As someone who has dated flight attendants both before and after becoming one myself, I can tell you that it is exhausting. We are always tired, we can be hard to reach, we’re constantly switching time zones, and we’re distant – in every sense of the word. But on the flip side – our patience level is high, we are incredibly attentive to the needs of others, our sense of adventure is unmatched, and we always know where to find the best food in just about any city. We’re not easy to love, but we’re most definitely worth it.
One of the most common questions we get as a couple of married flight attendants is, “How do you make it all work?” Between hectic schedules and working for different airlines, no one seems to understand how we keep our relationship going strong. We admit, being away from home as often as we are can make it difficult to maintain any sense of normalcy, but who wants to be normal anyway?
We keep our lives intertwined and yet separate. It keeps things from getting stale and monotonous. We have plenty of things in common, but we also celebrate the fact that each other has different interests outside of our relationship and our careers. If one of us wants to explore a new hobby or activity, then the other will cheer proudly from the sidelines. If one of us needs a night out with a friend, we don’t feel left out or bothered by it. These experiences only make our time together that much more full of life, laughter, and conversation.
We absolutely love traveling together but traveling separately for work has its advantages, too. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and they’re not wrong. As in any relationship, “me time” is so important so that you don’t lose yourself. You never want to wake up one day and realize you’ve lost sight of who you are. With overnights in hotels in cities across the globe, “me time” is basically built into our schedules as flight crew. You can put on a robe, pour yourself a glass of wine, and watch all sorts of trashy TV or movies that your significant other may not want to indulge in with you. By the time you get home, you’re missing your significant other and are ready for a romantic evening – that is, of course, right after you don’t talk to anyone for a couple of hours. Everybody needs to decompress after a trip.
If you can’t celebrate a holiday on the actual holiday, choose a different date and commit to it to make it just as special – except for New Year’s Eve because yelling “Happy New Year” on January 2nd is very anticlimactic… trust us, we’ve tried it. Plus, your neighbors will think that you’re insane anyway.
When ‘Two Guys On A Plane’ first met – we were living in two different cities, so we had to deal with long-distance and you know that doesn’t always work out. We had two options: put in a ton of effort to spend time together or simply not see each other at all. We both quickly realized that going the extra mile was far more worthwhile than not being a part of each other’s lives. Putting in that much effort and planning into every single date made things challenging but helped us see that what we were doing was worth it. While I admit having flight benefits made things easier for us than most couples, long distance can work if the two parties are willing to meet halfway – literally and figuratively. There were times when I was trying harder to see him, and times when he was trying harder to see me, but the important part is that we were both trying. Neither of us had felt like we were risking it all just to be together. We were both being vulnerable and putting ourselves out there. There were never expectations that one of us would be forced to give anything up; we embraced who the other person was, respected what their life looked like already, and either we fit into each other’s worlds or we didn’t. It was that simple. When it came time for our relationship to take the next step, things began to fall into place and our decision became quite clear: do we want to be together or not? It was far less complex than you’d think dating would typically be, and it’s continued to be that way ever since.
Communication in any relationship is paramount, and even more so when you’re apart from each other so often. Relationships aren’t easy, but as humans we love to complicate things when we don’t have to. We talk to each other about what works for us and what doesn’t, we find ways to keep life exciting, and we make sure that neither one of us ever wakes up and thinks, “Where did I go?”
It doesn’t matter how crazy, ridiculous, or off the wall your thoughts may be, if you can’t be honest and open with your partner about what’s on your mind, you ain’t gonna make it. Schedule date nights, schedule time apart, talk on the phone, FaceTime, text, sext, do whatever works for you to keep the magic alive. Throw out any ideas of “normal” relationships that you may have in your head and spice it up a little. Take some time for yourself and live your own life, it honestly could be exactly what your relationship needs… and our best piece of advice: never, ever stop “dating” each other.
