April Showers...

Bring May flowers!

Last weekend I had my fabulous bridal shower in upstate New York. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I had!

It'll be easier for me to break this one down into two posts, so today it's all about the details!

The first thing you should know is that there were no surprises at this shower. I designed the invitation for goodness sake! ;) Momma Coyote pretty much single handedly tackled the shower herself and came to me for opinions and approval whenever she needed to make a decision. In fact, I was so involved with the shower that I even woke up early on the day of to run some pre-shower errands with Momma Coyote and Bridesmaid C. We packed up the car with a few things that didn't get dropped off the day before and headed out to pick up the cake and cookies from Villa Italia Pasticceria. Nom. Nom. Nom.

Even though we hit a little snafu at the bakery (at the last minute we decided that there weren't enough cookies and ordered more) we still arrived at the venue over a half hour early. Everything was set up perfectly at Stadium Golf Club and I was so glad to have the extra time to wander around the room and enjoy it before the party started. There was a cute little sign out front to greet our guests:

My mom and a family friend had wrapped up the favors in beautiful silver wrapping paper that went perfectly with the burgundy napkins and calla lily centerpieces. The room truly looked beautiful:

The venue even had their own decorations that I didn't even know about! I am totally impressed by all of their hard work and little touches:

We also played some bridal bingo with cards that Momma Coyote and I printed together. We used Printable Games for the bingo template. To be honest, we probably could have done these ourselves, but for $7 it was totally worth it to have them provide us with the printables. It took us less than ten minutes to print 50 of these bad boys at home:

Image via Printable Games

Bridesmaid J randomly called out "bridal words" while I opened my gifts -- this really helped with what can be a ridiculously boring part of the shower. Let's be honest here, I freaking loved opening every single one of my gifts, but as a guests my attention usually starts to wander after the first ten minutes. After the gifts and games I directed everyone over the cookie table for some more sweets. We of course encouraged everyone to take them home and provided little baggies for them:

Oh and it's a good thing we decided to order more at the last minute because by the time the shower was over there were just a few crumbs left for future father-in-law Coyote to nibble on. ;)

Along with the favors:

Image via La Favorita

Momma Coyote also made torrone, a delicious Italian candy. She cut the candy up into bite size pieces and stuffed pieces them into organza bags. As the guests were getting ready to leave I went around and handed out the little bags as a parting gift. My bridesmaids offered to do the grunt work for me but it was actually a great way for me to stop and visit with everyone before they left!

I don't have a photo of the torrone in the cute bags, but I do have a photo of the just finished block of candy:

Yuuuummmy!

Wowza... That was a buttload of details! Next up: friends, family and being the bride at a bridal shower.

Making New Wedding Friends!

Last night I hopped on the bee meet up bandwagon and headed over to Sutton Place to meet up with some of my fellow New York City bees:

From left to right: lilcshelli, tba814, hunni8unni, myself, sarahbabs, and futuremrsfishy

(Oh and I have to mention that lilcshelli and hunni8unni actually already knew each other in real life and didn't even know it until they arrived at the meet up! It really is a small Weddingbee world!)

I had originally said that I would only stay until 7:30 since I have quite a commute back to Westchester, but because I suffer from FOMO (yes, this is a very real and very terrifying disease) I stuck around til about 9. Way past my curfew, but I couldn't help it! These ladies are just too sweet and I was having way too much fun to leave!

We shared our proposal stories and photos of our soon-to-be husbands -- except for me. I seem to be the only girl in the world without a picture of my SO on my phone. (Sorry Mr. Coyote!) Instead I shared lots and lots of photos of my kitty:

This little monster was super excited to play with all of our new toys from this weekend's bridal shower. I can't wait to share my experience with all of you!

For what it's worth, Mr. Coyote just notified me that he has 41 pictures of our cat and none of me on his phone. What can I say? We are both crazy cat ladies!

Okay... Back to the meet up! Even though we were sharing the bar with one too many Knicks fans (come on dudes, didn't you know there was a Rangers playoff game on last night??) we still had a blast sharing wedding planning stories and tips.

Many thanks to futuremrsfishy for getting the ball rolling on last night's meet up and I hope we have another soon!

Say My Name, Say My Name

If no one is around youuu, say baby I love youuuuu.

Was anyone else as obsessed with Destiny's Child as I was in the '90s? Just me? Okay, moving on.

