December 19, 2013
I’d always figured I would be, like eemusings, a bullshit free bride, but even more so because I don’t consider myself a “bride” even if we’re doing this wedding thing, more like the Female half of the couple. It turns out my insistence on doing things my way, the clearly LESS stressful way, is still stress-inducing. Y’know, the world would run a lot more smoothly if people would just Do As I Say.
Honestly, I just wanted to plan a fun party with good food, the people I love, some fun music and kick back with everyone and the Dog. And I hope that’ll still happen, but in the meantime, my current status is: I can’t wait to get the damn thing over with. Planning has been a prickly, multi-thorn in my side and the sooner this is over, the better.
1. The most surprising people are unreliable and/or frustrating.
A. Family members who offered to not just help, but to plan the whole damn thing, were incapable of doing ONE task I’d asked them to take care of. I asked them to order 1 food item because it’s easier to order on site in SoCal, and eleven thousand texts and three months later, they still hadn’t done it. Two weeks before, I get a message asking if I want to go with them to the store to order it when I get into town for the wedding. Which is, of course, entirely beside the point of delegating.
B. Friends who said they’d do ANYTHING to help? Total radio silence after I sent them an email asking for their input. I finished that item a month later and still hadn’t heard back from them.
C. Friends who couldn’t manage to RSVP. Now, I know you people can read, I’ve seen it happen. We went to school together and I know you were booksmart enough to read printed text AND you’ve planned weddings. So what possessed you to not read the invitation and actually think: She must not want us to RSVP, anyway I don’t know how? Have. Mercy.
D. Family who are completely preoccupied with how things will affect them: my dad saying that doing one thing my way would kill a lesser man with the shame of it but hey! it’s my wedding and my way so whatever! He’ll suck it up! I didn’t know what truth I spoke as a frustrated kid when I said he was the king of passive-aggressive; my relatives being stupidly clannish and refusing to sit where I planned to seat them because they assumed they’d be uncomfortable and refuse to integrate even one little bit with anyone else because you know, this is really just an event where they should hang out with each other and no one else. Honestly, people. There was no greater justification of that sinking feeling I had when I didn’t want to plan this: no one really cares about this, it’s either all about them or just an inconvenience.
2. The good people will make your heart sing.
A. I asked a very uncrafty friend to come scrapbook with me because I was feeling unloved and lonely. Months of late nights, attempts at crafting and planning alone made me crave company, but she HATES crafting. Without demur, she showed up for dinner and made several scrapbook pages late into the night even after I’d said it wasn’t that important. Just to humor me.
B. Katie (and Ruth and Twitter, I tried to spare the rest of the world a bit) listened to ALL my whining, every time something went wrong. Every. Day. Of. It. And she stayed up in the wee hours of the morning to go through old country music with me, rocking out. It’s probably one of my best memories of planning.
C. SingleMa was frakkin amazing. I pled mercy on the hunt for shoes: I needed a pair that were fancy enough for an event but not so fancy I couldn’t wear it everyday later. It felt impossible & I just could NOT take it anymore. She so graciously let me email her what I liked (but couldn’t have), loved (but couldn’t find), and hated (so many ugly shoes!) and worked her shoe fairy magic, coming back with an extensive list of great options for me to pick from. She nailed it.
D. One set of relatives I haven’t seen in years took my one request and completely ran with it. I have photographic evidence that we’ll be fine with their end of things.
E. The long distance friends who, without a moment’s hesitation, RSVPed an enthusiastic yes even though it involved a long flight, a lot of travel, or otherwise what I’d consider an inconvenience. There is no greater gift than these friends who show so clearly with their actions and their words that they want to share a special day with us. That’s all I was hoping for.
3. Guest lists are the devil’s playground.
Wrassle with the number of people you can invite, cut it down, get into fights over the family lists, chase down people who (see above) apparently don’t think it’s important to respond to that nicely printed piece of paper that asks them to come to a party so BTW TELL US if you’re going to come, and then discover that a whole lot of people who were planning to come aren’t, anymore. *deep breath* It’s enough to make you say: just forget it. Don’t even care anymore.