… That is the question. When it came time to plan our wedding, there were a LOT of questions – both from ourselves and from society. You’ll find that the world somehow has a lot to say about YOUR wedding. When you first get engaged, you’re just full of excitement. Plus, you have a hundred Pinterst boards and you’re going to incorporate them ALL! (Spoiler alert: you won’t.) Then, when the initial high wears down a little, you realize that you now have to figure out how to plan a wedding without breaking the bank. You’ll browse through wedding checklists for things that just aren’t important to you. Plus, if you’re two guys getting married, you’ll be even more stressed because you’re trying to cut costs all while navigating where you fit in this very heterosexual wedding industry. A lot of traditional ideas and themes may not even apply to you, like a garter toss. Or, since it’s 2018, you boys out there may want a garter toss, and that’s totally cool because this wedding is about you so do whatever you want. The point is, don’t lose sight of who you are as a couple. It’s your day.
Given that we are Two Guys On A Plane, we will mainly be discussing issues facing LGBTQ couples in this article. With that being said, to all our lovely readers that do not happen to be gay, we promise a lot of this will apply to you, too! We had a lot of fun planning our wedding because we got to throw so many old ideas out the window and start fresh with what we really wanted.
The Proposal
Who asks who, you ask? Before we got engaged, we had several conversations about how we would go about the proposal. We both agreed that it would be fun to get proposed to but also just as fun to pop the question. Rather than deprive one of us the experience, we decided we would both propose to each other. At this point in our relationship, we obviously knew that the other would say yes, so each proposal was more about creating a romantic gesture for the other person. We both popped the question at different times in our own individual way and it made for a special experience for both of us. We jokingly refer to this as Proposal Wars.
Engagement at Centennial Park – Nashville, TN
The Rings
We didn’t see the need to have both engagement rings and wedding rings, so we decided to propose with something a little less traditional. When we first met, it was on an airplane. Andrew gave Rich his phone number on a boarding pass. When it came time for Rich to propose, it was with a boarding pass that said “Will you marry me?” When Andrew proposed, it was with a ring pop. We’re fun people who don’t take life too seriously and we highly recommend you do the same! Plus, it’s a really fun story to tell.
The rings, save-the-date, invitation, and boutonnieres!
The Venue
In this day and age, this one isn’t so much of an issue anymore since nontraditional wedding venues are becoming increasingly popular. You don’t have to have a church wedding with a country club reception anymore if that’s not what you want. Find a place that really fits you as a couple and go with it. Whether it’s a library, a brewery, a coffeeshop, a bar, it doesn’t matter. If it has a story that you connect with, do it. It never hurts to think outside the box. While nontraditional may be fun, keep in mind there might be a little extra work involved with choosing a unique venue if weddings aren’t their norm. Our venue, for example, doesn’t typically do weddings so we had a few extra site visits to explain what we wanted to the venue and the caterer. Fortunately for us, they were very open to new ideas and helping us create the perfect day. We are both flight attendants who happened to meet on an airplane, so we couldn’t think of a better place to get married than in an airplane hangar! We had our ceremony by a DC-3 and the reception by the US Airways 1549 Airbus. It was cool, it was different, and most importantly – it was us.
Carolinas Aviation Museum – Charlotte, NC
Walking Down The Aisle
This is one thing that we struggled with the most and there is so little out there about how this is done at a gay wedding. The possibilities are endless… which is a good thing and a bad thing. Both of you can walk in together or you can walk in separately. One of you can stand up front while the other walks in. Since we had a small wedding party, we decided to have each person walk in by themselves. Then, each of us walked in separately, escorted by our mothers. It was a sweet moment and it made both of our mothers happy to be part of the day in such a special way!
Rich and his mom, Judi (Left) – Andrew and his mom, Kelly (Right)
The Vows
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part… It’s not that we didn’t want to promise those things to each other, but we wanted to make it more personal and more fun. Our friends Brittney and Chris got married about six months before we did and they did something we haven’t seen before. They each wrote a personal letter to the other and then had alternating vows. They shared their letters with each other first. Then he vowed something, she vowed something, and they went back and forth in what felt like a heartfelt conversation. It was a touching way to include the wedding guests in their relationship and there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. When it came time to make this decision for our wedding, we decided to do the same and write personal letters and present alternating vows. We vowed everything from “I promise not to eat all the french fries” to “Making sure that you wake up every single day knowing how much you are loved.”
