Reception Photos

We made the mistake of putting disposable cameras on the tables at the reception site. Here's a smattering of the photos people thought they needed to take during our reception.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Mission Accomplished

well....look at that. it's august 3rd. less than 48 hours ago we got married.

so right now, we're recovering from the days leading up to the wedding, and yesterday, because now our house is covered in presents.

our photographer peter said he's about half way through editing our pre-wedding wedding photos, so those should be available soon. he took quite a few on the day of a the ceremony as well as at the reception. we'll put up some info on here about how to order those from him, because he's got some kind of cool photo ordering system set up.

thanks again to everyone who helped us with the wedding, and thanks to everyone who came. i hope everyone had a good time. from the amount of dancing that i did, i apparently had a good time.

As Bloggers, We May Lack Initiative.....

Would you look at that? It's July 23rd. The last post on here happened almost two months ago. My how time flies when you're having fun. And by "having fun," I mean "planning a wedding."

But it's not like we've been sitting around watching "Twin Peaks" on DVD in our living room or anything. No. Wait. We have been. Man, that show was pretty awesome. But we've also been beyond busy getting things finalized for the wedding, which is almost upon us.

Where to begin....

Pants-- I got them. So my behind is, literally, covered. I maybe got the best deal of my life because the Versace pants that I so desperately wanted were on sale, and the final price was less than half of what they were originally.

Centerpieces-- They are done. And that's all that really needs to be said about them.

Catering/Booze/Rentals-- The grumbles have returned in regards to the two out of the three folks we've been dealing with when it comes to food and drink and plates. Needless to say, Bomb Catering still lives up to their name and their awful reputation with us.

Other bits-- Everything is, for the most part, falling into place. There are a couple of loose ends that need to be tied up tightly, but we're working on it. But in between jobs (I have two, Wendy has one), dealing with delinquents that did not RSVP by July 1st, and trying to have a life outside of this all-- we're slightly concerned we will be hospitalized for exhaustion like our favorite celebrities often are.

Some friends of ours got married earlier this month, and in going to their ceremony, our enthusiasm for our own wedding was renewed, which was good. Because it'd be bad if we were both phoning it in on August 1st. We also had the foresight to do "pre-wedding" wedding photos, which will cut down on time/frustration spent on pictures the day of. While we've been doing such a superb job of updating this website for the first part of the year, we swear we'll be better post wedding-- putting up our photos and info on how to order them if you'd like something commemorative from the day.

Also, on a final note, if you haven't purchased a wedding gift yet, and are wondering what to get for us-- please visit bloomingdale's dot com, because the Target registry is pretty well picked over at this point.

Thanks for reading. Perhaps we'll see you on August 1st.

Everyone Loves To Be Updated.....

.....and we love updating this blog. We really do. I'm not being facetious. Or am I?

Anyway, here's a quick almost-the-end-of-May round up:

Rings: are ordered. And they should be here during the first part of June.

Pants: I still need those. I was shown, and strongly encouraged, to purchase a pair that was more than $300. So it seems there's a kind of pant out there more expensive than Versace.

Invitations: in the mail-- so check your mailboxes soon.

Centerpieces: um......I think we've figured out what we're doing? Maybe?

An End of The Month Wrap Up

for those of you keeping score at home, here's what happened in april: not much.

i still need to buy pants for the wedding. pants that go with my awesome velor suit jacket that i bought. i wanted to buy a pair of $300 versace pants on saturday, but something told me not to. it was probably the fact that they were $300. so if anyone has some extra cash lying around, and wants to help me out.........

invitations and centerpieces: ask us later about these.

engagement party: we had one. it went well. we learned that if you put three kinds of cupcakes in front of people, one being somewhat plain, two being really fancy-- people will take the fancy ones.

tomorrow is apparently may 1st. that means there are three months until the wedding. and that means there are like, two and a half months left to finishing getting things together.

my my. how time flies when you are slaving away.

also, just as a side note...nothing really "ha ha" funny has happened to us since announcing our engagement. wedding planning is, contrary to the name of this blog, not hilarious. it's sad and tiring and expensive.

Cupcakes, Compromises and Everything Else That We've Been Up To

A lot of people—and by that, I mean, the few people who are actually going to read this—have begun to ask me why we don’t update this blog more often.

The truth is: who has the time? Honestly. I have hinted at it before in previous posts, but we still have lives outside of planning this wedding—although at times it seems like we don’t.

But to quench your thirst for an update, here’s a smattering of what’s been happening lately:

Bomb Catering—is still awful, but like an arranged marriage, we are going with them anyway. After trying to find a tactful way to ask for a different sales representative, Bomb Catering countered our move with a slightly less tactful one. The other sales rep we emailed ratted us out to the one we were trying to get rid of.

Doesn’t she know that no one likes a snitch?

Anyway, after a painfully awkward conversation between Wendy and this awful Bomb Catering rep, this woman’s attitude has suddenly shifted, and things seem to have worked themselves out. So, much to my chagrin, but much to the celebration of everyone else—we are having a cash bar at the reception.

So drink up. Please. Drink for two, even, if you would be so kind.



Cupcakes—if you know either of us, you know we are pretty picky about our food, especially desserts. Wedding cake, to me, is one of the least appetizing things on the planet, so upon suggestion from our caterer, we have gone a different route: cupcakes. Made by a place called Cupcake. That’s seriously all they do. They make cupcakes.

