Reception Music

I mentioned yesterday that my fiancee and I had figured out the bulk of the background music for our reception. Part of my reasoning for reception music is that it should be appropriate for a wedding day. But appropriate is a funny word. It’s a word that is filled with traditions, cultural taboos, taste, and style. What’s appropriate for one person will be considered obscene by another. The trick is, really, to offend the minimal amount of people possible while, at the same time, not being afraid to play music that you find enjoyable and that sets the corresponding mood. My fiancee and I agreed that nothing sets the right mood at our dessert reception in a traditional gothic Lutheran church’s basement than an old thyme band that sings songs about the Hindenburg Disaster.


The Hindenburg Disaster (Live)

I, of course, am talking about The Two Man Gentleman Band. Banjos, standup basses, and kazoos and songs about the War of Northern Aggression are perfect for our big day. The music is bouncy, fun, and top-taping. It’s the perfect accompaniment to massive amounts of mini-cupcakes and Cost Co cake. The only trick will be to play it at the right volume so that everyone can hear the music lightly but it won’t over power anyone’s conversations. If only Trinity’s basement had a more up to date sound system. Ah well.


William Howard Taft


They Can’t Prohibit Love (Live)


The War Of Northern Aggression

If I was going to be cheesy…

My bride and I are busy trying to figure out the playlist for our big day and it hasn’t been easy. Part of the problem has to do with our limited collection and part of it probably has to do with our different tastes in music. It’s less than five weeks till the big day and we have no idea what song will be our first dance. The few songs we’ve bounded over in our relationship were by Atom and His Package, the Lemonheads, William Finn, and from the Broadway show Hot Feet. Sadly the little musical bonding that we’ve had seemed to ignore most wedding appropriate songs (Our mutual love for Lady Gaga and Britney Spears exclude this generalization of course).

We made good progress on what the background music for our wedding reception will be and I’ll make a post about that later. However, an idea recently popped into my head that I would probably do if I wasn’t actually getting married in a church that had a good organ.

I’ve seen several weddings where the guy walks into the venue, red carpet, aisle way, what-have-you, with the song “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies playing in the background. It’s a good choice, fits several couples, and I have a blog post in my archives where I feel that the song choice is waaaaay overdone and too cliche. I still stand by that judgement. But, like my fiancee said when we recently talked to our officiate about our wedding program, it’s okay to be cliche sometimes because when you try to be different, 9 out of 10 times, you will crash and burn. Cliche works.

So, if I was going to be cliche and was going to enter our wedding venue with a song playing in the background, the song I would pick is below. I remember when this song came out and I loved it even though I was just a little punk at the time. There’s something about this song that always stokes my ego. There must be a bunch of weddings who used this song at some point and if you know of any, please share.


Soul Coughing – Super Bon Bon

Batman > Superman?

Okay, this is not wedding related but I had to share it.

On Monday, Metropolis Comics sold a copy of Action Comics #1, CGC 8.0 (Very Fine) condition for $1 million. Action Comics #1 is the first appearance of Superman.

On Thursday, Heritage Auctions sold a copy of Detective Comics #27, CGC 8.0 (Very Fine) for sold $1,075,500. Detective Comics #27 is the first appearance of Batman.

Superman started the superhero comic book genre. Batman was #2. So why did Batman beat out Superman?

My guess is because very few comic collectors can afford comics at this prices. Both Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 are part of the pantheon of Holy Grails and, when I stopped comic book collecting in 2006, both were considered $1 million dollar books (though no sales at that price had yet to be commissioned). Very few of Action #1 and Detective #27 still exist and very few are in like-new condition. This comics rarely come out to play so, when they do, you need to spend big money to buy them. I doubt these comics are going to investors looking to flip the comic book down the line. Rather, they’re probably going into the hands of long time collectors who really really really want these comics. Both of these specific comics are NOT the best version of their respective fields (there are one or two copies that are in better condition) but the best aren’t coming out to play anytime soon. These two copies are as good as it currently gets.