The end result when your vows are incredibly personal!
First Dance
You know how in middle school you have those awkward slow dances where you just stand on the dance floor swaying back and forth not knowing where to put your hands? Well, we still dance like that, so the idea of a first dance was terrifying. We decided to get creative. For our wedding song, we chose Say You Won’t Let Go by James Arthur. A friend of ours, Carl Michaels, is an amazing DJ in the Philadelphia area so we reached out to him to create a little remix of our song. We wanted the first portion of the song to be slow, so we could have our moment together, but then immediately turn into a dance track so that our friends and family could join in. This created minimal awkward dancing time for us as newly married husband and husband while also eliminating the uncomfortable task of getting people out on the dance floor.
First Dance
The Flowers
Flowers can be incredibly expensive. After trial and error with a few Pinterest ideas, we decided to go with paper flowers. We committed to a travel theme for our wedding since it was in an airplane hangar, so we made all of our flowers out of maps. They were all beautiful, but it took a lot of work! Andrew and his family spent countless hours on the paper flowers but the outcome was exactly what we wanted. We used these for the bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, and boutonnieres. There were a LOT of map flowers. When you DIY something for your wedding, think about the amount of work versus how much money you will save. It may or may not be worth the hassle to do it yourself! The flowers, in this instance, saved us a lot of money. Plus, we didn’t have to worry about the flowers dying so everything could be arranged ahead of time.
Map Flowers!
The Cake
We all love cake, there is no question about it, but how much are you willing to spend on a cake for your wedding? When you add the word “wedding” to anything, the prices skyrocket. Wedding cakes cost anywhere from $400 to $2000+. We just couldn’t justify spending that much on a cake so we explored alternatives to fit our budget. We went to Public (a grocery store) the day before our wedding. We asked for one small white round cake – to put the wedding cake topper on. We never once mentioned the word wedding. Then, we bought a bunch of small round cakes from the fridge that were already made, ranging between $8-$10 per cake. At our wedding, we had our caterer – the incredible Samuel Futcher in Charlotte – put together a beautiful display of cakes for our guests. We placed a sign on the table that said “We went wedding cake tasting and couldn’t decide, so the choice is yours!” We left it up to our guests to decide what the wanted for dessert and they ate it up… literally and figuratively. In the end, we spent a total of $75 on something that we still to this day receive compliments on. This is one area where it is definitely worth looking past the age-old traditions.
The Cake Table!
The Wedding Party
What do you call bridesmaids at a wedding with no bride? Whatever you want! A lot of LGBTQ couples refer to everybody as attendants, but that felt too formal for us. We opted for groomsmaids since brosmaids didn’t quite fit our personalities. We each chose one of our brothers and a female best friend to be in our wedding party and just called all four of them groomsmaids. They were all cool with it. You know you’ve chosen the right people for your wedding when they’re willing to go along with whatever fits you as a couple! We didn’t do it intentionally by gender, but the symmetry of it all was admittedly quite satisfying.
The Grooms & The Groomsmaids!
Looking back on our wedding day, it was everything we wanted and more. We relied on our friends and family to use their talents and skills to help make our day perfect. Regardless of what gender you and your significant other identify with, throw away stuffy old traditions and create your own fairytale.
What did you do for your wedding? Let us know in the comments!
Romantic comedies make dating look alarmingly magical. A few perfect dates in and it’s time to get married, but that’s not realistic, is it? We know what you’re thinking, aren’t these ‘Two Guys’ married? Well, yes, we are – but we owe it all to being happily single! Every time people say to us “I wish I had what you two have” – we both smile. We smile because of all the experiences you could have in life, it’s completely okay to put romantic relationships on the back burner. First and foremost, it’s so important to be in a committed relationship with yourself, because chances are there’s a better version of you that you’re working towards. Spend time with that human and love them unconditionally before allowing someone else to be a part of your life. As cliché as it may be, RuPaul said it best: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Put you first, and then you’ll suddenly find space to allow someone else into your little world. Then, conveniently, that person will somehow find themselves drawn to you… trust us. It’s a whole universe thing. You’ll see.