Here's the deal: After the wedding I will be taking Mr. Coyote's last name and up until recently I had no problem with it. To be completely vain, my last name is kind of ugly sounding, often misspelled and mispronounced and ethnically does not flow with my first name. My first name is very Italian, while my last name is of Swiss/German descent (which, by the way, is a very small percentage of my heritage. I identify with and was raised in an Italian culture). Suffice to say, the two just don't mix well together. Mr. Coyote, on the other hand, is Italian and his last name flows perfectly with my first. 

I am actually very excited to take his name; to have one common name to identify with and to share with our (future) children. Plus there's that added benefit of a having a last name that ethnically flows with my first. ;-) To date, mentioning my current last name brings up questions like, "what kind of name is that?" and "well, you don't look Swiss/German". Really?! I never noticed! I could go on a long rant about the ridiculousness of tying a person's ethnicity to their last name, but I will spare you from all of that right now and get back to the point.

The point is that, even though I am excited, I still feel a bit of trepidation when I think about changing my name. My current last name is very unique and there are few people in the world who have it. In fact, if you were to google my full name right now you will probably get less than five legit results - all of which lead to me.

Mr. Coyote however, has a very common last name. Google my soon-to-be full name and you will get thousands upon thousands of results. Oh and pretty much every variation of my new name has already been taken in terms of email accounts - which is a problem I've never encountered before. And so, I can't help feeling a bit sad about losing my name and maybe even a bit of my (unique) identity. Even though I never particularly liked my last name it was still my name.

At the end of the day I will still happily take Mr. Coyote's name to recognize the creation of our new family unit, but it feels, well, a little weird. Are you changing your last name after the wedding? How are you coping with the change?

Favor Flav

Interestingly enough, wedding favors have been a bit of a hot topic in the Coyote household. I have to admit, I am not big on wedding favors. It's almost always some sort of useless trinket that sits around my apartment for six months until I decide to throw it out. And when I finally do I feel guilty that I have thrown away something that a couple put time and money into choosing. Because of all this, I am pretty hell bent on giving our guests a favor that won't sit around on their shelf collecting dust. Thankfully there are so many unique and interesting favors nowadays so I figured this would be an easy-peasy decision.

Oh, silly Coyote, thinking something wedding-related would be easy. When I brought up a few of my ideas to Momma Coyote I quickly learned some interesting things about what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable in the realm of wedding favors. I am not sure if this is specific to my family, or maybe to my Italian culture, but in my circle wedding favors have a few different components and are apparently a Big Deal.

First, You absolutely must have jordan almonds. A wedding without jordan almonds will have you excommunicated from the famiglia FOR LIFE. I have to been to enough family functions to know that jordan almonds are on the must have list. And so, a few weeks ago I sat down with Momma Coyote and we ordered ourselves a few boxes of "confetti":

Image via My Italian Wedding Favors

Sidenote: If you want some serious culture shock take a look at that website. It is phenomenally Italian.

Second, while the jordan almonds are a component of the favor, they cannot be the only favor. Usually they are wrapped up in tulle and then attached to the actual favor. Again, I kind of expected this and had long ago fallen in love with Mrs. Jellyfish's lottery ticket favors. I brought it up to Momma Coyote and while she loved the idea she didn't think it was enough.

Momma Coyote suggested a donation (perhaps similar to Mrs. Doily's favors), but the jordan almonds AND a lottery ticket AND a donation just seemed like too much for me. Too much paper, too many explanations.

And so it was back to the drawing board.

I kinda love edible favors. At the last wedding I went to the bride and groom had wrapped up M&M's and placed them inside a glass. I quietly went around the table eating my little baggie of M&M's. And Mr. Coyote's... And my brother's... And the random cousin I was sitting next to... Heh. Yum. The more I stumble across edible favors, the more I want them in our wedding.

How about these fortune cookie favors?

Image via Sschaf on Weddingbee

Or some tasty treats with your own monogram on them?

Image via Gracious Bridal

Canned or jarred treats can be really personal and last a lot longer than a cookie:

Photo by: Katy Gray on The Brides Cafe via Lover.ly

As a coffee lover (and one of Starbucks' most valuable customers) I am head over heels for these coffee bean favors:

Photo by: Katrina Louise on Wedding Chicks via Lover.ly

There are so many great ideas out there... Now I just need to choose one! Are you having favors at your wedding?

An Outing for the Men

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.

I think this is a such a great idea. While us ladies are inside playing silly shower games and fawning over gifts the boys will be right outside practicing their swing and hunting gophers! Or something like that. I don't know much about golf except what I learned from Caddyshack:

Image via PB Pulse

Now here's hoping the weather holds out!