From Comic Connect


From Heritage Auctions

The Wedding Party at the New York Palace Hotel

How did they let a bum like me into a place like this?

I, sadly, don’t have any pictures for the event. I left my camera at home but my fiancee was a shutterbug. Once she’s able to post pictures of the day, I’ll post a link. My fiancee, through being an avid reader of blogs, one two free tickets to this event – an event where the price for one ticket starts at $60 dollars. $60 dollars to walk around, get free bottles of Fiji water, and stuff your face full of cake. I guess if you have a large wedding budget and were looking for high end vendors from the New York area (i.e. if you were actually just beginning to plan your wedding), this event might be pretty good. However, if you’ve been following my fiancee’s blog, you know we’re near the end of our wedding planning experience. In fact, there’s only 49 days till our big day. We’re in the home stretch. There’s not much left to do (though if anything falls through, there’s plenty to freak out about).

Anyways, the event started at around noon but my fiancee and I didn’t arrive till after 2. We walked through the side entrance, past the expensive cafes and hotel restaurants, and wandered to the second floor to check in. The check-in was empty except for many young women sitting around with Wedding Channel gift bags. I instantly keyed in on the fact that I did not have a gift bag and that I needed one. I had no idea what was in that bag – it could have been filled with empty tootsie roll wrappers for all I know – but I wanted in. I spent the whole time looking for a Wedding Channel gift bag and failed to find where they gave them out. The main vendor tables were on the fifth floor so we headed on up.

I’ll be honest with you, faithful blog readers, I came to this event with one thing in mine. I had never heard of the people hosting this event (The Wedding Library – which, after post-event googling, showed me that the dresses/planning/etc that they offer is very hit or miss; if you look the part, you get awesome service; if you don’t, they treat you poorly and act like you don’t exist), I wasn’t too excited about the fact that Martha Stewart Weddings had all their vendors there, and even the Vera Wang bridal runway show didn’t interest me. I came for one reason – to sample as many pieces of cake, chocolates, and desserts, that I possibly could. I wanted to leave the Wedding Party feeling sick because I ate so many delicious things. And I’ll be happy to report that is exactly what happened.

There was a lot of things I saw that I liked, some that I didn’t, though most things were in the pile “ideas that are fine but aren’t me”. I really liked the gals at Sugar Flower Shop – their cake samples were delicious. The flowers put together by Stone Kelly were just down right beautiful, majestic, and perfect for the bride with the right budget. I loved all the different dessert samples put out by One Girl Cookies. I’m a sucker for cookies, mini whoopie pies, and anything small so I loved the samples they had out. It was funny though – there were probably too many samples on display. Everyone, and I mean everyone, would go to the table, become overwhelmed by the choices, and worry that they’ll appear greedy if they take more than one to try. I’ll admit I ran into this problem so I, respectfully, only took two samples – the mini whoopie pies which had the right balance of chocolate texture and cream filling and a cupcake that was not a flavor I typically like but was well executed. And I love their business card. If I had a few more dollars in my budget, I’d book their cookie bar in a second to complement our other dessert vendors. Ah well – I’ll keep them in mind for any future events I’ll have.

One idea that I saw that I liked was using individual chocolates, wrapped in small boxes, as favors for a sit down reception. La Maison Du Chocolat were very big into that during the event and this is an idea I hope more brides take to heart. Make your favors EDIBLE. Your guests will appreciate it more than you think. And, finally, as I left the event, I indulged in some cookies from the Treats Truck. YUM! It was the icing on the cake. My eating of these delicious chocolate chip cookies and caramel sandwich cookies was what finally pushed me from “oooooh I ate too much” into the “omg, too much deliciousness is making my stomach explode”. Seriously. This was a great way to end the day.

