If watching ‘Mad Men’ has taught me anything, it’s that cocktails and men go hand-in-hand. They also tend to go over very well at showers, rehearsal dinners and wedding receptions. In fact, going with a signature cocktail as opposed to an open bar is one of the best ways to reduce your budget (especially if your friends drink like mine). A fun and increasingly popular concept is to opt for two cocktail selections, one selected by the bride and another by the groom. This way, you can have the best of both worlds. For the guys, here’s a few personal favorites to consider as you begin your quest to get your wedding guests sufficiently drunk and satisfied.

Feeling like an extra stealthy groom? The Vesper is famous for being James Bond’s drink of choice.

Ingredients – 3oz. Gordon’s gin, 1oz. vodka, 1/2 oz. Lillet Blanc

Preparation – In the words of Bond himself, shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.

It doesn’t get any more manly than the Manhattan. If you’ve never had one, you’d be doing yourself a huge favor ordering one the next time you’re out on the town.

Ingredients – 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth, 2 1/2 oz. whiskey (pref. bourbon), 1 dash Angostura bitters, 1 maraschino cherry, 1 twist orange peel

Preparation – Mix the vermouth, whiskey, and bitters with three ice cubes in a mixing glass. Gently stir the drink. Place the cherry in a chilled cocktail glass and strain the whiskey mixture over the cherry. Rub the cut edge of the orange peel over the rim of the glass and twist it over the drink to release the juice.

Trust us, it’s not as bad as the name implies. And did we mention, its main ingredient is scotch?

Ingredients – 1 1/2 oz. Scotch whisky, 1/2 oz. Drambuie Scotch whisky, 1 lemon peel twist

Preparation – Mix the Scotch and Drambuie together over ice and stir. Use the lemon twist to garnish the glass.

If you’re having a summer wedding and want a classic drink that’s perfect for a hot day, look no further than our old friend Mr. Tom Collins.

Ingredients – 1¼ oz. Tanqueray gin, 1 oz lemon juice or lime juice, 1 tsp sweet and sour mix, 1 splash club soda, 1 maraschino cherry, 1 orange slice

Preparation – In a shaker, mix the Tanqeray, juice and sweet/sour mix over ice. Shake well and then strain into a Collins glass that’s pre-filled with ice. From there, add the club soda and garnish with the orange slice and cherry.

Another classic cocktail that fits in great at weddings. It’s origins are French, France is romantic, you do the math…

Ingredients – 3/4oz. Cointreau, 3/4oz. brandy, 3/4oz. lemon juice

Preparation – Fill a mixing glass with ice and add in all three ingredients. Shake heartily and pour into a cocktail glass. For added taste, wet the rim of the glass and coat with a thin layer of sugar.

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Have you discussed having an open bar versus having a few select cocktails at your reception or rehearsal dinner? Would you consider serving any of these featured drinks at your wedding? Let us know in the comment section below.

So is your fiancée running around like crazy trying to plan every last detail of the upcoming wedding? Of course she is. She wants everything to be perfect. But that’s why you love her right?  Perhaps you could help her out with a detail or two.  It will make both your lives much more pleasant. Start with the printing needs. There’s a great online printer, Next Day Flyers, who is offering folded business cards which work great as place card holders.  The best part about ordering these cards is the low price tag. As we all know any product related to weddings is automatically given a higher price tag. A bit of a wedding markup is always factored in. These folded business cards however aren’t specifically marketed as wedding place card holders. They are nonetheless a card that’s the exact same size as a place holder but given a different name.  Thus you’re not stabbed in the gut with the high price tag. You can get a set of 100 for less than $40, which should help keep you aligned with your budget.

If you haven’t sent out save the date announcements yet, once again you should avoid going to printing companies specializing in wedding needs. Just find an online printing company offering postcards. The bigger name printers will have a tool on their site to allow you to create and design your announcement online. How hard is it to upload a photo of you and your significant other, add a personalized message and order? It’s not hard at all, and it doesn’t have to be expensive either.  A set of 100 4”x6” postcards can be purchased for less than $25.  So before your wife-to-be starts nagging you even further, take some initiative and get a couple things done. It will help her out, and you’ll come out looking like a hero.

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This post presented by Next Day Flyers.

Guys: are you getting involved with the design and printing of the wedding or rehearsal dinner invitations? Share your printing experience in the comment section below.

NHL Hockey Themed Wedding Invitations

This fantastic website creates custom designed sports wedding invitations and wedding programs. Their personalized invitations feature a photo of the bride and groom designed into the familiar ticket style for sporting events. Section, row and seat are replaced by date, month and year. A portion of the ticker, errr invite, can even be torn off so that your guests can easily RSVP. It’s one of the most clever wedding invites we’ve come across.

With the gameday program, you’re given the option to use several photos in the design. It also gives you an outlet to list the names of people who will be sharing in your big day. These names range from parents, readers and wedding party members. In other words, it takes the place of the boring wedding programs you’re used to seeing and replaces it with a man-tastic guide chock full of team spirit. Click here for an example.

A few favorite program/invite designs from SportsThemedWeddings.

If you’re fiancée is looking for a more traditional wedding invitation, never fear. Rehearsal dinners and bachelor parties are also manly events that require an invite. Or there’s even the possibility of choosing a non-sports related theme. SportsThemedWeddings has recently begun expanding into designs including movies, goth, gangsters, Star Wars and more. Just like wedding planning, this is all about the creativity and customization that best fits the couple. This is your wedding day… make it one that you and your guests will always remember!

