Money Greedy, You Trample My Soul

I’m the last person who should be registering for gifts.

But isn’t that part of the fun of getting married? People buy you stuff. Aren’t you supposed to want that?

The whole concept of a gift registry is a bit on the presumptuous side. You invite people to your wedding, and it’s almost expected that your guests will buy you something.

For the last couple of years, I have told people not to buy me things. Birthdays, Christmases, whatever—I make it pretty clear I’d prefer if you didn’t waste your money on someone like me. The sad part about this is that no one listens.

Since I abhor the thought of people spending money on me, registering for gifts has been…interesting so far. And we haven’t even gotten very far yet, because we are very busy and important people, and who has the time to wander around Target, scanning glassware or sets of organic cotton sheets?

Most couples pick two to three places to register, and one of the places we picked is Bloomingdale’s, which to me, is like one of the nicest stores on the planet. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I should be in there, or that they will ask me to leave, because I look too destitute to be shopping there.

One of the things most couples register for is a set of dishes. Traditionally, couples that lived separately and move in together after the wedding would need new dishes, or a set of matching dishes, or something. I already had a full set of dishes, from a settlement with Corelle, from an embarrassing kitchen-related injury I suffered a few years back.

But since people are supposed to buy us stuff—we registered for new, fancy dishes. Dishes so fancy, and expensive, that I will more than likely be afraid to eat off of them.

Since we know everyone is not made out of money, or has access to a Bloomingdale’s (there is only one in the whole state of Minnesota) we also registered at Target, where one thing sits on our registry—an XBOX 360.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I don’t play contemporary video games, and haven’t purchased a video game system since 1993—and that Super Nintendo still is hooked up to our TV and yes we do still play NBA Jam Tournament Edition on it. But somehow, like most people in the world, I have fallen under the spell that the game Rock Band casts on you.

What’s that you say? Our plates at Bloomingdale’s are probably less expensive than an XBOX, so what’s the point of registering for more “affordable” options at Target? Well, for starters, Bloomingdale’s doesn’t have an electronics department. Also, like I said, who has the time to wander around Target scanning stuff?

We barely have time to update this blog.

Getting Dressed

Wedding dress - check!

My lovely sister Amy orchestrated two cold January Saturdays of shopping-until-people-were-dropping, with great success. The first Saturday began with a trip to Rush's Bridal in downtown Minneapolis. We didn't have an appointment to try dresses on, because apparently everyone and their mom got engaged over Christmas and couldn't wait to try on dresses in January. Luckily, someone cancelled their appointment and we got into a giant fitting room.

It's really funny to try and pick out dresses to try on, because you have no idea what they will look like on your body based on their floppy hanger appearance. I had some ideas of what I wanted to avoid in a wedding dress, including sparkles, beads, lace, and other cutesy-overdecorative stuff. That really narrowed it down, actually - I was able to quickly turn my nose up at about 3/4 of the options before me. We had a pretty good system for trying the things on, picking 5 or 6 things off the racks, and the nice helper lady promptly refiled anything that elicited a kooky-faced response. Here are some highlights from Rush's:


This dress was pretty but heavy.


A lot of people liked this one, but it was spendy and I didn't like the way it hugged the ol' hips.


Rachel did a great job holding up the top picks.

Words cannot accurately describe trying on a wedding dress, and I'm not talking about sentimentality, but rather the sheer hilarity of it. Two to three ladies hold up the tons of fabric while one fishes their way through the top to find where the body is supposed to go. Then the person trying on the dress assumes a position similar to blast-off. One crouches with one's arms pointed upwards and then dives into the dress. It's a little reminiscent of finding one's way through the birth canal as one tries to find their way towards the light and shimmies their way into the dress. It was all quite tiring, so we gave our arms and bodies a rest and headed to lunch after the attendant took down styles that I liked for future reference.

The next stop was David's Bridal, which was a tad disappointing for me. It was a madhouse in the store, with half-naked women running all over the place impressing their 10-person entourage with different dresses. We thought that since this was a huge store we could try on things right away without an appointment, but instead they took my information and told me to come back at 4:00 p.m. We did go back later, but I only tried on two dresses and I didn't care for either, so we just walked out. *Disclaimer: if you bought your dress at David's Bridal, that is awesome that you found something you liked. I'm just SUPER picky, and the bulk of the David's Bridal selection consists of beaded embellished gowns, which I was trying to avoid.

We scooted over to a small boutique before heading to a distant suburb for our one scheduled appointment of the day. It was nice that the establishment was smaller, but it too was overrun with women. I found one dress I liked, but it had embroidery on the train, much to my chagrine.


Finally, a picture without my face! It's hard looking at photos of one's self.