My husband and I are each other’s person through and through, but we also know how crucial it is to just be true to yourself and still maintain your own identity, especially when in a relationship. Long before we knew each other, we both spent many years of our lives losing ourselves while being involved in toxic relationships. When we first met, neither one of us wanted anything to do with commitment, oddly enough, and yet that’s when it came to us in the absolute best way. It was so unintentional and carefree that it was honest, and it was blunt. By the time we both caught on to the fact that we had feelings for each other, they were much deeper than either of us realized. Sure, we were dating, but neither of us had any expectations or put any pressure on ourselves. The beginning of our relationship was organic because neither of us were trying too hard or worrying about messing things up. We were both putting in the same level of energy, and it’s because neither of us were “looking” that we got exactly what we were looking for.
So now back to you, how does that translate? It’s actually pretty easy. Sit down, figure out what you want for yourself, and go live your best life! Be afraid of absolutely nothing – except maybe spiders. That’s a valid fear. Burn your house down and move. Otherwise, take risks, travel to new places, and try new things. The worst thing that could happen is you realize that you simply don’t like whatever it is you’ve tried doing. You’ll be much happier with yourself for doing it anyway before you find yourself trapped in a relationship having no idea who you are at the core. Don’t let age get in the way of this journey, either. Don’t say you’re either too old or too young for something, because it’s simply not true. Don’t compare yourself to people around you and what they have, because their journey is exactly that – their journey.
Sometimes, the best travel companion is you! Go see places by yourself. And don’t tell yourself you can’t afford it, either. Pack a backpack, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and go stay in a hostel for a couple of nights somewhere. If you want to make it work, you will. This isn’t the time for excuses. You don’t have to go to Indonesia for three months alone, start smaller than that. Go to dinner or a movie, spend time dating yourself first, and getting to know who you are. Take a little road trip or weekend getaway, or even just a day to pamper yourself. You don’t necessarily have to “Eat. Pray. Love.” it – just hang out with you because you’re awesome! You’ll be surprised by how much there is to learn about yourself.
Now, we’re not advocating for the single life forever, but just learn to be independent, so when you find your person, you can continue that journey along and be authentically you. If your person is out of town, go out and have fun! If they’re not okay with you living your life to the fullest, you’re with the wrong person and you need to run anyway! Maybe you don’t want to go out without them, that’s okay, too. You’re not looking for someone who completes you, you’re looking for someone who complements you. Your significant other should be someone who adds value to your life. That’s right, we’re Marie Kondo-ing it. Does this person spark joy? No? Get rid of them. Life is too short to be anything but happy.
So as we enter coupling season, do yourselves a favor – catch flights, not feelings! Don’t go chasing someone simply to have a relationship because you’ll end up annoyed or heartbroken, or both. Take the adventure you’ve always dreamt about. You’ll get to a point where you are finally happy with yourself and where you are in life. You’ll be grateful for what you have and yet at the same time, grateful for what you don’t have. And sometimes, when you least expect it, someone will walk into your life and add value to your journey. You never know where your life will take you. Say hi to your seat mate on your next flight, they could be the one! Or, they could be a weirdo. Feel it out. Trust your gut. But sometimes you get lucky.
The cabin is pressurized. The air is dry and stagnant. There’s very little space to breathe let alone get comfortable for a moment. You’re likely working alongside people you barely know, or you might even be working alone depending on the type of aircraft you find yourself on. At the end of this incredibly long day, you may end up in a slightly run-down airport hotel with just enough time to catch a few hours of sleep. But, on the other hand, you may end up in a luxurious hotel with a comfy bed (or two), endless hot water that you aren’t footing the bill for, and maybe even a beautiful beach nearby in some exotic destination. This is the life of a flight attendant. People often see crew members and say, “I’ve always wanted to do that. It seems so exciting.” Well, it definitely has its ups and downs, but is it lonely? Hardly. Whether it’s a new coworker or passengers on the plane, we meet hundreds and hundreds of new people each and every day. While most people you encounter are strangers and continue on being strangers, some of the people you meet become friends, or in our case, husbands.
