You know what we're sick of? We're sick of people on wedding shows talking about how they have to do everything cheap and DIY because they have a budget of JUST $25,000. And then we hear they only have 50 people coming. We're sick of the girl who is complaining about how hard it is to plan her wedding when she has hired professionals for most every part of it, daddy is paying the insanely high bill, and she quit her job so she could focus on the wedding. But it's SO hard. And we are sick to death of the bridal shows that have carving stations and sushi and stir-fry asian food, and build your own mashed potato bars and more food that some families see in a month FOR THEIR HAPPY HOUR and the guests say that happy hour was "just ok".
Seriously people. When did it become socially unacceptable to have a simple wedding? When did everyone decide they had to be a princess? When did we decide that we would just all go into debt to the bride could have "her day"? When did this become the norm? Heck, when did it become remotely acceptable to blow that much money and have that much waste for one fricking day? Not even a whole day. Most weddings last less than half of a day. In less than half of a day you are blowing through more money than many of the folks working your event make all year.
Listen, I'm not saying that everyone who spends a ton of money or complains about their wedding is a bad person. Really I'm not. Sometimes I feel like my complaint is to the companies who want to charge you $60 a plate for a meal at a wedding, when the same meal served at a seminar would be $40, and the same meal served at their restaurant would be $19. And those Chiavari chairs that everyone is shown sitting in during the ceremony for bridal shows on tv - to rent them costs $10 - $15 a chair. That is $1000 - $1500 for chairs that folks will likely sit in for half an hour. Those chairs are getting so much per hour a company is going to look to outsource that job to overseas. Sometimes this process has me thinking I'm in the wrong business.
And that is why I'm so happy when I meet people who want to work with you. People who want to make sure that while they are easily getting all their bills paid, you aren't having to skip a bill to pay them. People who have clear websites and details so there are no questions or fine print. Folks who are in this not just to take advantage of all the barely 20 something's with a hand in daddy's wallet, but to help your average person have a wonderful and special day.
While this may have seemed like a rant to the "other people" it's really a thank you to all the good ones out there. May you all stay in business, and may you give me big discounts. :)
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Surprise! It's wedding week!
Last week we made the decision to really get some things done towards the wedding this week and next. We figured one thing here, one thing there. Instead it has become "Wedding Week".
Monday - Email, email, email! It was all about sending out email to get updated with all of our contacts. We have a few contracts pending so looking forward to getting those resolved.
Tuesday -While not officially wedding related, we had an event at the Phoenix Mercury where we got to pick up our season tickets. While there we did chat about several wedding related events.
Wednesday - Met with the suggested "rentals" company for our reception space.
Thursday - Going to our monthly wedding show put on by the The Big Picture, from whom we won the free engagement session, and where our florist will be hanging out as well!
Friday - Meeting with Pastor Barb for our very first Holy Union counseling session.
Saturday - I have to work. Doesn't sound wedding related? Oh yes. That overtime $ is going right for wedding stuff!
Sunday - Two, count them, TWO Wedding shows including one that is hosted by the first wedding cake place that Kandi fell in love with - Bamboo Bakery. Looking forward to those cake tastings!
Monday - Having our second meeting with our potential caterer!
It's amazing how many things we know right now. It's also surprising how often I question some of the decisions. For example, we said fairly early on that we weren't going to do a bridal party. We figured we'd have a nice VIP section of friends and family with special things to do during and around the ceremony and all would be good. No need for obnoxious outfits. No needing to decide who's side each person would be on when we've had the same friends for 10 years. Nope - we know we aren't going to do it.
And then...I see pictures like this and I just really, really, really want to have fun pictures like this.
Ok, I don't need pictures EXACTLY like that, lets be honest the flipping off the camera thing is much more in Kandi's territory, but it's so fun! I want fun group pictures. And matching outfits. Or at least vaguely similar outfits. Sort of. Maybe. I don't know.
It's not as easy as I thought. And the more I look at some of the cute bridesmaid pictures on Off-Beat Bride, one of my favorite web haunts, the more I start to question that decision.
So many questions so little time. If anyone was counting, which The Knot has been doing ever since I registered there, it's just 155 days until the wedding. Yikes!
Let the wedding madness continue!
Monday - Email, email, email! It was all about sending out email to get updated with all of our contacts. We have a few contracts pending so looking forward to getting those resolved.
Tuesday -While not officially wedding related, we had an event at the Phoenix Mercury where we got to pick up our season tickets. While there we did chat about several wedding related events.
Wednesday - Met with the suggested "rentals" company for our reception space.
Thursday - Going to our monthly wedding show put on by the The Big Picture, from whom we won the free engagement session, and where our florist will be hanging out as well!
Friday - Meeting with Pastor Barb for our very first Holy Union counseling session.
Saturday - I have to work. Doesn't sound wedding related? Oh yes. That overtime $ is going right for wedding stuff!
Sunday - Two, count them, TWO Wedding shows including one that is hosted by the first wedding cake place that Kandi fell in love with - Bamboo Bakery. Looking forward to those cake tastings!
Monday - Having our second meeting with our potential caterer!
It's amazing how many things we know right now. It's also surprising how often I question some of the decisions. For example, we said fairly early on that we weren't going to do a bridal party. We figured we'd have a nice VIP section of friends and family with special things to do during and around the ceremony and all would be good. No need for obnoxious outfits. No needing to decide who's side each person would be on when we've had the same friends for 10 years. Nope - we know we aren't going to do it.
