Vegan Alcohol

I've ordered the vegan wine, beer and liquor!  Not every vegan worries about whether fish bladders are used in the processing of alcohol, and I don't look down on them for it.  Even if you don't, though, you're bound to have lots of vegan guests at your wedding, so it's important to make sure that everyone's comfortable. 
I'm providing the alcohol for the wedding, rather than the caterer.  It saves money if your venue and caterer allow for that!  So I found a great place to order for the PA/DE/MD/NJ area (Franks Union Wine store - www.frankswine.com), and Frank even helped me with checking on the veganness of certain suggested alcohols.  He now knows Barnivore.com - you probably already knew about it yourself, though.

Vegan Ballroom Shoes

We started our dance lessons, and, determined to take ballroom dancing back up on a longer-term basis, we invested in some ballroom dance shoes.  It's very hard to find nonleather ones (because leather soles are what ballroom shoes usually rely on to help you glide across the floor), but we found really great ones at this site (and they were helpful in guiding our size choice).

http://www.steponedanceshoes.com/vegan_dance_shoes

Vegan Tuxedo Shoes

Buy4Less Tuxedo had a couple of nice tuxedo shoe options that they were able to confirm as 100% synthetic, so the guys got to choose between these two.  Nick's Cosmopolitan pair is already here and looks good.

http://www.buy4lesstuxedo.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=Cosmopolitan-Jean-Yves-Black-Tuxedo-Shoes

http://www.buy4lesstuxedo.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=Genoa-Black-Jean-Yves-Tuxedo-Shoes

The Tuxedo Decision

We went with MensUSA and are getting a poly-rayon/viscose blend.  It's a little hard to navigate their website and find the vegan options, but I called 1-888-784-8872 and spoke to Liz (x224).  She set us up with a great two-button tuxedo package, including a silk-free bowtie & cummerbund.  Liz was not only helpful and confidence-inspiring, but also gave us a great discount, making MensUSA the best price I found.  We're looking at buying for not much more than the guys would have paid to rent a tux.  And they'll have a nice one that they can hang onto.  (Discounts at other places for the bulk order were not quite as steep, keeping those sites at about $250 for the package.)  Every store that I spoke with said that the poly-rayon blend is significantly nicer than the straight poly fabric, but you can also cut costs down by another $20-40 by going with straight poly.

Unfortunately MensUSA doesn't have a nonleather tux shoe option, so we will have to find those separately for the guys who don't already own tux shoes.  Info coming soon - I have emails in to confirm the 100% leather-free nature of some shoes I found.

Vegan Tuxedos & Tux Shoes

So, any rental tux will be wool.  Nick and the groomsmen will have to buy non-wool tuxedos.  I talked to someone at Jos A Bank (met him at a bridal show) who said we could special order non-wool ones, but lost his contact info.  I may start from scratch with Jos A Bank, or might start from scratch elsewhere.  Here's one option that might be vegan that I found online: http://www.tuxedosdirect.com/product/view.php?product_id=178066&category_id=007985.  This is probably the store where we'll buy the vegan tux shoes as well: http://www.tuxedosdirect.com/category/008123.shtml.  We can get the whole tux set for under $200 here, though: http://www.cheaptux.com/products/Standard-Polyester-Tuxedo-Package.html.  I have no clue how to gauge the quality of what we're dealing with, and am not sure how to tell the difference.  I don't want to make the guys spend any more money than they need to, but I don't want them to end up with junk.  We shall see.  Luckily this does not have to be decided now.  The bridesmaid dresses got ordered in time, and this shouldn't require nearly as much time to get done.

Vegan Entrees

I'm pretty excited about the wedding food.  We're getting our act together in choosing entrees.  Initially, I wanted one seitan and one tofu dish.  I've moved a bit away from that, because the tofu dish I insisted on got wrinkled noses from my dad and my MOH when we went to do a tasting with the caterer (Karen's Catering).  It was a salmon-inspired dish that I had suggested, and even though it wasn't fishy tasting at all, the notion of a tofu dish that sort of reminded people of salmon was appalling to them as non-vegans.  (For those in Philly, think pacific-rim grilled tofu from Horizons/Vedge - it's a delish meal.)  Anyway, the seitan chimichurri stays.  It was awesome - my dad loved it too.  Enter also white bean ravioli (yum!) and phyllo veggie pockets over risotto.  I'm pretty sure most of my non-vegan guests will go for the ravioli, because it's closest to their comfort zone.  Maybe some more adventurous folks will try the seitan, though!  By the way, it's http://karenscatering.org/  the .com address is some other catering company that I know nothing about. 

Vegan Shoes, Part II

The shoes came.  They're adorable, as expected.  The other pair I got that were on sale were adorable too (also NeuAura, but I don't want to brag too much, because I'm pretty sure they were the last pair of them on the planet).  I'm going to get some sort of cushion for the ball of my foot.  I have narrow feet, so often the straps at the front aren't tight enough on their own. I've also ordered a clear strap to keep them very securely on.  Not ordinarily something I'd do, but I can be clumsy in high heeled sandals, and biting it on my wedding day is less than ideal.  Here's what I ordered: https://www.appledanceshoes.com/ClearElasticShoeStraps. Chose that store because with the free shipping it was super inexpensive ($6).