May 1, 2016

Engaged: Beard & Broad Style

After dating for over 6 years, half of that long distance with Beard in California and Broad in Ohio, on January 17, Beard took the big leap and proposed to Broad. She obviously said yes. Beard had the whole proposal planned out perfectly, he got the most perfect engagement ring, you guys can click to find out more about it. Long story short: He took Broad to a bridal show (every non-engaged girl’s dream, right?) and proposed there in front of the jewler’s booth who designed the ring.

We are moving slowly with wedding planning. We just booked our venue and date (July 15, 2017 at Ariel International Center). We have some suppliers, food, chair covers, decor. Since we are planning on getting married next summer, our familes were excited and wanted to celebrate with a party this year which is why we decided to have an engagement party.

We don’t have a lot of experience with these types of parties, cause…we just got engaged. And we’ve actually been to only one engagement party before. Now if you read our previous post, you know Broad loves brunch. Well, Beard is pretty keen on it too. So naturally, we went with that theme for our engagement party, and we did a pre one to start the planning, we got some presents there, Rachel gave us a Special toy for me and a prostate massage toy for Broad to spice things up, thought it was fun. We weren’t quite sure if engagement brunch parties were a “thing” or if our friends and family would be cool with drinking and hanging out at 10 am on a Saturday, but we decided to go with it. Spolier alert: our friends and family are VERY COOL with drinking and hanging out at 10 am on a Saturday.

Venue: Our requirements were simple: good food, good drinks and the company of our closest friends and family. Of course we chose our favorite brewery Platform to host the event. They were extremely accomodating. They closed down the bar from 10-1 on a Saturday for us (normally a busy time since they are one of the few places that do Saturday brunch in town).

Food: Next we talked to our favorite food vendor Saucisson about creating a menu for us. They were excited to be a part of our day and created the best meals for our guests to choose from (details in the pic):

Corned Beef Hash
Veggie Hash
Fried Bologna Bagel Sammie
Veggie Bagel Sammie
Also on the tables were beef jerky popcorn trail mix

The food was outstanding. The guests raved aboout it. Saucisson never ceases to amaze and really stepped it up for our party.

Drinks: Of course since it was a brunch party we had to have a mimosa bar. We had orange pineapple, passion fruit, grapefruit and peach juices. We also had raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and rosemary (seriously go try it). We only purchased a case of bubbles. The champy went fast and hard. But we were fine with it. Since we were at Platform we really wanted everyone to drink their beer. So many of our guests had not been to the brewery before and were very excited for them to try their beers. Platform had a ton on tap so there was something for everyone.

Final Thoughts: We had over 100 people show up which truly amazed us. This was the day before Easter so we figured a good number of people wouldn’t be able to show up, but there were only about 12 people who couldn’t make it. We had guests come in from Michigan, Pennsylvannia and Washington DC for the party. It was a nice mix of family, friends, co-workers, real hodge-podge group that got a long really well. We also said gifts weren’t necessary but everyone brought something for us! We received a lot of booze and a lot of cat themed gifts (our people know us). We were very overhwhelmed by everyone’s love and support, and it was easily one of the most memorable times in our lives.

Broad is always proud when her pops is drinking a beer

TIPS

Send evites! We used Paperless Post to send out evites. You can include all the details you want, track RSVPs, send and receive messages, have a map to your location, etc.
Plan ahead. We sent out invites about a month before the event. This was different than the normal “house” parties we typically plan as we wanted to give the out of towners time to make travel arrangements.
Specify a dress code. We had SO many people ask us about the dress code which we didn’t include on the invites because we didn’t think it would be something people would think about, but they do!
Maybe start planning your registery and add the details to your invite. Even though we didn’t expect gifts, a lot of people asked if we were registered anywhere. We thought it would also appear tacky, but it was actually just the opposite as people wanted ideas.
Enlist your friends to help. Broad picked out her bridesmaids already so the local ones came early, made food and helped decorate. Even though we thought we had minimal work we were still setting up right until the first guests arrived and were thankful for all the help we had.
Have fun! Broad was stressed for about the first hour or so worrying about talking to everyone but that’s just how she is in general. People get it. It’s your party, you’re going to have to talk to everyone so no one expects you to spend all your time with them.