There have been a lot of articles circulating the internet lately about the lonely life of an airline crew member. Stories include being away from your family during the holidays, missing important events for loved ones, and struggling to maintain normal everyday relationships. While these articles contain a lot of truth, many flight attendants consider some of these “difficult” aspects to be some of the best parts of the job. Whether you had a long and busy day of flying, you have a lot going on at home, or even a spouse and kids to juggle, that down time on a layover by yourself can be an invaluable opportunity to recharge. Most people think it would be impossible to have kids and fly for a living. While that may be true, we certainly know a lot of incredible moms and dads that make it work. It can be be challenging, but I think any parents out there could agree that a night in a comfy hotel room away from a hectic household would be much-appreciated.
Imagine this scenario for a moment. You just finished an incredibly long day (or night) of flying. You walk into a nice hotel room and it smells fresh. The sheets are crisp, the towels are white and fluffy, and the balcony off your room overlooks the Eiffel Tower. You can relax, take a hot shower, explore the area, or do absolutely nothing and it doesn’t matter one bit. Sometimes we all need that downtime to refresh and rejuvenate. Escapism may not be the healthiest way to live your life, but we all crave a good getaway from time to time. Being a flight attendant allows you to do that guilt-free all while getting paid. This is, by far, one of the greatest perks of the job and definitely not a disadvantage for all of us.
As for anyone in a relationship or attempting to be in one, trust me when I say I know how it feels. You’re probably rolling your eyes while reading this because we are a happily married couple, but both of us previously struggled with relationships. If you’re dating, trying to build something meaningful when you’re constantly on the go can prove to be challenging, but far more worth it than doing so in a conventional way. In our case, we met while leading completely different lives and living hundreds of miles apart. Because of that, we had to put extra effort into seeing each other. Somehow, with a little bit of fate and a lot of hard work, we both knew that the other person was someone we wanted to spend more time with which made things a whole lot easier to work out in the long run. If you have to spend hours on a plane, drive countless miles, or spend all of your free time attempting to see someone – and actually enjoy doing it – then they might just be worth your while. The caveat, of course, is that you have to make sure the effort is reciprocated by the other person. Nobody wants to be caught up in an unrequited love situation. We’ve all been there.
For those of you already in a relationship, issues of trust and communication come to mind immediately since you most likely spend a great deal of time apart. If you and your significant other are the kind of people that can talk about anything and everything, and trust that the other is on their best behavior while on the road, then you’re golden. Plus, they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. You might just enjoy missing your significant other a little bit every now and then. The constant struggle of dating and relationships may seem to be a disadvantage of the flight attendant lifestyle, but if anything, it proves to you that what you’re doing is worth it and you have indeed found the right person. This same idea can be applied to your family and friends. Ultimately, the people that matter most will understand that you love what you do and they’ll work around it. If you’re lucky, they’ll go the extra mile to show you how important you are to them. Whether it’s driving to the airport in the middle of the night to see you or even moving a holiday around to accommodate your schedule, you’ll quickly learn who’s in it for the long haul.
Many people think of flight attendants as overworked and lonely, while others see vintage glamour and an exciting lifestyle. As with most things, being a flight attendant is what you make of it. Every job has its advantages and disadvantages. While some may let the loneliness of the fly life affect them, others thrive off of these little moments to appreciate what they have and all that life has to offer. Not every layover may be glamorous or exciting, but a little down time in the crazy lives that we have built for ourselves is often just what the doctor ordered.