Ok. So that’s maybe not ALL they do. They make sandwiches and stuff too. But they have, like, over 30 kinds of cupcakes on their menu.

At our tasting, we tried three free cupcakes—one from each price point on their menu. While we were there, we also paid for some other cupcakes, and decided on having the following: The June Clever, The Double Chocolate, and the Lemon Meringue. Chiggity-check them out on Cupcake’s website.


Other Bits—

Rentals:

A while back, we met with a rental service called Hire-a-Host: a company that we gladly would have worked with, if we slept on a bed made out of money. They were a little spendy—not only did you get rentals, but also staff to serve the food onto said rentals. So we went with someone else.

Commerce:
We registered for more stuff at Target. And we changed our mind about the XBOX 360. I mean—who would buy us that? We added a Nintendo Wii instead. Because it’s $50 less, and that makes your decision to buy it for us right there.

Slidey Pens:
I suppose now I can let the cat out of the burlap sack about this matter. Way back when, I said that if we ever got married, we NEEDED to have slidey pens for wedding favors at the reception. So when the planning process started moving along, I looked into slidey pens. It turns out you can make your own—but it costs QUITE a bit of money.

Upon further research, I found a website that sells a wedding design slidey pen. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, but we could personalize part of it, and it was considerably less.
Once costs of other things (food, booze, et. al) started to rise, the slidey pens had to be dropped. Which is fine I guess. I thought we’d always have the free samples that the person I was working with sent me.

Turns out I was wrong about that. Dude wants them back. Seriously? Seriously. Dude wants his free samples back. WHO DOES THAT?

Well, with only roughly three months left until the big day, I will try to update this more often. Because I know everyone is dying to hear more.

Champagne Supernova

Not to come across like a Debbie Downer, but damn, planning this wedding is really taking a toll on us. An unexpected toll. I knew it wouldn’t all come together on its own, but I had no clue that some aspects would be so difficult.

Take for example—the alcohol.

There was a lyric from a Barenaked Ladies song that went like this—“Alcohol: my permanent accessory.” It seems that if you are going to throw a party, specifically a wedding reception, people are going to want to drink.

Getting the booze for this party, however, is not as easy as going to the liquor store and filling up a cart.

As mentioned in previous entries, the reception site that we booked is SOOOOO exclusive, it only allows four catering vendors. I mean, air can’t even get inside this place. I bet that air will be outside of our wedding reception, saying “I’m Air! I’m on the list! I get in everywhere!”

But I digress.

Of the four vendors possible for food, only ONE of them has the title of EXCLUSIVE ALCOHOL VENDOR bestowed upon them. And one would think, with great power, comes great responsibility, right?

Well it seems that the exclusive vendor is a little irresponsible. And a little rude.

Part of me wants to bad mouth them on here, but if the company ever Googles themselves during the day, this blog may come up, and then we may have a pissed off vendor on our hands. For right now, I will call them something else—Bomb Catering.

And they are not “da’ bomb.” But they bomb. As in an epic failure at customer service.

First and foremost, we had to decide if booze was an expenditure that we wanted to even undertake. We got a lot of “what on earth is wrong with you?” glances from people when we even brought up the idea of having a dry wedding. So booze it is!

The most obvious choice and least expensive route is the cash bar. It basically says to our guests “we kind of care enough about you to provide you with this booze you wanted, but we don’t care enough to pay for it ourselves.”

There was also talk, originally, of having a champagne toast.

So this doesn’t seem like it would be THAT difficult, right?

Well, you forget we’re dealing with Bomb Catering—dropping the ball all over the place. Months ago, when we were beginning the very early planning stages, I had emailed a sales rep from Bomb, and she never got back to me. A week past, and then I called the office, and as I gave my name to the receptionist, she said, “Oh, that name sounds familiar.”

“It should,” I told her. “I emailed your company last week and no one got back to me.”

Nice work Bomb Catering.

So months go by, and we are not again just planning to get around to figuring all of this out. Since they don’t respond well to emails, Wendy tried calling them, only to get the voice mail of the sales rep we’ve had the pleasure of dealing with. This sales rep then called me moments later to say that she received a message from my fiancé, and I should tell her to call this person back. So I do, mere moments later, and Wendy later relays to me that the line is, again busy. And this line is busy for hours on end. And no one ever gets back to us.

Finally, the two of them talk, and The Bomb asks us what caterer we’ve gone with—Wendy tells them The Chow Girls, because we are vegetarian, and they had more vegetarian options. This sales girl from the Bomb then proceeds to get defensive about the catering options she could provide, and berates Wendy, telling her they have “many vegetarian options.”

They have one. And it’s ravioli. Which I’m sure has no flavor what so ever.

The rest of that phone conversation goes terribly, and now we are left with a big decision—should we just call this whole booze thing off? As the prices of everything else for this wedding continue to skyrocket, booze is something that we could both comfortably live without.

Then there’s the cost of booze. The cash bar is pretty much free, as long as you spend the minimum dollar amount. If you don’t, you have to pay the difference. What you end up paying for is a bartender and a security guard (yeah, I don’t get it either.) If you add a champagne toast onto that, you have to pay for a SECOND bartender—because it apparently takes two people to pour champagne. For the entire duration of the evening.

I think not, Bomb Catering.

As of right now, our attempts at getting a price quote (including all hidden fees and gratuities) and haggling down on the amount of bartenders needed has gone unanswered.

But don’t you fret dear reader. We will keep you updated.