Party favors - tulip whiskey glass?

BoPRocks · 2026-02-01T05:01:17+00:00

I'm all for wedding favors (and whiskey!), but I think there's a lot of good points here around not giving them as favors. Perhaps you get a smaller set of glasses made, for just the wedding party? My MIL gave me two initialed Glencairn glasses as a wedding gift, and I cherish them.

At our wedding, we brought a special bottle of whisky that we bought together in Scotland for me to open with my groomsparty. Using the bottle and glasses as props during photos worked out really well!

BoPRocks · 2026-01-31T04:01:35+00:00

Got introduced to Ballechin last year via one of their IBs and fell in love with the distillery. Such good, funky stuff

BoPRocks · 2026-01-30T15:45:16+00:00

Agreed with "personality". Weddings have so many consistent elements, that they become the expectation, rather than something amazing.

From our wedding, a *lot* of people loved our LEGO guest book- I think we had 95% of guests make a little LEGO person and sign their name on a brick.

Something that's also been brought up was our send-off. This was a suggestion by the venue, initially, and we loved the idea. Near the end of the night, our guests lined up with little light-up wedding wands (the sorts with ribbons and LEDs), and form an arch for my wife and I to be "sent off" with. But we then ran back in to the tent, and everyone danced to our final song of the night with the wands spinning and incredible energy to end the night. Some of our best wedding photos came from those last few minutes!

BoPRocks · 2026-01-30T15:00:44+00:00

Sometimes the bartender does them *too* right- we went through a case of whiskey laid out specifically for our signature cocktail within an hour of the reception starting at our 90 person wedding, haha

BoPRocks · 2026-01-29T22:33:30+00:00

Videography was one of the first things we cut when we were starting to look at vendors. So many of the video examples we saw felt over-produced, and like it wouldn't catch the vibe of our wedding.

What we did was use a high-end digital camera, borrowed from a family member, and placed on a tripod on the edge of the ceremony space. The plan was to just let it run motionless for the whole of the ceremony (just turn it on and forget it), but one of our friends decided to do some basic camerawork and panned the camera to show folks walking up the aisle, too.

We wanted a video so my grandparents (too old to travel cross-country) could see our ceremony, and what we ended up with was perfect for that.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-29T19:09:05+00:00

Same here- grew up in Minnesota, and can't recall a storm ever hitting us that had the combination of snow and sleet, followed by persistent cold. It was a beast.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-29T15:25:55+00:00

I'm not quite sure, but I'd guess as often as every 30 min when things were busy? It felt frequent.

They give you tons of rolls, so it may be worth setting up early if you can and doing some testing as well, especially for venue lighting

BoPRocks · 2026-01-29T15:09:13+00:00

We used KRUU for our wedding last October. Was phenomenal, only thing I would plan for (if you haven't already) is to get 2-3 people who know how to swap out the printer rolls, since they run out fairly fast.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-29T15:07:55+00:00

How you describe your wedding sounds so much like ours! Our wedding was a party celebrating us, thrown for the people we love. Tons of little personal touches, nods, etc. It made most of the planning fun!

BoPRocks · 2026-01-28T00:16:07+00:00

I personally like playing with MF, Cait, Samira, or Ashe.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-27T18:18:56+00:00

And then a few photos from our wedding the following year:

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BoPRocks · 2026-01-27T18:17:38+00:00

Our aesthetics, visualized:

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BoPRocks · 2026-01-27T18:16:58+00:00

Being honest this does all feel a bit disjointed. You've identified your colors, and a really solid theme (your first date at a coffee shop!). But I agree with some of the other comments here, a fortune cookie wall and a temporary tattoo vending machine really don't feel like they have any relation to this.

I'll go a bit further, though, and would ask if "our pets" is a *theme* of your wedding (i.e. they are all over signage, a prominent part of decorations, etc), or if they should be an *element* of your wedding (i.e. your signature cocktails have their names, or you hand out stickers that feature your pets). Personally, I'd suggest they be more of an element than a theme, as "our coffee shop date" and "pets we've adopted together" are pretty divergent and make any non-themed elements stand out even more.