…That is the question. When it came time to plan our wedding, there were a LOT of questions – both from ourselves and from society. You’ll find that the world somehow has a lot to say about YOUR wedding. When you first get engaged, you’re just full of excitement. Plus, you have a hundred Pinterst boards and you’re going to incorporate them ALL! (Spoiler alert: you won’t.) Then, when the initial high wears down a little, you realize that you now have to figure out how to plan a wedding without breaking the bank. You’ll browse through wedding checklists for things that just aren’t important to you. Plus, if you’re two guys getting married, you’ll be even more stressed because you’re trying to cut costs all while navigating where you fit in this very heterosexual wedding industry. A lot of traditional ideas and themes may not even apply to you, like a garter toss. Or, since it’s 2018, you boys out there may want a garter toss, and that’s totally cool because this wedding is about you so do whatever you want. The point is, don’t lose sight of who you are as a couple. It’s your day.
Given that we are Two Guys On A Plane, we will mainly be discussing issues facing LGBTQ couples in this article. With that being said, to all our lovely readers that do not happen to be gay, we promise a lot of this will apply to you, too! We had a lot of fun planning our wedding because we got to throw so many old ideas out the window and start fresh with what we really wanted.
The Proposal
Who asks who, you ask? Before we got engaged, we had several conversations about how we would go about the proposal. We both agreed that it would be fun to get proposed to but also just as fun to pop the question. Rather than deprive one of us the experience, we decided we would both propose to each other. At this point in our relationship, we obviously knew that the other would say yes, so each proposal was more about creating a romantic gesture for the other person. We both popped the question at different times in our own individual way and it made for a special experience for both of us. We jokingly refer to this as Proposal Wars.
Engagement at Centennial Park – Nashville, TN
The Rings
We didn’t see the need to have both engagement rings and wedding rings, so we decided to propose with something a little less traditional. When we first met, it was on an airplane. Andrew gave Rich his phone number on a boarding pass. When it came time for Rich to propose, it was with a boarding pass that said “Will you marry me?” When Andrew proposed, it was with a ring pop. We’re fun people who don’t take life too seriously and we highly recommend you do the same! Plus, it’s a really fun story to tell.
The rings, save-the-date, invitation, and boutonnieres!
The Venue
In this day and age, this one isn’t so much of an issue anymore since nontraditional wedding venues are becoming increasingly popular. You don’t have to have a church wedding with a country club reception anymore if that’s not what you want. Find a place that really fits you as a couple and go with it. Whether it’s a library, a brewery, a coffeeshop, a bar, it doesn’t matter. If it has a story that you connect with, do it. It never hurts to think outside the box. While nontraditional may be fun, keep in mind there might be a little extra work involved with choosing a unique venue if weddings aren’t their norm. Our venue, for example, doesn’t typically do weddings so we had a few extra site visits to explain what we wanted to the venue and the caterer. Fortunately for us, they were very open to new ideas and helping us create the perfect day. We are both flight attendants who happened to meet on an airplane, so we couldn’t think of a better place to get married than in an airplane hangar! We had our ceremony by a DC-3 and the reception by the US Airways 1549 Airbus. It was cool, it was different, and most importantly – it was us.
Carolinas Aviation Museum – Charlotte, NC
Walking Down The Aisle
This is one thing that we struggled with the most and there is so little out there about how this is done at a gay wedding. The possibilities are endless… which is a good thing and a bad thing. Both of you can walk in together or you can walk in separately. One of you can stand up front while the other walks in. Since we had a small wedding party, we decided to have each person walk in by themselves. Then, each of us walked in separately, escorted by our mothers. It was a sweet moment and it made both of our mothers happy to be part of the day in such a special way!
Rich and his mom, Judi (Left) – Andrew and his mom, Kelly (Right)
The Vows
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part… It’s not that we didn’t want to promise those things to each other, but we wanted to make it more personal and more fun. Our friends Brittney and Chris got married about six months before we did and they did something we haven’t seen before. They each wrote a personal letter to the other and then had alternating vows. They shared their letters with each other first. Then he vowed something, she vowed something, and they went back and forth in what felt like a heartfelt conversation. It was a touching way to include the wedding guests in their relationship and there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. When it came time to make this decision for our wedding, we decided to do the same and write personal letters and present alternating vows. We vowed everything from “I promise not to eat all the french fries” to “Making sure that you wake up every single day knowing how much you are loved.”