And then...I see pictures like this and I just really, really, really want to have fun pictures like this.
Ok, I don't need pictures EXACTLY like that, lets be honest the flipping off the camera thing is much more in Kandi's territory, but it's so fun! I want fun group pictures. And matching outfits. Or at least vaguely similar outfits. Sort of. Maybe. I don't know.
It's not as easy as I thought. And the more I look at some of the cute bridesmaid pictures on Off-Beat Bride, one of my favorite web haunts, the more I start to question that decision.
So many questions so little time. If anyone was counting, which The Knot has been doing ever since I registered there, it's just 155 days until the wedding. Yikes!
Let the wedding madness continue!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Forever playing catch up
On this happy Mother's Day I want to start by giving very special mention to our Moms. We wouldn't be here without you. Literally.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, and yet while much of it was wedding prep, nothing was actually prepping for the wedding. No, instead it was preparing to PAY for the wedding. We've been doing garage sales. Yes, last weekend we did both Saturday and Sunday, and this week just Saturday. Our total cost, since our awesome Neighbor/Flower Girl pitched in for the cost of the ad in our local paper as she also had a house full of stuff to sell, was less than $8. We made more than $500. We are super excited about that. It's cleaning the house AND making money at the same time!
Unfortunately it kills your entire weekend, and several days prior to the first weekend in prepping, and you feel you have no time for anything else. After the first garage sale we realized we'd been out of the swing of wedding prep for too long. So that, along with an upcoming trip and just our general long term want inspired us to go buy a laptop. I've so often had one for work we never felt the need to have personal laptop. But now we have one! We know that it will be in high demand as we get closer and closer to the big day!
We planned to have it out and working on some emailing and Excel spreadsheet-ing, but there really wasn't much time to do it with the folks coming by. We were able to do some, but we're definitely feeling a bit behind on it. Hopefully we can get a bit more caught up this week. We made initial plans and tentative plans with several places so we should quickly get back in the swing of things.
We have 2 bridal events next week, and 2 bridal events planned for 2 Saturday's from now. One is with a place we'd like to have do our cake if we can swing it. And who doesn't like a chance to eat some cake?
We are also planning to do a meeting with a company that we were TOLD was the preferred rental company for where we are having our reception, but when their representative returned by call last week I found out they do SO much more! She was supposed to send me some info for us to review so I could have her email address, but haven't gotten it yet. If they can do a few of the things it could be great for us to have one group coordinating it though in the end it's all about three things; Price, Product, and Personality! Fingers crossed it will be a good option!
Also, on Saturday we met someone - a friend of a friend - who is an amazing singer and is up for singing a few songs at our ceremony/reception. And this was all great until we start talking with her and realize we basically have no idea what we would want her to sing or at what time we would want her to sing. We've been working so hard on some of the "big" details we haven't spent much time on the little ones like that. But we realize we're getting to that time.
Finally, on Saturday we got the cards we're using for our Save the Date's. Kandi has one more add on to get to make it a "complete package", but hopefully we can have those sent out by the end of the month. It will be nice to sort of make it official in that kind of a way. The first mailed item. It's a big step. Just one more big step of so many we've had on this journey!
The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, and yet while much of it was wedding prep, nothing was actually prepping for the wedding. No, instead it was preparing to PAY for the wedding. We've been doing garage sales. Yes, last weekend we did both Saturday and Sunday, and this week just Saturday. Our total cost, since our awesome Neighbor/Flower Girl pitched in for the cost of the ad in our local paper as she also had a house full of stuff to sell, was less than $8. We made more than $500. We are super excited about that. It's cleaning the house AND making money at the same time!
Unfortunately it kills your entire weekend, and several days prior to the first weekend in prepping, and you feel you have no time for anything else. After the first garage sale we realized we'd been out of the swing of wedding prep for too long. So that, along with an upcoming trip and just our general long term want inspired us to go buy a laptop. I've so often had one for work we never felt the need to have personal laptop. But now we have one! We know that it will be in high demand as we get closer and closer to the big day!
We planned to have it out and working on some emailing and Excel spreadsheet-ing, but there really wasn't much time to do it with the folks coming by. We were able to do some, but we're definitely feeling a bit behind on it. Hopefully we can get a bit more caught up this week. We made initial plans and tentative plans with several places so we should quickly get back in the swing of things.
We have 2 bridal events next week, and 2 bridal events planned for 2 Saturday's from now. One is with a place we'd like to have do our cake if we can swing it. And who doesn't like a chance to eat some cake?
We are also planning to do a meeting with a company that we were TOLD was the preferred rental company for where we are having our reception, but when their representative returned by call last week I found out they do SO much more! She was supposed to send me some info for us to review so I could have her email address, but haven't gotten it yet. If they can do a few of the things it could be great for us to have one group coordinating it though in the end it's all about three things; Price, Product, and Personality! Fingers crossed it will be a good option!
Also, on Saturday we met someone - a friend of a friend - who is an amazing singer and is up for singing a few songs at our ceremony/reception. And this was all great until we start talking with her and realize we basically have no idea what we would want her to sing or at what time we would want her to sing. We've been working so hard on some of the "big" details we haven't spent much time on the little ones like that. But we realize we're getting to that time.
Finally, on Saturday we got the cards we're using for our Save the Date's. Kandi has one more add on to get to make it a "complete package", but hopefully we can have those sent out by the end of the month. It will be nice to sort of make it official in that kind of a way. The first mailed item. It's a big step. Just one more big step of so many we've had on this journey!
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