Finals make me...

...want to drink! And so, this post will be about-- you guessed it-- alcohol. Since we are having the party at our own house, we're able to provide our own alcohol. I've mentioned before that we're making our own mead for the wedding; in place of champagne toasts, we're using the mead, since Mikey wooed me with mead the night we met, as well as when he proposed. However, I haven't said a whole lot about the rest of the alcohol-- and trust me, there is going to be quite a bit more.

First off, we will be having kegs. I know that many people associate kegs with a hick-ish, backyard, shot-gun wedding. The backyard definitely applies, but the shot-gun and the hick-ish? Not so much. The thing is, we both have big families.

Very, very big families.

Very, very big, very thirsty families.

Both Mikey and my family really enjoy having a good time, and we often celebrate with a bit of bubbly, beer, or bourbon (Okay, maybe not bourbon so much, but I couldn't pass up the alliteration).

Two members of my family were involved in rugby (in which the third half of the game [yes, third half] is a social, i.e.- go to a bar with the rival team, sing offensive songs, and get wasted together), and Mikey's family...well, they're Wisconsonites, and the only things they might do better than drinking is eat cheese and love Brett Favre.

A lot of our younger guests are going to be either theatre people, who love to party it up and have a good, alcohol accompanied night, or rugby players. Our parents and families are all going to want to kick back, swig a few (dozen) down and dance, and I can't imagine anyone else we're inviting who doesn't enjoy a little imbibing now and again.

So, now that I've made us all sound like a bunch of raving alcoholics (which, by the way, we're not), it should make a little more sense that we're having kegs. I, at first, had looked into just buying beer wholesale, but my sources (i.e., extensive hours of research on google.com) told me that I could save anywhere from 35-50% by having a keg. Fifty percent? I'll take it!

Now that the beer is out of the way, let's move on to beer's sexier friend, hard alcohol. We're definitely going to be having a ton of it for the wedding (we've already begun collecting), and the other day, I picked up a few of these beauties from Goodwill:

These, my friends, are what we're serving the hard alcohol out of.

Now, before you go judging me for my awful taste (too late, perhaps?) let me explain what I'm planning on doing. These puppies, right here:

are going to be used to serve a pre-mixed alcoholic lemonade. They will not, however, look like a garden and clown (respectively) threw up on them. I love painting glass, and I've got a very cute idea to change these two jugs from "woahh..." to "wow!" My last finals are on Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll find lots of procrastinating time between now and then to paint them, take pictures of it all, and show off my creations.

Next, we have this little eclectic bunch:


These are going to be some of the containers for pure hard alcohol: vodka, gin, rum, bourbon, absinthe, scotch- you name it, we're going to have it! Since we're going with a carnival theme, I'm picturing a very long bar (that dearest Mikey will build, although he has yet to be informed) covered with all sorts of differently shaped and colored bottles, all filled with different flavored and colored alcohol. I tried doing a google search to find a collection/arrangement that even remotely matched what I'm envisioning, but to no avail. That's not to say that there isn't a picture already out there that perfectly demonstrates what I'm looking for, but it may be that my brain is so fried from finals week that my googling skills have diminished.

I'm hoping it'll be a beautiful, bright, color explosion, lit from underneath by l.e.d. lights-- sort of a mad hatter's tea party, for adults. Once I get some more bottles (which Santa might be bringing for me!) I'll put together an example and share.


So-- to all of you in blogger land tonight-- whatcha drinkin'?