Things We Gleefully Cribbed and Learned

It's funny how folks get protective about their weddings. You read all the time about some bride (and it always seems to be the woman because men aren't supposed to care) who will never let anyone know about her floral arrangements or her favors or her menu because it's supposed to be the bestest, most unique thing EVER. I think it may be because J and I are a same-gender couple that we didn't have that kind of protectiveness. Leading up to the wedding, I told EVERYONE every last detail about our wedding plans. And really, if someone else decided to use one of them, I was flattered. I guess the thing is, being a gay guy, nothing was going to be "unveiled." I was wearing a suit. J was wearing a suit.

With the pressure to have the bestest, most unique wedding off, J and I got a lot of ideas from other people's weddings. Here's some of the things we copied from others:

1. The MC - when we went to other people's weddings we saw how important it was to have someone, a DJ or a friend, MC your reception. The reception is where people will be eating and visiting and talking. Someone needs to focus the attention on stuff like cutting the cake and the first dance or even telling people to hurry up and go to the buffet.

2. The last dance - This came from both the Lancaster wedding and the Pleather and Leeanne wedding. Their last dance was all of their friends dancing in a circle around them. It was such an expression of love and joy and silly dancing. Our last dance was to "We are Family" surround by family of birth and choice. A nice way to end a wedding.

3. Using a quilt as your guestbook - When my friend Lady Bountiful got married a close friend made a quilt for them that everyone signed. It was years later that I learned how to quilt and I knew, remembering how beautiful Lady Bountiful's quilt was, that J and I would have a wedding quilt that everyone signed. For our wedding, we put squares of fabric and each table for people to sign, draw on or write a message. We still sleep under that quilt.

4. Naming tables - They work much better than numbers. As I said earlier, it's a lot easier to move a table around and not worry that table #20 is next to table #3.

5. The Grey armadillo cake - We're big fans of Dolly Parton. While our actual wedding was a little too classy to insert a touch of Dolly, we decided to go with a little Steel Magnolia wedding. We played toilet paper brides and for the cake, Rootbeer corraled our friends to make a grey armadillo cake complete with tire tracks.