Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes

I'm not one to care much about my appearance. Don't get me wrong, I shower once a day and make sure there isn't any dirt under my nails, but that's pretty much where it ends. I very rarely style my hair and I never wear make-up.

But as our wedding day approaches I find myself stopping to examine every little blemish on my body. I'm starting to become a wee bit obsessed with that random pimple on my forehead or how frizzy my hair is all the time. Oh and it would awesome if my body could just spontaneously have a growth spurt in the next few months.

While there are a lot of things I can't control (like my height) I can definitely stop being so freakin' lazy about how I look. I'm still not wearing make-up, but I have decided to clean up my act. And since it's stuck in my head I decided to (very unsuccessfully) followed along with the song:

Head (or in this case, hair... Cuz it's on my head)


My hair is out of control. It's really frizzy and really wavy and I make it look halfway presentable by wearing it up in a bun 90% of the time. BUT I want to wear it down for the wedding, so I really gotta do something about it.

I've been using everything and anything by John Freida and it does seem to be helping. The Frizz-Ease hair serum is my fave:

Image via John Frieda

I also suffer from severe dandruff. Like really, really bad. But this stuff pretty much kicks butt:

Image via Neutrogena

I have tried so many different dandruff shampoos and this is the only one that has worked for me. Of course because one of the active ingredients is coal tar extract (yes, I am being serious) it comes with the added benefit of smelling like a freshly paved driveway after each use! No pain, no gain, right?

Shoulders

Or more generally, skin. I have incredibly dry skin. Most of the time I just ignore it and hope it goes away. It doesn't. One day I randomly picked up a bottle of Cetaphil Skin Restoring Moisturizer and even though I cried for three days over how expensive it was I have to say that it works. It clears up my dry skin and doesn't smell funky or feel greasy.Winning!

Image via Cetaphil

Knees & Toes

Come on, it's March! I know we didn't have much of a winter here in New York, but by toes have been in hiding since late August and let's not even talk about the last time I picked up a razor. Ugh, I have no advice for you guys on this one because I am in serious need of a pedicure.


Eyes

I'm a four eyes and I hate it. I have never been able to embrace how I look with glasses and have been wearing contacts for many years now. The problem is I'm really lazy. Like so lazy that I ran out of contacts last year and have been wearing my glasses every day because it's too much effort to get a new prescription. Pure laziness. But I refuse to wear these stupid glasses on my wedding day so it's definitely a kick in the butt to get my eyes checked out again.

Ears

Uhm ears? I don't know... I keep 'em clean and I do have pierced ears. I should start looking for some earrings maybe...

Mouth (and by mouth I mean teeth)

Three years of braces in middle school left me with pretty straight teeth. My problem is I have a severe coffee addiction and teeth that are prone to yellowing. Yuck. And so, I am putting extra effort into whitening my teeth.

(Personal Photo) / Yes, I like to set up photo shoots for my teeth cleaning supplies. Doesn't everyone?!

First I use my nifty spinhead toothbrush and Arm & Hammer toothpaste that I stole from Mr. Coyote (Shhhhh!). Then I floss like whoa. And finally I use some whitening mouthwash. When it gets closer to the wedding day I'll probably start using white strips. I've used them before, but they make my teeth really sensitive so I try to use them sparingly.


Nose


Okay, I'm done playing along with the song. Check for boogies and make sure you don't have any nose hairs stickin' out. That's some good solid advice right there.

Wow this sounds like a lot of work. Remember when I was lazy and didn't want to put effort into any of this? Yea, that was nice. I'm just going to go sit on the couch for a while and think about being lazy...

Do you have any awesome grooming tips to share with a lazy bride like me?

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:

Image via Mrs. Hippo on Weddingbee

Image via Our Hobby To Your Home on Etsy

So tell me Hive, how are you and your significant other merging families? Are you picking a side or a seat?

Good Grief!

Hive! I finally bought/finished our semi-DIY cake topper and I am so excited to share it with you!

But first, I feel as though I should explain the story behind it.

A long, long time ago before I was blogging as Miss Coyote I was a very active member on the Wedding Bee boards. Maybe some of you will remember me by my avatar:

Good ol' Lucy! Now my choice in avatar was not just a random happenstance. There's a lot of meaning behind that cute little image. One of my nicknames for Mr. Coyote has always been "Charlie Brown". I'm not quite sure how it came to be (since his name sounds nothing like Charlie Brown), but I think it's a personality thing. Eventually Mr. C started calling me "Lucy". I have a particularly wicked sense of humor and Mr. Coyote always says that if we were to ever play football together I would almost certainly pull the football away from him every single time. Hee. He's right. I'm mean like that.

And so when I found these little dudes on Ebay:

Image via Ebay

I knew I just had to snatch them up!

Once they arrived I quickly set out to make them more wedding appropriate.

I made a cute little bow tie for Charlie:

(Personal Photo)

The bow tie came out perfectly so I thought I would try to make a top hat too. This was more difficult and I swear it looks like a pilgrim hat. I think I might try to remake it (or maybe just give up and let him be bald). What do you think?