And rude relatives who invite themselves or their kid’s boyfriends or girlfriends are ridiculous.
4. Service fees and taxes
Did you know that venues will charge you at least 20% service (21% in our case) first, and THEN tax you on the total of all the services, food cost and the service fee? So that’s another 8% on top of 121% of the expected cost. YAY! I expected to pay those fees, but they weren’t clear about how it was applied. Also! We got a whole bunch of things free and they charged us a service fee on the value of those things (a coordinator, for example) so instead of free, it was 21% on the cost. Free: I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
At the end of this road, this day isn’t just MY day, or even just our day. Yes, all the decisions are made by us because we’re paying for and planning the whole thing. But it’s about having a nice time with loved ones and making a special memory to shine against the other darker days that we have had so many of. I’ll be grateful for everyone who shows up to have fun.
August 17, 2013
Friend 1: “Why didn’t you ask for help?”
Friend 2: “PSH, Revanche? Ask for help?” *proceeds to laugh her head off*
– On me nearly unsuccessfully heaving a suitcase into the overhead, thinking I’d be damned if I didn’t get it in there myself.
There’s something almost therapeutic about old friends who know my foibles. I’m terrible at this.
It’s 2:30 in the morning. PiC and I have just set the date for our reception that’s oh, about 2 years overdue or something like that and now it’s time to actually plan this thing. I only get the occasional rage-attacks that tend to leak out when I think “wedding” and “Mom” and “family that was horrible” so this should absolutely go smoothly now.
For the three years since our engagement, the idea of asking people to be involved, to help or stand by me as I navigated the road of being engaged and getting married tasted sour. It was hard to fathom how it wouldn’t be an imposition, that family or friends who hadn’t volunteered might actually be willing to lend an ear, a hand or a brain.
And for the past four months, talking about setting a date and finding a venue, the thought of even asking them to make time to attend felt like a definite imposition. As much as I don’t care about what people think in the abstract, that non-caring only works when I’m doing my own thing and working on my own life. Not when I have to *shudder* share part of my life. Setting a date was something of a random process, filtered and narrowed down as I frantically tried to ensure that the really important people wouldn’t be put out too much.
Not all of this is the rambling of a paranoid, oversensitive loon. More than some of my oldest friends have moved thousands of miles away and it’s no small thing to travel cross country for a wedding.
I mean, weddings. High probability of mediocre food, questionable music, and dozens if not hundreds of strangers surrounding you while you don’t spend quality time with the person you came to celebrate. (yes, i a wildly sentimental.) That hasn’t been the case for most weddings I’ve attended since becoming an adult but only because I started self-selecting out of the ones where I don’t love the person enough to put up with nearly anything for them years ago. As a kid, I was the unwilling baggage at dozens of family weddings, and believe me, when you’re related by way of dad’s mom’s sister’s brother in law’s nephew’s elephant’s trainer, “family” didn’t make them any more special. (Kidding about the elephant trainer because honestly, I would have been 100% all over the elephant trainer thing.)
But it’s time. It’s time to commit to a thing that’s supposed to be special, supposed to be for us to enjoy with our family and friends, and supposed to be memorable in good ways and not the kind that leave me up at night pondering the meaning of life. And for that, it might also be time to learn how to ask for help in a way that lets our loved ones know we want them to be part of it.
We didn’t get here all unwilling after all. We really did want to share some part of this with good friends and family.
~
And speaking of loved ones, maybe I’ll learn how to talk to Dad again. Those conversations have not been going well these past months and I feel like the World’s Worst Daughter for it.
In trying to talk about wedding receptioning, he and I have butted heads far more severely than I ever imagined possible, leading to my insisting that he’s obligated to support me and my decisions rather than insisting that we must invite “all or none” of our relatives. The grief hasn’t been doing either of us any good, and in this situation, being the only child he’s likely to parent at a wedding, I understand that he’s suddenly got a vested interest in “Doing It Right” culturally but … guys. “All” is approximately 500+ people. I would lose my mind. I’m going to do that anyway, what’s the thing after that?
