Love Under the Moon: Just Dance

After all of the formalities were over it was time to move on to the real party. As I mentioned before Mr. Coyote and I wanted a rockin' reception. We were not disappointed and I am seriously amazed by how much time everyone spent on the dance floor.

Things started started out pretty calm:

Because our final guest count ended up smaller than planned, Franklin Plaza set up some high tops near the bar to fill out the space. It was a great spot for guests to grab a drink and watch the party that was unfolding.

At some point cake was served and pastries were brought out. By this time I actually was feeling a bit hungry and yet I didn't even get to taste any of our desserts!

The reason I didn't get to eat any cake? This guy right here:

Nate Miller of Conway Entertainment

I wanted so badly to have a slice of that delicious, delicious cake, but every time I sat down to take a bite a song would come on that I just had to dance to. By the time there was finally a lull in the music all of the plates had been cleared. :( (Not to worry, there was PLENTY of cake leftover and I may have had a few slices for breakfast the next morning. It was fantastic!)

And I have to admit it was worth missing out on a slice of cake to be a part of this:

Right before our photographers left they pulled Mr. Coyote and I aside for a quick photo shoot with Franklin Plaza's amazing bank vault.

I love these photos so much. The ceremony was over, the reception was in full swing and Mr. Coyote and I were just amped up on love and excitement. What a difference from our pre-ceremony photos!

Paul and Brenda had taken all of the footage they needed so they bid us farewell and headed out. But not to worry... The party wasn't over quite yet!

*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. Meanwhile, Mr. Coyote was calm as a cucumber as he got ready with the dads and groomsmen.
• I finish getting ready and see an unexpected guest on my way to our first look.
• It was finally time to cross the street and meet my groom!
• We spend some time with our wedding party and then some time alone. Ceremony time was rapidly approaching.
• Our ceremony begins with the family and bridesmaid processional and continues with the bridal processional.
• I share the full text of our ceremony.
• We recess and my father gives us a very special wedding gift.
• Our friends and family gathered for some formal (and not so formal) portraits. Then Mr. Coyote and I spent a few moments alone before heading out to join the rest of our guests for our cocktail hour.
• The reception begins with a rockin’ introduction. Followed by our first dance and parent dances.
• Best Man M knocks us all out of the park with his speech. Our maids of honor had a little trouble with their speech, but my uncle brought us back on track with his beautiful blessing.
• We were too excited to eat, so we spent some time visiting with our guests until it was time to cut the cake.

Love Under the Moon: When I'm 64

After the speeches and blessing we dug right into dinner. We served a four course meal which I detailed for you here and here. (Oh and for all those who were following our little Momzilla saga, Team Zucchini totally won!) Like many couples, Mr. Coyote and I barely touched the food on our wedding day. It wasn't for a lack of time though - Our venue told us up front that they make it their mission serve the bride and groom first. Talk about service! The problem was, as we sat there staring at the amazing dishes laid out in front of us, we just weren't hungry. And so, we spent a majority of our dinner making the rounds and greeting our guests. Every time a new course was served our coordinator would tap us on the shoulders to let us know. We would head back to our seats, push the food around a bit and then get up and continue visiting with everyone.

By the time our main entree came (which I was really looking forward to!) I was legitimately pissed at myself. I took about three bites of the filet and nibbled on a few pieces of zucchini before I threw in the towel. It was absolutely fantastic, but I just could not fit another morsel in my stomach. I still felt all twisted up inside from nerves and excitement. Mr. Coyote felt the same exact way and repeatedly bemoaned the fact that we were wasting such a fantastic meal.

I've said it before and I'm going to say it again. Can someone PLEASE have a wedding at Franklin Plaza and invite me so I can eat their delicious, delicious food and enjoy it?!

After the plates were cleared and guests had been greeted we jumped right into our cake cutting. Ohmigosh, you guys. This cake. It may have actually been the highlight of our wedding. It was seriously the most magnificent cake I have ever seen. Huge props to Villa Italia for this beauty:

Oh and let's take a better look at that cake topper, shall we?

Now the cake cutting was a huge source of contention in the Coyote household. I was very adamant that there would be NO cake smashing on our wedding day. Mr. Coyote however, didn't quite understand the gravity of the situation and teased me relentlessly about it. I was incredibly upset by this and may have even cried once and threatened divorce. What?? There was no way I was going to have cake on my face, in my hair, down my dress, etc.

