So You're EnGAYged, A Gay Wedding Blog

Our Owl Cake Toppers

Alright all (very) bad puns aside, here is the story of how our toppers came to be. In yet another one of the planning convos with the future husband we were discussing what we would like to have as our cake topper. There is a part of me that has always loved the image of two plastic grooms atop a cake. Its a simple thing but also a powerful and provoking image. Its possible I first fell in love with the image when I watched the documentary Tying The Knot when I was in high school which featured a poster with the plastic grooms. But after searching through the catalogs and online shops I just never really found anything that fit us. For one we are two seriously chubby dudes and most of the little grooms are… well… not. The second thing was that none of them were very reflective of our personalities.

We discussed other options including Charlie Brown and Linus figurines, monograms, or just no topper at all. It wasnt until I was searching for images for the inspiration collage that was supposed to convince my mother that a Halloween wedding could be elegant and romantic (Here We Go…) that I stumbled upon two vintage Owl salt and pepper shakers someone was selling on etsy as a wedding cake topper. The two pudgy Japanese Horned Owls had so much charm and felt like little reflections of ourselves. We both instantly fell in love with the little guys and decided the next paycheck we would purchase them. As is often the case someone else fell in love with them too and purchased them from under our nose. Tragic. I know.

But randomly one day while looking for owl items for the wedding I stumbled upon another pair on ebay (this time considerably more expensive). Happily this time I did not wait too long and was able to snatch them up! Pictures really cant do them justice they are so detailed and adorable in person. So it just goes to show you that if its meant to be, things will find their way to you.

So I finally started making the paper flowers I am going to use in our bouquets and decided I would do a quick tutorial. I have to admit that these flowers are a bit more difficult to make than the last tutorial I did. However, once you make one and see how it all goes together they seem to get easier!

To make the paper roses you will need these things: wire floral stems, green florist tape, sheets of crepe paper, scissors, spray adhesive, and a toothpick (not pictured).

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Photo by Lara Swanson

Over Thanksgiving we had our first tasting. Caterer #1 was wonderful. They were very committed to being environmentally responsible through a variety of different projects, and the food was exceptional. Then, over Christmas, we had two more meetings with different caterers to see what was out there. Caterer #2 rocked our socks off! Not only was the food good, but the coordinator that would handle our wedding was so helpful and seemed like such an asset in planning this wedding from afar without an official wedding planner or DOC.

When we left the meeting Ginger was totally sold. She knew that if I was working with this caterer, I would be way more calm and collected. The caterer was willing to take on setting up things like escort cards, calling vendors the day of, and all of the details of our wacky wedding time line.

What wacky time line you ask? Well, after pushing the wedding date to May to satisfy the rain concerns, we ran into a new problem. We have to wait longer for the sun to set, because Jewish weddings are typically held after Shabbot has ended. Our ceremony will start at 8:30pm, and I couldn’t make our guests wait that long to eat. So, Ginger and I decided to flip things around. We are going to start with a cocktail hour and seated dinner. Then we will have the ceremony in the garden. Afterward, we will celebrate with toasts, dancing, and cake back in the barn.

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As mentioned before, I’m not dictating a particular dress for our female attendants—just giving them a paint chip and letting them pick whatever they’d like.  After a few trips to different dress stores, I’ve begun to see how this will come together—there’ll be a melange of different styles and some (hopefully slight) differences in color.  Here’s Heather in the dress style she’s chosen, which will be purchased in their burnt orange color:

photo by me

As she put it, it’s got just enough ‘funky’ to appease her and just enough ‘classic’ to make me smile.  She says she can imagine wearing it again to parties and other events, which is a great relief to me.  And just look at how cute she is in it!

Heather’s the only person for whom I have actual photos of them in their dress, but I can show you some of the other styles that have been decided upon:

Celanie (who will also wear burnt orange) has fallen in love with this retro little number:

Photo via Watters.

