless.

I knew in advance that our officiant would not be able to attend our rehearsal, so I was a bit nervous about how everything was going to play out. Honestly, my worries were for naught; Joe, our venue coordinator, has been in the wedding biz for a long time and was fantastic at corralling everyone into the right place. We only did the run-through once so the actual rehearsal portion was probably about 10 minutes tops.

 Oh, what a motley crew we were!

Joe did a great job of being our fake officiant.

And now we're fake married! Woo hoo!

We spent the next twenty odd minutes tying up loose ends and answering some last minute logistical questions. What reserved seats did we need? What time were we coming over for family portraits before the ceremony? Where did we want the programs to be? There were so many tiny little details to go over that I hadn't even thought about!

We finished up around 4:30 (way earlier than I thought) and decided to just crash our rehearsal dinner a little early. Remember that time I told you guys about the shady looking restaurant near our venue? Yea, about that. A few weeks after I wrote that post my family and I decided to grab dinner there to see what this place was all about. And I'm here to tell you not to judge a book by its cover! Our dinner that night was hands down one of the best meals I've had in a loooong time and the service was wonderful. Needless to say, we booked right away (although I still think they should really consider cleaning up their storefront!).

Anywho, while our friends and family headed to Lo Porto's, Mr. Coyote and I bopped over to the hotel to pick up all the wedding party gifts. It took us a bit longer than I thought to pack up the car and unload everything, but it filled my heart with joy to walk into the room to see my closest friends and family gathered together to celebrate us.

I didn't have much time to dwell on this (which is probably a good thing!) as Mr. Coyote and I were quickly ushered into the room. We dug into dinner (which was FANtastic) and once everyone had seconds (and thirds!) Mr. Coyote and I stood up to address the room. We thanked everyone near and far for their support not only during our engagement, but throughout our seven years together. Then we asked them to give us a few moments of their time before digging into dessert so we could share our gifts with them.

Married bees, where you surprised by how quickly you ran through your rehearsal?

 Miss a recap?

•  I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.
• Pre-wedding jitters set in the day before the wedding.

Love Under the Moon: It's Go Time!

I woke up Friday morning with adrenaline coursing through my body. Pre-wedding jitters had officially kicked in and I was ready to go-go-go. I packed up all my things since I was staying at the hotel for the next two nights and then leaving directly for Westchester on Sunday morning. It was a strange feeling leaving my parents' house that morning. Even though I technically hadn't lived there since I was 18 it was still very surreal knowing that the next time I walked through the door I would be a married lady.

The rehearsal wasn't until 4 PM so everyone split up. Momma Coyote, MOH D and I had to pick up a few things and then had an appointment for mani-pedis. Mr. Coyote was in charge of checking into the hotel and transporting the gifts for our wedding party as well as some last minute items like our guestbook, wine box and marriage certificate. Then he was meeting our out-of-town groomsmen so they could pick up their tuxedos.

All day I was on high alert. I was certain that whatever went wrong that day was going to be a sign of things to come. I was so worried about forgetting something or being late that I just could not relax. Instead of just enjoying the moment I was constantly checking the clock and thinking about the next thing that needed to be done. After a while I'm pretty sure my attitude started to rub off on my companions (sorry Mom!).

After all that worrying we did in fact make it to the hotel with plenty of time to get ready – meanwhile Mr. Coyote and the guys were still at the tux shop! After Thursday's shenanigans I kinda saw this coming, but there was nothing that could be done. The guys arrived back at the hotel around 3:45 which would have been perfect... If everyone was dressed. Instead, all the guys scurried back to their hotel rooms to change while the handful of people who were ready headed across the street to Franklin Plaza. Ready or not, it was time to start our rehearsal.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of this part of the day because I was too wigged out to break out the camera... That was going to slow us down! Fortunately, I did manage to relax enough to snap some photos during the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, so stick with me!

Miss a recap?

•  I babble about being married and share our wedding video.
• We finish up some last minute wedding tasks and I have complete breakdown.

Love Under the Moon: Chaos Ensues

The week before our wedding was complete insanity. It all started Tuesday night when we loaded up the car and prepared for our three hour trip upstate. Mr. Coyote was having unexplainable back pains, I hadn't slept in two days due to nerves and we left way later than expected. We spent most of the car ride arguing over things that I can't even remember now and didn't get to my parents' house until 1 AM. Ouch. On Wednesday we were still a bit huffy with each other, but there was no time for bickering. I had a dentist appointment and we still had to purchase the gifts for our wedding party. In between all that we also managed to squeeze in our first (and only) dance lesson!