Ach.
In any case, we have a date and a possible venue and we’re going to spend twice as much as my stingy soul’d prefer but whatever. Full service. Small wins, right?
October 19, 2012
January 8, 2012
PiC’s part of a old friend’s wedding party scheduled for this spring and it’s now time for him to don the planning gloves.
There are 6 groomsmen plus a potential guest list of almost 20 names for the bachelor party. All told, we’re looking at 25 possible attendees. (I say we because I’ve done the planning thing many times and PiC …1? None? So I’m helping. But I don’t get to go. Because, he says, I don’t know which strippers they want. Neither does he, I say. Har har, we’re a riot.)
There’s only the stag party for the men unlike for the women with both a bridal shower and a bachelorette party, but PiC’s still looking at spending a pretty penny. At their age (mid thirties and up) and with everyone in far-flung locations, whoever is going to travel will be wanting to do a weekend or at least an overnight, not just an afternoon or a day trip. And los hombres, they like doing interesting things so the list of adventures, well …..
The groom’s very outdoorsy so we brainstormed:
- Driving (on tracks, travel required)
- Hiking (mountains preferred to … anything else?)
- Skiing/Snowboarding/Snow-type stuff (out of state travel required for everyone)
- Fishing
- Biking (Utah?)
- Rock Climbing
Happily, Vegas was vetoed early on. While it’s logistically easy, drunken debauchery just wasn’t the weekend either of us cared to coordinate, and especially not with that many people.
He’s starting coordination with the core group of the groomsmen. He wondered where he should set the budget for the activity and I advised him to aim to keep as low as possible because he can’t control the additional costs of airfare, hotel, food and drink for all. At least a few of them like to eat and drink really well (read: expensively) which frightens me/the budget.
So once he’s got a location, I can start researching travel options. I’ll be looking out for a good sale to keep the round trip airfare below $200, and then we have the hotel to deal with. Unless we get a great package deal and sales on everything else, I suspect this will total in the neighborhood of $800-1000. One of the fellas has a connection to one of places they may go, and I’ll be whipping out my bargaining voice once they make a decision.
The time commitment isn’t as heavy; there won’t be multiple weekends of shopping or crafting or whatnot. But at a certain point, being a groomsmen can become just as expensive for men as it is for women. Good-o.
After this, tuxes, speeches, and the wedding itself! (Add: Cost of airfare for two, rental car, and gifts.)
November 1, 2011
Actual Wedding Stuff
Outside the courthouse, it was positively gorgeous. The sun was out, everyone arrived nearly at the same time, I was given two beautiful bouquets because two of my friends knew I wasn’t going to even think of flowers. And one was also turnabout for taking care of hers.
I spent some time with people in the parking lot as they gathered but I hid in the bosom of my surrogate family for a while. I wasn’t nervous, I just felt … surrounded for a minute. I needed quiet.
Then my parents arrived. And my blood pressure went up. My dear older friend who is bossy, domineering, mothering though childless, and knows how worried I was about Mom, came over and introduced herself, took Mom’s arm and I could breathe again. She’s wonderful precisely because she’s all those things. She’s a take charge personality I’ve come to love and trust and she helped with Mom the whole time we were waiting in line at the courthouse so that Dad could just be.
We never have that kind of help and it was a huge boon that morning. Mom was doing particularly well that morning, too, which was amazing. She had trouble remembering names, and faces, but she didn’t have any real outbursts early in the day. She wasn’t overtired or overwrought.
As it turned out, we waited in the wrong line for 20 minutes because it wasn’t clear which one to be in, and I felt a bit of a silly arse because I’d looked them over to check! That made us late for our appointment. As the minutes ticked off, my blood pressure started shooting up. PiC was remarkably calm at that point, saying it was fine, we’d just go elsewhere if they didn’t take us but that made me feel even worse. The thought of dragging our 20 plus group back of beyond because I’d screwed up the lines?? Augh!!
Luckily they had our judge stick around for this last one and made it happen.