The main event of the day was the Bridal fashion show that took place at the end of the event. The ballroom was setup as a runway show with a runway, white chairs, lots of music, lights, and cameras. While I took my seat, two tall ladies in black and brown dresses were playing electric fiddles. They played for about 15 minutes and then the Bridesmaid dress portion of the fashion show began. I starting here). It was obvious which brides were their at the show with their friends, which were their with their overbearing mothers, and which were there who only wanted free cake samples (okay, that was probably just me). The bridesmaid dresses were modeled by a set of young girls who were probably thirteen years old and were completely unfamiliar with how to model. The dresses they wore were okay, heavily Greco-Roman inspired (i.e. floaty bottoms and strapless on top), and your standard preach/rose/green bridesmaids colors. They were, for the most part, uninspiring. I did like one charcoal colored dress but that’s it. I pity the bridesmaids who are forced to wear those dresses.

After we all politely clapped for the bridesmaid dresses, the Vera Wang show started. Professional models, lovely dresses, and a great show. I actually liked quite a few of these dresses. Lots of A-line, mermaids, pickups, and lots of dresses that carried all their weight in the bottom. Most were strapless (I saw only one capped sleeve) which bummed me a bit but they looked fine on the models. Several of the dresses, to me at least, relied too much on their wearers to be thin. Very few people can pull off the baby doll style dresses where the volume is in the front, making anyone average sized look 9 months pregnant. And if a bride has any weight on her top, the balance of quite a few of these dresses would be off. And I think 75% of the dresses had at least one large bow on the belt. On the models, they looked great, but I don’t think they would look great on most brides. Take a look at the galleries on Vera Wang’s site, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

After the show, the raffle prizes were awarded. A 50% off Vera Wang bridal gown coupon, three honeymoons, three pamper parties, and other awards were given out. I won squat. But that’s okay. I got to leave the show with a swag bag filled with coupons I’ll never use and profiles of photographers that I’ll won’t look at. But it did have the Martha Stewart Winter 2010 Weddings issue and, well, that made me pretty excited. I’m a sucker for cakes and Martha Stewart knows it. We have a good thing going between us.

Oh. And before I forget, have I mentioned how much my fiancee loves a photobooth? She really does. She’s even thinking of booking one for our wedding even though it’s not in our budget. This means, of course, we are unable to walk past a photobooth and not use it. And so we did. We’re kinda silly.



The Big 100

One thing that I tend to notice when it comes to wedding coverage is that the groom gets shafted when it comes to the “exercise” part of wedding planning. When I got to Barnes and Nobles, I do not see a book telling a groom to get fit on their wedding day. I do not see spreadsheets or website categories on wedding boards telling grooms to get in shape. The groom, it seems, is perfect the way he is. There’s never a groom who seems to think to himself that he should tone up, exercise, get in shape before his wedding day. And if there are, they’re pretty quiet about it. I don’t see blog posts about how much weight they’ve lost, which detox diet they’re trying, or how many miles they’ve run. And there’s no community rooting him on. He’s almost a silent, solitary individual, striving towards a goal of his own design. It’s very stoic.

And I find it to be a little ridiculous.

With less than 80 days left, I feel it’s probably time I announce my fitness goal to the world (the fact that I’ve become bad at this whole “blogging” thing is besides the point). The number 100 is in my mind. No, I’m not going to lose 100 pounds (if I did, I’d be near my birth weight). I’m not going to run 100 laps or run 100 miles since I find running to be very boring. No, my fitness goal is that I want to be able to do 100 pushups before my big day.

That picture above is me at a PP party late last year. A PP party is a Pushup and Poker party where people compete in pushups and poker. I won the pushup part (but lost a side bet later in the evening). I got my butt kicked in the poker part. I pulled off 53 pushups back then which was good considering that, when I got engaged, I could only do around 30. Last week, before a week of illness, I pushed that total to 73 which means I have around 70 days to increase that total by 27. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that. My pushup routine involves maxing out 3 days a week, followed by 2 – 4 other sets of 20-30 pushups each. It’s not the greatest system I’m sure but it seems to work. When my health is good, I seem to be able to push my total up 5-10 pushups every 2 weeks. So, as long as all the winter colds pass me by, I should be ok. However, the last two weeks have been rather brutal. I’ve been reduced to sitting on my couch and watching Doctor Who episodes. I’ve enjoyed it but it’s done nothing to further my goal.