Honestly, the day wasn't too crazy and the dance lesson helped loosen us up and forget about our early arguments. But our to-do list for Thursday kept growing and I was starting to feel the pressure. I was looking forward to getting everything over with early in the day so I could relax in the afternoon with Mr. Coyote and MOH D.

Right. Thursday morning we headed out to pick up our marriage license. Also a disaster. The woman entered everything into the computer sooooo slooooowly and messed up the form like three times and had to start allllll over again. It was excruciating.

No, seriously. Are we done here yet?!

We finally finished up and booked it to the tux shop so Mr. Coyote could pick up his tux. I didn't really start to freak out until about halfway through the tux appointment. What I thought was going to be a 30 minute fitting turned into an hour and a half ordeal. While I appreciate that they were so thorough with us I still do not understand what the fuck they were doing back there. Did they sew him an entirely new tuxedo?! To this day, I am not completely sure what happened. All I know is that we were way behind whatever arbitrary schedule I made up in my head and had reached my limit for the day.

And that was when Mr. Coyote informed me that he had no clothes for the honeymoon. Now, I know my darling husband is a procrastinator. Most of the time it is quite endearing and I just roll my eyes at him like any loving wife would do. But seriously?! It was two days before the wedding and my patience was spent. I wanted to be at home, relaxing and basking in my last few days as a bride. (Spoiler alert: That didn't happen.)

Instead we spent the next two hours clothes shopping for Mr. Coyote. Meanwhile my maid of honor (who was oblivious to the chaos that was my life) was texting me every half hour asking why I wasn't hanging out in the pool with her. And with every text that came in I became more and more stressed out and eventually took it all out on Mr. Coyote because ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS HANG OUT IN THE POOL WITH MY MAID OF HONOR BUT MY FUTURE HUSBAND WAS A FREAKIN' TOOLFACE WHO DECIDED TO GO CLOTHES SHOPPING TWO DAYS BEFORE HIS WEDDING.

Deep breaths.

Eventually I ate a sandwich and calmed the eff down. Mr. Coyote purchased an entirely new wardrobe, we finished wrapping all of the wedding party gifts and I poured myself glass of wine. Actually it was more like five glasses of wine, but it's okay because my maid of honor came over, my brother acted like a complete idiot to cheer me up (or because he was also drunk. I'm really not sure. Let's just go with the first one.) and all was right with the world.

He's special.

Were the days leading up to your wedding super stressful? Did you fight with your fiance over stupid things like clothes shopping and tuxedo fittings a few days before your wedding?

Miss a recap?

• I babble about being married and share our wedding video.

Love Under the Moon: The Coyote Wedding

Last week Mr. Coyote and I celebrated our one month anniversary as a married couple. It's hard to believe that just over a month ago we stood up in front of all our friends and family to proclaim our love for each other and commitment to one another. It was hands down the happiest and most beautiful day of my life (so far!).

Photo by Upstate Photographers

In the past month the question I have fielded most often is, "Do you feel any different?" and my immediate answer is always no. After all, we have been dating for seven years and living together for five years. Our routine is the same, our apartment is the same, and our lives were already intertwined in such an intimate way. What could possibly be different?

(Guest Photo) / Yep, we are still this goofy.

But then somewhere between the honeymoon and the thank you notes and the boxes of wedding gifts I stopped and realized that I do feel different. And although I have always prided myself on my writing I find that words escape me when I try to describe exactly what it is that is different. It is a feeling. A feeling like I have never experienced before. I honestly did not believe that after seven years I could love or care for Mr. Coyote any deeper than I already did. But I do. I feel stronger, happier and more committed to Mr. Coyote than I ever did before. I know that I am getting all mushy on you guys and starting to ramble, so I am just going to wrap this up by saying that being married is friggin' awesome!!

 Photo by Upstate Photographers / Soooo awesome!

Now that that's out of the way, I would like to start off the Coyote recaps with our beautiful highlights video. A video that shows the emotions of the day better than any words could possibly describe and STILL makes me bawl every time I watch it:

Cristina & Jason, Marry Me from Dennis R Shaw, Shaw Video Prod on Vimeo.

Alright you guys... Let's do this thing!