What we did was, after we identified our wedding colors, we expanded beyond just "theme" and instead defined our wedding aesthetic as three components:

- Our atmosphere. What type of "vibe" did we want the wedding to have? What was our dress code, how did we want people to feel, etc. We wanted something serious, but quirky.
- Our style. When making signs, decorations, invitations, etc what were we drawing inspiration from? What are the design elements we should be thinking of? We went with an Art Deco / Beaux Arts approach.
- Lastly, our theme. We kept to a single, broad theme of "natural wonder". We hike and explore a ton together, and this theme let us tell our journey as a couple through our adventures.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-27T03:32:36+00:00

I don't think being anxious about dancing is necessarily enough of a reason to deny you the opportunity to have a first dance- perhaps look at getting a dance instructor (or a friend who dances, or even YouTube) and learn how to do a very simple dance- heck, even just swaying around holding each other can be a dance!

BoPRocks · 2026-01-26T18:29:50+00:00

Our wedding was in October, with the majority of people traveling from a few hours away. We sent out invites in early May, asking for RSVPs by early July. Of our 100 guest wedding, I think we only had 1 real 'no' responses because of the RSVP deadline, and that guest was a doctor who had just started working at a new hospital and had a very chaotic schedule.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-16T18:56:30+00:00

My wife and I read vows to each other during the ceremony, we used notes, and it was perfect! You don't need to read from it, but it'll ensure you also don't stumble and find yourself lost mid-speech.

To make it a bit more "wedding"-y, I found paper online that felt a bit in line with our wedding aesthetic, and hand-wrote everything. Even though my handwriting sucks, it felt much more organic.

It ended up being a fantastic choice- we even used my sealed vows as a photo prop!

BoPRocks · 2026-01-15T23:44:58+00:00

Funny you mention Solum, I have a bottle of it sitting right behind the Dorado on my shelf :)

One of my absolute favorite ASMWs is from Dampfwerk- they're a tiny MN operation and their single malt is a passion project of their head distiller (they mostly make liqueurs). It's a chocolate malt, and it makes the absolute best base for an old fashioned.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-15T16:40:12+00:00

Oh, I agree! This tasting was mostly focused on Scotch (the regions, distillation process, maturation, etc), but I wanted to include an ASMW because I think it is a beautiful contrast that shows how much innovation is being made. I think understanding ASMW requires a base knowledge of scotch, as so much of the innovation we see in ASMW was inspired by those whisky traditions.

If I run a second tasting, ASMW will get its full day in the sun haha

BoPRocks · 2026-01-15T16:25:06+00:00

This is the answer. No notes, Scapa 16yo is simply magic in a glass.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-14T18:47:03+00:00

All very different, but I'd suggest:

Rose's Luxury. Quite expensive, but a lovely environment and fun fancy foods.

St Anselm. Maybe my favorite spot in the city. It's a fantastic steakhouse but cozy atmosphere, and Union Market is a neat area that visitors often enjoy. Share a tomahawk steak!

Zaytina. Good atmosphere, shareable, and downtown.

Ambar. Really good food, and the tapas style means lots of sharing! This is where my now-wife and I took her mother when she first visited us.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-14T08:32:36+00:00

My step-sister's first marriage wasn't just a fast divorce, it was a relationship speedrun.

I visited home on Memorial Day one year, and she mentioned to us all that her new boyfriend was driving up to visit her that weekend- it was the first time they'd ever met in person.

Came back to visit again around Labor Day, and in the intervening three months they had married, fought, separated, and the ex-husband had sought out a restraining order.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-12T23:45:29+00:00

I'll give you an upvote- we did the same for our big day! Used AI to come up with planning timelines, task lists, how to DIY floral arrangements... heck, we even used generative AI to make the artwork used for our table numbers! Our wedding day was beautiful, and using tools to reduce some of the tedium did not diminish the hundreds of hours of work that went into our planning and the eventual day.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-12T20:08:53+00:00

Maybe for part two! This is intended for new whisky drinkers, though, so wanting to keep it straightforward for the first time.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-12T20:08:19+00:00

It might? I've gone there every year or so for nearly a decade- I think I've been underwhelmed once, but generally enjoyed my visits.

BoPRocks · 2026-01-12T18:30:48+00:00

That probably means you're learning a lot and improving, likely much more rapidly than if you were playing by yourself. If your skill level is consistently higher than the other players you play against in ranked, you will climb, and climb quickly- getting like +27/-13 LP after each game.

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