I hope there are other grooms out there who don’t let only the ladies have all the fun when it comes to exercising or reaching fitness goals before the big day. And if you’re going to find yourself honeymooning in a place where you’re gonna have to take your shirt off, why wouldn’t you have one of these goals?

A warning from my fiancee

Okay, okay, I won’t look!

88 days to go and then I will finally be able to see what that dress – the dress that’s hanging in the middle of her bedroom – actually looks like.

100!

Holy crap, only 100 days till the big day. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Time to freak out.

If you’re interested in reading what the my lovely financee has to say about our wedding, check out katethebride.blogspot.com. She’s much better at keeping the internet updated with our wedding related shenanigans.

Ring Dishes and I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in two months

A lot can happen in two months. I should have blog about.

Two weeks ago, the countdown clock for the wedding finally began to click. Four months until the big day. And now, on Christmas Eve, there’s only 3.5 weeks until I say I do. It would be nice to be able to say that I’m freaking out about it but I’m not. It would be nice if I could say that there was some big wedding drama that I could report but I can’t. In fact, the wedding planning has so far been going TOO smoothly. And since I stopped reading most wedding blogs due to a crimp in my schedule, I don’t really have enough wedding trends to complain about. It’s not as if things haven’t been happening – things are rolling along on schedule – but I have no real desire to complain about current wedding trends. For an opinionated fellow, this is a sign that there’s something wrong with me. Or maybe I’m just too excited for my own day that every other wedding in the world is being completely blacked out at the moment. That’s probably it.

So, in these last two months, things have been happening. A friend of my fiancee’s married in Massachusetts which means I should share those photos soon. My fiancee’s blog was picked up by The Knot. We’re currently in Florida, visiting her family and people are still wishing us congratulations on our engagement that happened a year ago. We’re gathering addresses to send out wedding invites, our wedding website is active, and we finished our registries (and added a new one). We’ve started discussing our ceremony and found our officiate (since our church is between pastors at the moment). Oh. And I keep eating my body weight in pie. I love this time of year.

My fiancee, last month, asked me to buy something for our wedding. While perusing the internet, she discovered ring dishes. Have you heard of ring dishes? At first I thought she said candy dishes but I was mistaken. I don’t wear much jewelry so the idea of having a dish to put your rings on never entered my mind. It makes complete sense though – where else would you put your rings when you’re not wearing them? So my fiancee gave me an assignment – find a ring dish where we could put our rings during the ceremony. There’s no need to have the wedding party hold them; we’ll keep are thin platinum bands in a little dish on the altar or the baptismal fount. Less fuss, no muss, and I get to pick the dish out. What could go wrong?

The problem with ring dishes (they can also be called ring keepers) is that most of them are incredibly cheesy. Having my wedding date on the dish doesn’t bother me – having some line such as “love never dies” engraved on the dish makes me kinda want to throw up in my mouth. I dislike the idea of having a Hallmark card on my dresser for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong – I like adorable and ridiculous things. The c word is part of my daily vocabulary. But even a sensitive fellow like myself can’t help but die a little inside every time he sees a Hallmark card engraved on a piece of pottery. So after countless pages on Etsy, I discovered that I’m not the only one who feels this way. In fact, there are some ring dishes that are exactly up my alley.



Bailey Bowls made these for me.



Aren’t they great?

I, of course, got these pre-approved by my fiancee before I ordered them but you can’t go wrong with little rabbits holding onto your rings. And what rabbit wouldn’t like holding onto two carrots? The bad jokes just write themselves.