She looks amazing in it, like she just stepped off the set of “Mad Men,” and most importantly, she adores it—she didn’t want to take it off in the dress shop!  Celanie is the very definition of style maven, so I know that she’ll wear it again and again, and it’ll look fresh and different and stunning each time. Score!

Julie purchased this simple but pretty dress in cornflower blue:

Photo via Ann Taylor.

She’s all about accessories, so I can’t wait to see what she’ll pull together to wear with this.  I’m sure she’ll make it her own in a charming, memorable way.
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I am a major procrastinator, and I’m also not the greatest at making decisions. To be honest, I’ve changed the design for our Save The Dates at least three times.  Deborah, bless her, has put up with each change, and kept saying “I like this one better!”.  But I knew it was time to bite the bullet and get them ordered, the only problem was that once again, I didn’t like the design.  So I sat down and thought about the message we wanted to send our friends about the tone of our wedding: fun, quirky, bookish, with a nod to our nerdiness.  When I sent the drafts to Deborah, she responded “You better not change it this time, because I like this too much!”.  And that about settled it!

So, I present our Save the Dates:

And then the back:

I think the nerdiness  is small, but sufficient.  The Dodo bird is a nod to our favorite author, Jasper Fforde and his Thursday Next book series (which, by the way, if you have never read– do!). Our wedding day, 11/21, is a big important number in X-Files mythology– as show we both happen to love with all our hearts, though I promise we weren’t planning on getting married that day.  We were initially planning for Nov. 20, but financially it was cheaper to have a Sunday wedding, and then after signing the contract I realized our good geeky fortune! Deborah and I both tend to bookmark our books with random postcards we get in the mail, and everything just seems to fit.  I love them.

The best part about these save the dates? They cost me less than $50.00 for 100, including shipping!  Vistaprint is an online website that does various marketing things (holiday cards, business cards, posters) Every week they send out huge deals email blasts, and this week had a great deal on postcards.  If you are planning on making your own, this is definitely a great way to get the printed that won’t cost an arm and a leg!

OMG Photography is offering 20% off an engagement shoot to any reader that mentions they found out about OMG on So You’re EnGAYged!

One of the problems with holding a wedding halfway across the country is that a lot of our local friends aren’t able to make the trip.  With that in mind, one of our lovely bridespeople decided to throw us a bachelorette party to give the locals who can’t make it a chance to hang out with us and celebrate our nuptials.  It was a hoot!

Now, I’ve always thought that bachelor(ette) parties were a little weird.  I mean, if you’re getting married you’re obviously pretty far from being single, so it seems sort of strange to go out and hit on people all night.  If I’m going to get drunk and hit on someone all night I know who I want that person to be!  So I was glad she was coming with me.

So instead of getting plastered and playing bride-to-be-bingo, we started off the evening with a show at The Baton, Chicago’s drag cabaret.  About 20 of us went to see the ladies—who came in all ages, shapes, and sizes, all of them lovely—and get in the celebratory spirit.  It was especially nice to go to the early show since some of our friends have kids and couldn’t stay out all night.  I’d recommend spreading the night out that way if you can arrange it.

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I know I shouldn’t even be looking at shoes until I have found my dress, but I accidently fell in love with Louboutin’s Glitter Slingbacks.

(StyleFeeder)

I have been lusting after them for months.  Whenever I am in Friendship Heights, I stop in Neiman Marcus to visit them.

There are three obvious problems with these shoes.

1. They are $775, bigger than my dress budget

2. J is 3 inches shorter than me and doesn’t want a large height discrepency between us in photos.  If I wore 4″ heels, I would be towering over her.

3. The ceremony and reception will be in the grass and I don’t want to be sinking.

So I will continue to visit them and maybe buy a cheap pair of slingbacks from Target and glue glitter on them.

Our first non-North-American vendor, Lelia Scarfiotti in Italy, is offering 10% off her prices if you mention So You’re EnGAYged!

Good news for all couples who can now get LEGALLY wed in DC: Creative Ceremony is offering half price services to same sex couples in DC for ceremonies in March and April!