(Personal Photo) / Silly pilgrim, bow ties are for grooms!

Finally, I made a veil for Lucy using all that leftover lace ribbon from my hair flower:

(Personal Photo)

I also just picked up a piece of white foam board that we can glue Charlie and Lucy onto and then stick on top of the cake. I've just been too lazy to cut it out and I'm thinking I'll probably get around to it the week before the wedding like the slacker bride I am.

In the meantime, what do you think I should do with poor Charlie? Hat or no hat?

The Grand Finale

Well, today I'm wrapping up my trilogy on foodie posts and this one is gonna be all about desserts! YUM!

A long, long time ago I talked about how we stuffed our faces with cake. Well, I'm happy to report that we've chosen our bakery and are super excited to have Villa Italia Pasticceria making our wedding cake. I've had their cakes many, many times and I swear, every time I have one it's better than the last!

We're having a four tier cake and we've decided to offer our guests two different flavors. Two tiers will be marble cake with cannoli filling and the other two will be vanilla cake with a raspberry cream filling. Oh man, I am drooling just thinking about it.

The cake will be covered with a vanilla buttercream frosting and we're hoping for something that looks a little like this:

Image via Samdogs on Flickr

Just without all the flowers and maybe with some pretty swirls and flourishes in our wedding colors. (And yes, all of this is a reminder that we don't have a cake topper yet!)

But the night doesn't end with cake. It just wouldn't be a true Italian wedding if we didn't have cookies and pastries! So we also went ahead and ordered trays to be put on each table when dessert is served.

Image via Jonathan's Pastry

For me, this was always a no brainer - I have never attended a wedding or family function that DIDN'T have cookies on the table - but apparently this is a cultural thing. When we were discussing our options with our venue coordinator he told us not waste our money on the cookie trays and said that (in his experience) no one even notices if they're missing.

At this point in the conversation my father slowly leaned over the table and said very seriously, "There will be over a hundred Italians at this wedding and I guarantee that they will notice if there are no cookies. Do YOU want to be the one to tell them that there aren't any cookies?" And so, cookies it is!

Oh and during one of our last trips to the our venue we noticed they had an old school espresso machine near the bar. It kinda looked like this:

Image via Victorian Trading Company

Except way more awesome. Unfortunately, the last time I visited our venue was way before I was a blogger bee so I didn't even think to take photos of it! I promise next time I'm there I will try to sneak a few shots of it because it really is the coolest thing ev-ah. Anywho, we were told that they usually keep it out of sight unless the bride and groom request to have cappuccino and cordials served with dessert. 

Hive, remember I told you how excited I get when I think about the espresso machine we registered for? Yeah well, multiply that times infinity and you will maybe begin to understand how excited I am that we're going to have espresso and cordials served with our dessert. Let's just hope that I don't suffer from a serious sugar/caffeine crash the second the party is over.

Are you serving anything other than cake for your dessert? Maybe a candy bar or a late-night snack? Oh and what about cookies and pasties at weddings? Is it as common as I think it is or is it more of a cultural thing?

Let's Eat!

Since I talked about our cocktail hour breakdown yesterday I figured I might as well keep on going and talk about the rest of deliciousness we've got in store for our guests.

I will say that the one and only bummer about our venue is that they don't do food tastings.

Image via Open Clip Art Library

I fully understand that we are taking a huge risk by booking a venue without tasting their food, but honestly we have read so many raving reviews about the food at Franklin Plaza that I think we're safe.

We'll start the night off right with a champagne toast (hey, just in case the food's no good at least our guests will be too tipsy to know the difference, am I right?!) and an appetizer. This is followed by a salad, the main entree and dessert. We decided to go with a basic penne marinara for our appetizer (I'm sure all of our Italian relatives will approve!), followed by a mixed salad with peppers, marinated artichokes and balsamic vinaigrette. Mmmmmm. Now for the main meal things got a little tricky. We were told we could have three entrees for our guests to choose from. We settled on the Filet Mignon, Chicken Piccatta and the Eggplant Rollatini (for our vegetarian guests). Okay awesome, so... we're done here, right?

Nope! Imagine our surprise when our coordinator told us that we could can three entrees in addition to a vegetarian dish. Score! And then we were also told that we don't need to choose a specific vegetarian option ahead of time. All we need to do is make note of who would like a vegetarian entree and the waitstaff will present them with four different meat-free options that they can choose from right then and there.

Now that's some good service my friends!

Image via tinypic / I don't know you guys... I have been  in a lolcats kinda mood lately.

But now we are faced with a bit of a predicament. We've chosen two of our three entrees and can't decide on a third. We've got beef, poultry and veggie options covered so our final one will be a fish dish (Hee Hee). Do you look for the seafood entree at a wedding? If so, which kind would you be most likely to enjoy?

As a wedding guest, which would you prefer?
- Grilled swordfish with herbed butter
- Salmon en Croute with lemon, white wine and dill sauce
- Grilled salmon with mango salsa
- Poached salmon with a dijionaise sause
- Rolled fillet of sole florentine