The scheduled appointment of the day was in Savage, MN at a fancy wedding center complete with travel agent, bridesmaid store, and cake/reception decor display. Before I was allowed in the wedding dress store, I was told to take off my shoes (this is common and I think it makes sense with all of that white fabric everywhere). Dresses were hung up in giant open closets and I received a whole shower-curtained area just for trying things on. Someone offered me water, which was an accoutrement I was not used to, but was glad to have. Though the establishment was lovely and high-class, I couldn't help but feel a little Julia Roberts prostitute-y when I went in there. I thought the sales girls would surely ask me to leave and I would pin up my thigh-high boot and leave sniveling. I tried on a few dresses and we found one in my price range, but by this point I was getting pretty silly:


Here's my not-happy face as I try and figure out what the thing falling off my bosom is.

The first Saturday ended with a few prospects in hand and a definite idea of what my style, taste, and price range fell within. Thanks to Amy, Aunt Sally, Kerriann, and Rachel for their love, support, and strong arms!

The second Saturday's shopping ended almost as soon as it began. We headed back to downtown Minneapolis to Macy's Bridal, which was having a trunk show. I thought a trunk show just meant that there were a bunch of expensive dresses piled in trunks, but apparently it means that new dresses are shown from a certain designer and are on SALE (always a good thing). The featured designer was Watters, who also makes WToo, a brand made for we brides with smaller pocketbooks. I think it was the first dress I tried on at Macy's that I fell in love with. The rest of the day was spent shopping and looking at other things that paled in comparison to this dress that I loved so very much.


It's so pretty even though I'm holding up a size 5 to my size 12 body.


Please don't look at my silly face. Focus on the dress here, people.

Not only was it luck that my dress was reasonably price and 10% off as part of the trunk show, but there was also a jewelry designer at the trunk show displaying her wares. I was a huge fan of her headbands, made of flat chiclet-looking pearls on a, get this, COMFORTABLE metal band. All headpieces I tried on at other stores hurt like the Dickens when applied to heads, so I wasn't about to let a comfortable piece of jewelry escape my hands. I was never excited at the prospect of a veil, and I am extremely picky when it comes to jewelry - I don't care to look at a piece unless it is really interesting and unique. So I killed two lovebirds with one stone and bought my dress and headband in the same locale.


Ahem. . . Kevin, you should buy me the matching necklace.

Thus concludes the conquest for Wendy wedding attire. Thanks for reading!

Everybody's Got A Hungry Heart

by Kevin


As someone who used to be a wedding videographer, I have had my fair share of wedding food. And as someone who is a vegetarian, at said weddings, I have had my fair share of corn, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls, because weddings held in rural Iowa never cater to vegetarians—especially the vegetarian who wasn’t really invited, and is just there, holding a bulky video camera on his shoulder.

Wendy and I consider ourselves to be people who like food—well prepared, savory, moderately healthy food. (But don’t you dare call us “foodies.”) So when it was time to start looking at catering options for our reception, we knew that we would be hard to please. The reception hall we booked only allows an elite few caterers in, so our options are limited to begin with.

First up was Prom Catering, who also has the distinct privilege of being the “exclusive alcohol vendor” for the reception site. Upon glancing at their menu, we noticed that they were A) pretty pricey, and B) not very vegetarian friendly. But just to start gathering some figures for how much feeding everyone is going to cost, I emailed them to get some quotes.

After a few days, I still hadn’t heard back from them, so I begrudgingly called the Prom Catering office. I really hate talking on the phone, especially with people I don’t know, and especially about things like this—I really have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m sure I will come off sounding like an idiot on the phone.

While speaking to the receptionist, I gave her my name, and she told me that it sounded familiar. I told her it should—I emailed them days ago, and they never bothered to call me back.

Eventually I was passed onto one of their sales associates, who told me that she would send me the quote for a plated chicken dinner.

“No, no, no,” I interrupted. “It needs to be a vegetarian entrée.”

She told me she understood, and that she would email me price quotes for a vegetarian dinner. Another two days passed, and I then received price quotes for a plated chicken dinner.

Apparently, everyone who works at Prom Catering is an idiot.

Following this debacle, Wendy and I separately scheduled tastings with two of the other three vendors allowed at the reception site. First up was Cossetta’s, an Italian restaurant in St. Paul—who apparently has a decent reputation of good food.

Upon meeting with them, and finishing our tasting, we found that they apparently do not have a reputation of having any personality.

The woman we met with was quite possibly one of the most awkward people I have ever encountered. The food that we tasted included bruschetta, a salad primarily made up of ice berg lettuce, more bread, a bland and slightly mushy penne pasta, and a ravioli that tasted like it was filled with saw dust.

We hadn’t even made it out of St. Paul when Wendy realized that something we had was not agreeing with her stomach. On top of that, we had a trunk full of food from the tasting that we were given on our way out the door. Food now that we have no desire to eat again.

Our second tasting was with the hilariously titled Chow Girls Killer Catering. A relatively new catering firm, and new to the small list of exclusive caterers for our reception site, we were pleasantly surprised with most of the food we sampled. We tried many fine appetizers, including samosas, egg rolls and cous cous.

