The Wedding Planning Process
Building Your Wedding Party
In my opinion, having a wedding party that consists of your closest friends and family makes the wedding planning process less stressful. Not only are they your support system in difficult times, but more importantly they are there to help you with whatever you need to celebrate one of the most memorable days of your life. Not everyone picks their wedding party the same way. Some make it all family members; some perhaps choose childhood friends. Adrian and I had thought about who would make up each of our sides, but we couldn’t have been happier when we nailed down the final list of names. Now that we’ve secured a date at our dream venue, it’s time to put together each of our parties and turn up the creativity juices on how to ask them!
Deciding Who To Ask
My party consists of 4 guys and 4 girls. A good majority of them are friends when college while the rest I’ve known since living in Arizona. I wanted to put together a group of my closest friends that all have a similar personality as I do because if I’m not allowed to lift a finger on the day of the wedding, I needed a team that all share some form of my type-A personality. This is the most rock solid group of friends I could ever ask for, especially if I’m going to frequently throw spreadsheets, timelines, and Pinterest boards at them for ideas. Each member of this group knows how to keep me calm and prevent me from stressing out. I can honestly say that not many people have been able to do that with me and I am forever grateful for my A-team (get it, “A”-Team?).
Adrian lived in Arizona for about 18 years and has developed some many lifelong friends here. His party also features 4 guys and 4 girls and are the tightest knit group I’ve ever seen. While they may not have type-A personalities like my team, they know how to have a good time and make sure Adrian feels special on the big day. Since the majority of his group lives in Arizona, they’ve been with us on many day trips, parties, and even there when we got engaged! They would do anything for Adrian and I’m so happy he’s got such a great group of friends to be by his side on our wedding.
Personalized Gifts
Alan’s Colorful Cases
Adrian and I decided that our wedding colors will be navy, grey, and peach. I wanted to incorporate those colors throughout my ask gifts as much as I could so I started with 4 wooden boxes from Michaels and the first letter of each of the girls’ name. To incorporate our color palette, I painted the box navy and grey and painted the letter peach, which I then placed on the top of the box. Next I filled the box with navy tissue, peach nail polish, a silver/grey compact mirror, a ring pop, a bottle of peach scented lotion, peach schnapps, color swatches of the wedding colors, and a pair of earrings (each girl getting a different navy set of earrings that fit their personality). I also put on the inside cover of the box “I found my man, but I still need my girls, will you be my groomsmaid?”.
The men were a little easier and I decided to get them each custom engraved silver tankard (that famous glass that’s held in Samuel Adams beer logo). After everything was sent, I asked if they’d videotape themselves opening their gifts. Seeing their reactions was a very memorable moment for me knowing that they are excited to share our big day with us!
Adrian’s Personalized Pouches
Adrian took a different approach for asking his girls. Instead of a box, he went with a makeup bag with each of their initials sewn on them. He then stuffed the bag with items personalized to their taste, like a Harry Potter bookmark for one of the girls, or items that are Disney themed. He did include color swatches, a ring pop, and nail polish for all the girls. For the guys, he got them a personalized engraved glass decanter.
With regards to selecting our best man/maid of honor, Adrian decided that he will have a maid of honor since he’s known his best friend for so many years, and I chose to have a best man because he has been a major rock in my growth and development not just professionally, but also socially as a gay man.
Don’t Forget the Little People
In addition to our rather large wedding parties, we are also having 2 Jr. grooms maids, a flower girl, and a ring bearer. We kept things simple and asked them by giving them massive amount of candy (who can say no to candy).
We are so excited to share our big day with are wedding parties. They’ve been there for us whenever we needed them, and to have their support on our wedding day means the world of us. Hold on tight everyone let the wedding planning commence!