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Grooms, which team would you feature on your ticket invites? Brides, would you be willing to use a sports-themed wedding invitation? Discuss in the comments section below.

disclosure: sportsthemedweddings.com is a sponsor of the man registry’s groomsadvice blog

By Hunter Stiebel from The Broke Ass Bride

Gentlemen, congratulations on deciding to make the commitment of your life to your one true love! That is some manly s*#t you are pulling off. Since the moment you got down on bended knee, I bet you’ve had a bunch of  Conversations with your girlfriend, ahem pardon me, Fiancée, about the wedding. While your wife may be
transfixed as to how every detail must be perfectly beautiful, your top priority is more likely “How can we make this the funnest damn party I ever did throw?”

If that’s not the case, WAKE UP BROTHA!!! If this is going to be the most cash you’ve ever thrown down on a party, don’t you think it should be the most fun party humanly possible? Right. So, how do you make sure your wedding is a blast? Two simple words my friends: Food and Booze. A well-fed and buzzed wedding guest is an ecstatic, loving guest. As I write this I’m stuffed but sober, so lets focus on booze.

This groom knows that booze is important even before the wedding - photo Shannon Lee Images

“But Hunter” you say, “I’m trying to have a budget wedding.” Fear not my friend, the wedding that only serves pizza, wine and beer will beat out the tea tolling wedding where diamonds are hung from every corner any day of the week. But As the old saying goes, “Ya want booze? Cash you’re gonna loose.” Hmmm I’m not sure that’s a saying, but the one thing I do know is that when it comes to a wedding, couples are taken off guard by how much the holy spirits of the party end up costing them.  So here are some tips so you don’t get caught in the money pit behind the boozy curtain.

1) Location Location Location. Its sad how many times I’ve heard a couple think they’ve found the perfect location at the perfect price with no knowledge of the numbers they are soon to see. The rental was a steal, they even put down the deposit but then they found out that no outside liquor was allowed and the bar cost up to tens of thousands of dollars.  One of the first questions you want to ask a location is what is your catering/liquor policy. Some are flexible others are not.

2) The best way to pull off a cheap wedding bar will always be to bring in your own booze. Some locations will charge you to do this rather than use their services. Pop out the calculator and see if it’s worth it. Most likely it is. Sometimes it’s an insurance issue. See if your caterer or your planner has insurance that will cover you doing your own bar.

3) If the facility has no lee way on their bar policies, an easy way to save is by closing the bar after cocktail hour and serving only wine and beer with dinner.

4) Another route is to nix the full bar and go with a few signature cocktails plus wine and beer. We did a pear martini and called it… wait for it… “The Perfect Pear”.  Have a cocktail with the taste preferences of the bride and one of the grooms. Folks will love this bit of wedding inspiration and by drink two they’ll be everyone’s favorite.

5) Still trying to save a few more dollars? Doing just wine and beer is just fine and don’t let nobody tell ya different. No matter what your guests are into, they should be cool with one or the other. Consider tapping a keg to keep costs down, and don’t be afraid to cleverly re-label your cheap neighborhood wine and suddenly two buck chuck is a unique wedding vino.

Going one of these routes should make everyone happy. If someone isn’t happy with those choices, then that’s their problem and they were going to find something to complain about no matter what. Why did you invite that person anyway…? Oh right, they’re your third cousin. Yeah, third cousins are the worst… unless they are the person you happen to be marrying. If that’s the case may you live happily ever, and may I be the first to make a toast to your future children with lovely large chins.

Cheers!

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Hunter Stiebel A.K.A The Fresh Hubby is president of Broke-Ass Media and regular contributor and editor of the award winning The Broke-Ass Bride. The Broke-Ass Bride website inspires and empowers readers to make the most of what they have by using creative, outside-the-box ideas rooted in practical advice to have a bad-ass wedding on any budget. Also, The Broke-Ass Bride has non-stop weekly giveaways and deals… it’s kind of nuts.

This brings me to Greenvelope.com. Greenvelope is the brainchild of Sam Franklin — a student at Washington University in St. Louis that decided a heavy college workload at a prestigious university wasn’t enough. He also wanted to start a company. I dig that outlook on entrepreneurship and I also dig his idea: a personalized approach to paperless wedding invitations.

Introducing Greenvelope.com

Greenvelope provides clients an environmentally-friendly service to easily customize and send formal wedding invitations electronically (via e-mail). They offer three packages — including the free “bronze” package for your Save-the-Date cards.

To help celebrate their launch, Greenvelope is offering our readers a 25% discount on their two most popular packages. Users entering the coupon code “themanregistry” will receive:

• 25% off the Silver or Gold Package
• New Package or Upgrade eligible.
• Good for 3 Months
• Unlimited Use – Can even be used for multiple events within the same account.
• VIP support and guidance.

A sampling of what Greenvelope offers..

Greenvelope is easy to use because it was designed with the user-experience in mind. A few of our favorite features are:

• No ads! – Greenvelope takes electronic invitations to the next level, by introducing an unexplored level of formality: ad-free wedding invitations. Guests do not see pop-ups, ad banners, or receive spam.
• Organization – Your guest list will be easy to keep organized with the simple management tools that Greenvelope provides. Users are instantly notified when a guest RSVP’s, and the guest list updates automatically to show any changes.

For the full list of features, click here.

We hope that you’ll check out Greenvelope.com. For further information, you can follow them on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook.

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Readers – what do you think of Greenvelope? Would you consider going paperless with your wedding invitations and save-the-dates? In what other areas of wedding planning are you going green? Let us know in the comments.