And even though I trusted Mr. Coyote not to ruin our marriage within the first two hours there was a part of me that was wary. Thankfully, he respected the sanctity of our marriage and sweetly fed the cake to me.

He was met with boos.

"Come on Mrs. Coyote, we gotta give the crowd what they want!"

"Sorry guys... She said no."

The thing is while Mr. Coyote was making pouty faces to our guests I was gearing up a forkful of frosting to smear on his face. And smear I did. Of course I wasn't going to get off that easy so Mr. Coyote played right back into it.

We shared a cake-y kiss and quickly wiped that ish off our faces.

Oh and my post title? If you haven't guessed it yet our cake cutting song was "When I'm 64" by The Beatles. Our videographer put together a great little montage of our cake cutting with our song choice playing in the background so if you have a minute, sit back, press play and enjoy all of the little nuances that photos just can't quite capture:

Video by Shaw Video Productions

I think I was originally against the cake smashing because in my head I had feared some all out cake fight. But a little bit of frosting on the nose? Totally acceptable. What's your take on cake in the face?

*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. Meanwhile, Mr. Coyote was calm as a cucumber as he got ready with the dads and groomsmen.
• I finish getting ready and see an unexpected guest on my way to our first look.
• It was finally time to cross the street and meet my groom!
• We spend some time with our wedding party and then some time alone. Ceremony time was rapidly approaching.
• Our ceremony begins with the family and bridesmaid processional and continues with the bridal processional.
• I share the full text of our ceremony.
• We recess and my father gives us a very special wedding gift.
• Our friends and family gathered for some formal (and not so formal) portraits. Then Mr. Coyote and I spent a few moments alone before heading out to join the rest of our guests for our cocktail hour.
• The reception begins with a rockin’ introduction. Followed by our first dance and parent dances.
• Best Man M knocks us all out of the park with his speech. Our maids of honor had a little trouble with their speech, but my uncle brought us back on track with his beautiful blessing.

Love Under the Moon: Movin' Right Along

I spent way too much time worrying about Best Man M's speech when I really should have been worrying about the ladies' speech. When I asked MOH A and MOH D to be my maids of honor, I told them they were welcome to approach the speech in whatever way made them comfortable. If they each wanted to give a short speech, that was fine. If they wanted to give a speech together, that was also fine. If one wanted to give a speech and the other didn't? A-Okay! I really just wanted them to be comfortable and not feel pressured.

Because MOH A, MOH D and I all grew up together, they decided to give a combined speech. MOH D even typed it all up and noted who would say what. When we were getting ready in the morning they commented multiple times on how great their speech was and how excited they were to read it to everyone.

(MOH D on the left and MOH A on the right.)

Of course, that was before MOH A had a few too many at the cocktail hour. Granted that's what's there for, but when you know you're giving a speech don't ya think you would show a little restraint?! In MOH A's defense it was an open bar. I'd have a hard time saying no too. ;) MOH D tried her best to save the speech, but it just wasn't happening. MOH A had taken complete control. She was reading MOH D's lines instead of her own, she was making things up as she went along, it was just a general disaster! 

She came up with such gems like, "I've known Mrs. Coyote for… I dunno, a really long time" and, "Soooo yea, you guys had some rough times, but you got through them. Yea, just like you would as a married couple I guess."

At the time I was completely mortified and kept whispering in my head, "Please shut up. Please shut up. Please, please, please shut up!" Eventually they did shut up and there were some really sweet portions, but overall it was just a complete bomb.

The video is cringeworthy, but thankfully the photos look pretty cute so we're gonna stick with that. At first I thought I would never live down the fact we had such a horrible speech at our wedding, but now that it's three months behind us it's just a really funny story. Oh and not only do I constantly tease my girls about their disaster of a speech, but now I have plenty of ammo for when MOH A gets married. ;)

Thankfully, my uncle followed them with a beautiful blessing and we moved on to dinner!

"Would you all please stand and bow your heads?

For the sumptuous food and tender roast,

For the invitation from our gracious host,

For Mrs. Coyote whom Mr. Coyote loves the most,

Let us give grace to the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.

Amen."