The one draw back with the Chow Girls is that they are kinda pricey. They use mostly organic and locally grown ingredients for all of their dishes. What’s strange is that Cosetta’s claimed to import ingredients from European countries, although I am certain what they meant by that is they import their ingredients from the back of a Sysco truck, into their loading dock, and then into the pantry.

But as the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” With the Chow Girls, you pay for good food—you’ll get good food. With Cosetta’s, who were QUITE a bit less money, you pay for bland, crappy food—you’ll get bland, crappy food.

Save The Date/Us

Who would have thought that saving the date would be so hard?
-By Wendy


My fiancé Kevin and I decided long ago that we would like to save a tree and use recycled paper for the many pulpy aspects of getting married: save the date cards, invites, RSVP cards, programs, etc. Trees probably don't care much for marriages.

I started exploring paper options right away, since I was planning on making my own paper products for the wedding. Much to my chagrine, the Michael's and Hobby Lobbies of the world care not for the environment much in their scrapbooking departments. I looked online, but I didn't want to mess around with ordering paper that I couldn't look at and feel in person. Nothing ever looks as glamorous as it appears on the web, and I assume that paper would fall into this category.

Luckily, a small art store right in the town we live in featured recycled paper. What a relief! We could order pre-cut cards for our save-the-date announcements, which would save us the time of painstakingly cutting out pieces of paper (I can't cut a straight line to save my life anyway). Also, the price was reasonable and the salesperson assured me that the size the paper came in (A7) was both extremely common and would be perfect for mailing as a post card (at the cheaper 26 cent rate).

It took about ten days for our paltry order of 100 cards to come in, and as soon as they did, we got to work. We started with our home printer, which we recently purchased. I once thought this machine to be a top-notch piece of technology, but actual use of said equipment proved otherwise. Apparently HP has designed their latest printer-scanner combination to only print a few sheets at a time, nothing more than 5 pages in the standard 8.5x11 size.

A7 is not a common size of paper for home printing. Not only is it not an option in InDesign software, but it proved troublesome for our poor little printer. After painfully wasting cards and adjusting the layout for the darn cards to print out normally, we noticed that although the cards' designs were to be printed in grayscale, some were bluer and some were redder than others. We thought, "No matter, we're already a third through the printing process. No one will notice."

Then Mr. Printer decided that it would no longer accept these pieces of paper we were forcing down his throat. Wimp.

So I decided to take it to work to see if the cards preferred our fancy laser printer. After spending an hour trying to network my personal laptop to the company printer to no avail, I eventually just transferred the files to my work computer. After the files transferred, I readjusted the card layout back to normalcy, as the nice printer would accept paper of any size. How gracious, Madame Laser!

While spending the time on setup, I grew confident that the laser printing was the answer to all of my save-the-date woes. . . until I actually printed one.

Recycled paper does not take kindly to laser printing or powdered toners in general. The texture resulting from the reprocessing of recycled materials rejected the ink I tried to force upon it, rubbing off when touching the sample.

After consulting with Kevin over the phone and basically being talked down from the ledge of a building, we decided that it was time to go to a professional printer.

I contacted two professional printers in our area with specifics about the job, saying that we probably needed to use inkjet ink that could be absorbed into the paper. Their response was disheartening, as no modern printer even dreams of straying from the quality of laser printing.

Things were getting desperate. We were not going to buy a new printer over a piece of paper telling our guests that they will receive more paper from us in the future.

After borrowing an old unused inkjet printer from work and determining that it was left unused because of its inability to output anything printed, I sat sulking in our office trying to think of a way to save this ship. And then my eyes grazed upon our old printer that we had replaced with the snazzy printer-scanner that would have nothing to do with size A7 paper.

Kevin reminded me that we replaced the old printer because it tended to not print the data that you sent to it until after spitting out pages of nonsensical numbers and letters. But this would not stop me.

I created "dummy" cards so as not to waste any more of the precious 100 we had ordered until I found something that worked. After an hour of testing conjectures and hypotheses to find the method behind our printer's madness, I finally stumbled across a ridiculous way to achieve our desired result. Eureka!

I found that if I go through the maddening process of turning the printer off and on again, sending the job to the printer, feeding through a card it could print its gibberish on, and then feeding through the card I actually wanted to be printed, I could achieve the desired result.

So now I am finishing the last of the save-the-dates, and I will wash my hands of this and go to Kinko's for the invites like a normal, sane person. I am hoping that they have recycled paper options, but honestly, I have wasted so much paper up until this point that I think I have undone the good I tried to do with ordering these confounded A7 cards in the first place. Oh, and by the by, Miss Art Store Employee, A7 is too big for postcard postage, so I'll be paying the full 42 cents. Thank you for your expertise.

So now that it's over, if you're invited to Kevin and my wedding, please won't you save the date? And be sure not to compare your card to anyone else's.