The end result when your vows are incredibly personal!
First Dance
You know how in middle school you have those awkward slow dances where you just stand on the dance floor swaying back and forth not knowing where to put your hands? Well, we still dance like that, so the idea of a first dance was terrifying. We decided to get creative. For our wedding song, we chose Say You Won’t Let Go by James Arthur. A friend of ours, Carl Michaels, is an amazing DJ in the Philadelphia area so we reached out to him to create a little remix of our song. We wanted the first portion of the song to be slow, so we could have our moment together, but then immediately turn into a dance track so that our friends and family could join in. This created minimal awkward dancing time for us as newly married husband and husband while also eliminating the uncomfortable task of getting people out on the dance floor.
First Dance
The Flowers
Flowers can be incredibly expensive. After trial and error with a few Pinterest ideas, we decided to go with paper flowers. We committed to a travel theme for our wedding since it was in an airplane hangar, so we made all of our flowers out of maps. They were all beautiful, but it took a lot of work! Andrew and his family spent countless hours on the paper flowers but the outcome was exactly what we wanted. We used these for the bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, and boutonnieres. There were a LOT of map flowers. When you DIY something for your wedding, think about the amount of work versus how much money you will save. It may or may not be worth the hassle to do it yourself! The flowers, in this instance, saved us a lot of money. Plus, we didn’t have to worry about the flowers dying so everything could be arranged ahead of time.
Map Flowers!
The Cake
We all love cake, there is no question about it, but how much are you willing to spend on a cake for your wedding? When you add the word “wedding” to anything, the prices skyrocket. Wedding cakes cost anywhere from $400 to $2000+. We just couldn’t justify spending that much on a cake so we explored alternatives to fit our budget. We went to Public (a grocery store) the day before our wedding. We asked for one small white round cake – to put the wedding cake topper on. We never once mentioned the word wedding. Then, we bought a bunch of small round cakes from the fridge that were already made, ranging between $8-$10 per cake. At our wedding, we had our caterer – the incredible Samuel Futcher in Charlotte – put together a beautiful display of cakes for our guests. We placed a sign on the table that said “We went wedding cake tasting and couldn’t decide, so the choice is yours!” We left it up to our guests to decide what the wanted for dessert and they ate it up… literally and figuratively. In the end, we spent a total of $75 on something that we still to this day receive compliments on. This is one area where it is definitely worth looking past the age-old traditions.
The Cake Table!
The Wedding Party
What do you call bridesmaids at a wedding with no bride? Whatever you want! A lot of LGBTQ couples refer to everybody as attendants, but that felt too formal for us. We opted for groomsmaids since brosmaids didn’t quite fit our personalities. We each chose one of our brothers and a female best friend to be in our wedding party and just called all four of them groomsmaids. They were all cool with it. You know you’ve chosen the right people for your wedding when they’re willing to go along with whatever fits you as a couple! We didn’t do it intentionally by gender, but the symmetry of it all was admittedly quite satisfying.
The Grooms & The Groomsmaids!
Looking back on our wedding day, it was everything we wanted and more. We relied on our friends and family to use their talents and skills to help make our day perfect. Regardless of what gender you and your significant other identify with, throw away stuffy old traditions and create your own fairytale.
What did you do for your wedding? Let us know in the comments!
Engagement at Centennial Park – Nashville, TN
The rings, save-the-date, invitation, and boutonnieres!
Carolinas Aviation Museum – Charlotte, NC
Rich and his mom, Judi (Left) – Andrew and his mom, Kelly (Right)
The end result when your vows are incredibly personal!
First Dance
Map Flowers!
The Cake Table!
The Grooms & The Groomsmaids!
Engagement at Centennial Park – Nashville, TN
The rings, save-the-date, invitation, and boutonnieres!
Carolinas Aviation Museum – Charlotte, NC
Rich and his mom, Judi (Left) – Andrew and his mom, Kelly (Right)
The end result when your vows are incredibly personal!
First Dance
Map Flowers!
The Cake Table!
The Grooms & The Groomsmaids!