*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. Meanwhile, Mr. Coyote was calm as a cucumber as he got ready with the dads and groomsmen.
• I finish getting ready and see an unexpected guest on my way to our first look.
• It was finally time to cross the street and meet my groom!
• We spend some time with our wedding party and then some time alone. Ceremony time was rapidly approaching.
• Our ceremony begins with the family and bridesmaid processional and continues with the bridal processional.
• I share the full text of our ceremony.
• We recess and my father gives us a very special wedding gift.
• Our friends and family gathered for some formal (and not so formal) portraits. Then Mr. Coyote and I spent a few moments alone before heading out to join the rest of our guests for our cocktail hour.
• The reception begins with a rockin’ introduction. Followed by our first dance and parent dances.
• Best Man M knocks us all out of the park with his speech.

Love Under the Moon: Best Man Bingo

Hive, I was terrified of what our best man was going to say during his speech. I love Best Man M, but he has an interesting (though hilarious) way of storytelling. He often tangents into five or more stories until you no longer remember what exactly he was talking about in the first place. He also suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome and can often say offensive things without even realizing he's being offensive. Many of our guests had never met our best man before and we feared that our guests might not quite understand or appreciate his sense of humor. Despite all of this, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and allowed our DJ to hand over the microphone.

Apparently some of our mutual friends were also curious about how Best Man M's speech would play out because just before he started speaking a few of these were handed around to our guests:

 (Guest photo)

Yes, that's right. We played Best Man Bingo at our wedding.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for the bingo players) Best Man M gave the most perfect and appropriate wedding speech I have heard in a long time so I am going to stop here and let him do the rest of the talking.

"Thank you everyone. I'm Mr. Coyote's best man and Mr. Coyote is my best friend. We've known each other for about 25 years and it's amazing to be able to say that; it's a privilege to be able to say that. It's a little bit difficult to describe our friendship because it's so multifaceted. It's very deep and very wonderful. I grew up with Mr. Coyote and I always like to say that your best friends... You have no idea where they came from. One day, and I think it was my first grade birthday party, I see this kid in a blue sweatshirt and blue sweatpants and we're running through my backyard together, going crazy, acting wild like kids do and the next thing you know... Well, he's been with me every step of the way through my own life and I've been glad to be with him through all of the major steps and especially this extremely major step here of getting married to my other good friend Mrs. Coyote.

"I'd like to describe a little bit of what it was like to grow up with Mr. Coyote. It was almost like one of those '80s kids movies. Like The Goonies or Big Trouble in Little China or something like that. We were always doing something. We were always getting into trouble whether it was getting chased by dogs down Beech Street on our bikes or kicking one of our friends when we accidentally set him on fire with bug spray and lighters."

At this point the room erupted into laughter and I was left shaking my head.

"Don't worry guys, I'm almost done!

"Oh and retrieving an ambulance for our other good friend when he cut himself with a fishing knife. So the reason why I bring this all up; I know it sounds embarrassing, but it's not. It was actually a heck of a lot of fun. And in every '80s kids movie where there's all the boys, you know, there's always that one special girl that's a part of the team. And that's Mrs. Coyote. And if I were to remake one of these movies; if I were to remake The Goonies or one of those wonderful classic movies from our childhood Mrs. Coyote would be that girl on the team. Mrs. Coyote would be there. She'd be on her bike getting chased by a dog while we were riding down Beech Street. She'd be kicking our friend when he was on fire while we all yelled, 'Stop, drop and roll dude!'

(Guest photo)

"And finally, I think Mrs. Coyote would, while Mr. Coyote donated his shirt to stop the bleeding when our other friend cut himself, Mrs. Coyote would help to run and get that ambulance. What I'm saying is that Mrs. Coyote is not only a great addition to our team, but they know how to handle these things together. They can handle the challenges. I've watched Mr. Coyote grow up. I've watched him become this responsible and skilled individual. A mature individual. From all those crazy days when we were kids to who he is today. And Mrs. Coyote, when I met you, we were filming a show for our good friend and that was the first time I laid eyes on Mrs. Coyote. And I told her one of my stories and she didn't run. That's how I know she can handle all of the things that are going to come their way in life.

