Party | Phil & Alysse's Wedding Blog :p+a:

Us in our Ohio State gear

When my parents decided to throw Phil and I an engagement party, my mom asked me what kind of engagement party we wanted to have. My mom was thinking about throwing a party with heavy appetizers, champagne, and other fancy stuff. My idea was to recreate the day Phil and I met and have an Ohio State tailgate themed engagement party. My mom was kind of shocked to hear that I wanted a tailgate themed party. “OSU themed party? Don’t you want to use the champagne fountain I just purchased and have sushi?” she said to me. I was sticking to my guns and told her I wanted an Ohio State themed party. I wanted a party that was fun, relaxed, and celebrated what Phil and I were all about. As much as I love champagne and sushi, I wanted a relax fun environment for our extended families to meet. So my mom took my idea and ran with it and pulled off the best engagement party ever!

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The party was on March 2nd at the Monticello Barn in Canton, Ohio. The guest list included 120 people of just family…yes you read that correctly Phil and I have 120 family members combined…that is the size of a normal wedding. Originally I wanted to serve Pita Pit to our guests because that is the first meal Phil and I had together but my mom nixed that idea and instead served “very little” food which included Italian sausage, pulled pork, gumbo, pastitsio, chicken wings, salad, meat pies, baked beans, chili, meatballs, cheese tray, a bunch of dips, pasta salad, and enough dessert to feed a small village. My mom also gathered all the decorations and a lot of the Ohio State decor was provided by family members who are OSU alum. She had a lot of help from my Aunt Carolyn, my Nouna, my Yiayia, Sarah, my brother Alexander, my Uncle Jr., my Aunt Mona, and my Aunt Dina. In the invitations we told everyone to wear Ohio State gear and/or Scarlet and Gray and to Phil and I’s surprise mostly everyone wore OSU stuff. We were super happy about that. The night went smoothly we everyone eating too much, music from our college days playing in the background, and 2001 National Championship Game playing on the TV it was perfect. Phil and I like to thank everyone for coming and all the awesome gifts you gave us, except we don’t thank you for the photo of Phil in his M*ch*gan gear.

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Me with our everyday dishes

Our final registering experience we decided to go out with a bang. Before getting engaged Phil and I had never been to a Crate and Barrel. While doing our “research” on places to register we checked out Crate and Barrel in Beachwood. We absolutely loved it, especially Phil he was like a kid in a candy store. Phil and I love to cook so Crate and Barrel was like walking into cooking heaven, with the each end-cap devoted to different kind of cuisine, kitchen gadgets for everything you ever needed, and dishes that matched our traditional modern style. Phil and I instantly decided that we were going to register there and we were excited that we picked our everyday dishes, glassware, and everything else we really loved (which was a lot)

Phil chowing down on some free breakfast

We signed up for Crate and Barrel Wedding Parties, which is an event that the store hosts where open the store just for engaged couples, serve you drinks and food, and demonstrate certain products. One of Phil’s co-workers went to one of these parties and highly recommended it so we thought why not? We RSVP’d to a Sunday morning event and showed up to the store bright and early. Now let’s note that Phil and I are not morning people; we both love to sleep-in, so getting up early was a challenge for . When we got there we took advantage of the “free” breakfast which included pastries, fruit kabobs, coffee, juices, yogurt, and mini muffins. Since it was our 3rd time registering Phil and I were pros. We started checking things off our list while the other couples were deciding between mixing bowls. Just like Macy’s, Crate and Barrel has an app that you can use as a scanner to add items to your registry. The Crate and Barrel app did not work as well as the Macy’s app, it actually kind of sucked. If we would have done it again we would have used a normal scanner instead of my iPhone.

As we were registering I was kind of paying attention to the other couples to what they were registering for and how they were registering. I figured out that all couples are the same. 1 person would be the person that was really into registering for things and would want to register for everything and the other person would argue and not want to register for the said item. When it comes to Phil and I, I am the person that wants to register for everything and Phil would be the person that would argue about many of items I was registering for. For example:

Alysse: Let’s register for these seafood utensils, it would be really nice to have them when we cook lobster and/or crab legs. Yummm, I love crab legs.

Phil: We don’t need that.

Alysse: It’s not that expensive and it would be fun to have them.

Phil: Um, no.

Alysse: Okkkkkaaay. (Then she registers for the seafood utensils 10 minutes later).

After 2 1/2 hours of registering Phil had enough of it. The free breakfast wasn’t enough for him and he was hungry, tired, and cranky. I couldn’t even get the guy to look at beer glasses he was so cranky. So I finished registering online. So check out our Crate & Barrel Registry, some of our favorite stuff is on it: http://www.crateandbarrel.com/Gift-Registry/Alysse-Shaheen-and-Phil-Giallourakis/r5009585

Phil & Alysse's Wedding Blog :p+a:

Tag Archives: Party

Our Ohio State Tailgate Engagement Party

Crate & Barrel Registering Party