"I want to thank all of you for coming out here, I want to thank Mrs. Coyote's parents and Mr. Coyote's parents and all of the wonderful people who helped make this happen and all of their family for supporting them. I want everyone to raise their glasses and to wish the best of luck, the best of fortune, to Mr. and Mrs. Coyote on their wedding day. Salud."

*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. Meanwhile, Mr. Coyote was calm as a cucumber as he got ready with the dads and groomsmen.
• I finish getting ready and see an unexpected guest on my way to our first look.
• It was finally time to cross the street and meet my groom!
• We spend some time with our wedding party and then some time alone. Ceremony time was rapidly approaching.
• Our ceremony begins with the family and bridesmaid processional and continues with the bridal processional.
• I share the full text of our ceremony.
• We recess and my father gives us a very special wedding gift.
• Our friends and family gathered for some formal (and not so formal) portraits. Then Mr. Coyote and I spent a few moments alone before heading out to join the rest of our guests for our cocktail hour.
• The reception begins with a rockin’ introduction. Followed by our first dance and parent dances.

Love Under the Moon: Parent Dances

As soon as our first dance was over Mr. Coyote led me to Poppa Coyote and we went straight into the parent dances. Poppa Coyote had chosen "I Loved Her First" by Heartland and in the days leading up to the wedding, every single time I heard the song I cried. After all of the crying I did on our wedding day I was actually shocked that I did not shed a tear during my dance with my father. 

I know that we talked a lot, but for the life of me I can't remember what was said! At one point Poppa Coyote messed up one of our twirls so I did take some time to mock him mercilessly. (Sorry Dad, that's just how I roll when I'm nervous!)

Because this song is a bit long, we chose to shorten it and had our DJ fade out after the second chorus.

"Look at the two of you dancing that way,
Lost in the moment and each others' face.
So much in love, you're alone in this place,
Like there's nobody else in the world.
I was enough for her not long ago,
I was her number one, she told me so.
And she still means the world to me, just so you know,
So be careful when you hold my girl.

 

"Time changes everything, life must go on
And I'm not gonna stand in your way.
But I loved her first, I held her first,
And a place in my heart will always be hers.
From the first breath she breathed,
When she first smiled at me,
I knew the love of a father runs deep.
And I prayed that she'd find you someday,
But it's still hard to give her away.
I loved her first.

"And I knew the first time I saw you with her,
It was only a matter of time.
I loved her first, I held her first,
And a place in my heart will always be hers.
From the first breath she breathed,
When she first smiled at me,
I knew the love of a father runs deep.
And I prayed that she'd find you someday,
But it's still hard to give her away.
I loved her first."

I absolutely loved my dad's song choice and even though I didn't cry I pretty sure I saw a few guests wiping their tears. Too soon our song ended and it was time for Mr. Coyote and his momma to take to the floor.

Mr. Coyote chose "Rainbow Connection" for the mother-son dance because Mr. Coyote is a Muppet and this song always reminds MIL Coyote of her son. When Mr. Coyote informed her of his song choice none of us were quite sure if she would make it through the whole song without crying. And just as I was surprised that I kept it together for my father-daughter dance, MIL surprised us all by not shedding a tear during her special dance with her son. Instead, she sang to Mr. Coyote while they danced which I swear, almost made me shed a tear. (Which would not have been surprising!)

 
We later found out that Mr. Coyote's momma listened to the song on repeat the week of the wedding in order to get all the tears out of her system. Apparently it worked! (MIL Coyote is a smart cookie.) Again this is a super long song so we chose to fade out after the second chorus.

"Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
 

"Who said that every wish would be heard
And answered when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me."

The special dances were over and it was time to take our seats for the speeches and dinner. 

*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. Meanwhile, Mr. Coyote was calm as a cucumber as he got ready with the dads and groomsmen.
• I finish getting ready and see an unexpected guest on my way to our first look.
• It was finally time to cross the street and meet my groom!
• We spend some time with our wedding party and then some time alone. Ceremony time was rapidly approaching.
• Our ceremony begins with the family and bridesmaid processional and continues with the bridal processional.
• I share the full text of our ceremony.
• We recess and my father gives us a very special wedding gift.
• Our friends and family gathered for some formal (and not so formal) portraits. Then Mr. Coyote and I spent a few moments alone before heading out to join the rest of our guests for our cocktail hour.
• The reception begins with a rockin’ introduction. Followed by our first dance.