Of course, she was in a tearing hurry. She started off, with her poufy hair, looking over her ’70s shaded glasses, “in the middle of someone else’s shift, so we have to do this expeditiously.” So expeditiously it was done. The ceremony could not have lasted more than three minutes. Blink or breathe too hard and you missed it. She wasn’t rude but I think she still upset one of our friends for coming right out with the whole “let’s move along” speech. He felt it really wasn’t necessary. (I was amused.) It was not the worst thing ever, I was worried a long ceremony would have me in tears and I hate crying in front of people but we didn’t realize that at least one of our guests had been downstairs and hadn’t come back in time!
PiC was grinning madly throughout.
The judge granted us about 2.5 seconds to take photos in the room and then sent us out to the front of the courthouse for any pictures we wanted. And those took too long – I was starving! I know, sentimental. I do regret not getting a good photo with my surrogate family in the fuss of everyone bossing everyone else for the photos and then getting antsy for lunch, but I’ll have a do-over.
We had a lovely lunch with the group, sans my parents, lots of photos were taken. The absolute necessity of following the A Practical Wedding’s How to Write a Perfect Toast was underlined. There’s a picture that I’m hoping wasn’t captured on anyone else’s camera that shows my face at a moment that I’ll just call “sentimentality” to anyone else. PiC and I had a talk later about this. I’m not letting the memory fester but it also may not happen again at Round Two.
On a related note, I have no doubt thousands of photos were taken, in fact, which frightens me no end. Living in an age where photos are just … everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Augh!
Traffic to and fro, of course, this having been in LA. But after all was said and done, we got home to visit with family briefly, and then went to feed me again. My lunch salad was sad and I was starving again. Stuffed full of sushi, we made our final guest drop-off and collapsed at our crappy hotel room just before midnight. (I reserved my annoyance for a letter to the Doubletree after we got back.)
We. Were. Married.
You know, it wasn’t perfect. It was full of hustle and bustle and “are you serious with boutonnieres too-big, boutonnieres too-heavy, boutonnieres won’t-stay? Because non-essential stress, kids. NON ESSENTIAL. Skipped it for a reason. Also, you bring it, you fix it.” (I fixed it.)
For all that we crushed this wedding into a time capsule we still caught other people’s expectations, other people’s imposed “necessities”, other people’s baggage. We were also lavished with other people’s love and joy and silliness and loyalty and steadiness. (And cute little tiny baby feet! So many babies.) We still played our roles of fixer upper, mediator, organizer, event planner, picker uppers. Because that’s who we are. That’s what we do. And that’s “who” our wedding was. It was good. It was better than perfect, it was us. Low-key, casual, almost-normal. And PiC was stupid-happy. I really liked that.
It was good.
***
Next spring, we’ll host a food thing of some kind where everyone we care about, including long distance friends who didn’t get the chance to make it and were sad not to have been offered the chance, will be given plenty of warning. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to see them and spend time with them. But it won’t be a pressure cooker of an event. It’s just going to be a gathering of loved ones. And I guess we could get around to having some rings by then, if we wanted to. There’s also going to be the fancy dress, since it got altered already!
But for a bigger thing? I’m asking a couple of my girls to help out. I’m not dealing with any more stupid flower pinning emergencies. 😉
{Next: a financial analysis, of course!}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
Part Two: Faux-lopement: Details, Details, Gettin There
October 31, 2011
Go Time
Before we knew it, Thursday had arrived and it felt like nothing was done! Granted, we didn’t have all that much to do since I’d trimmed our list of need to dos down to next to nothing. But the truth was, we were rushed off our feet at work and trying to wrangle arrangements according to a slightly archaic system.
Luckily, work wasn’t a problem … in fact, my boss strongly suggested I get the heck out of there early because he thought I was insane. I suspect my team thought the same since he’d outed me behind my back. Not that I was keeping it a secret, I just didn’t have time to tell them!
Rings were stricken from that list – not critical.
New shoes for me, not critical. If I could get a dress altered, great. If not, old dress. If not, slacks and nice shirt. No, wait, incoming text from cousin – “wear a dress or else.” Big cousin, I grew up with from toddlerhood. Means it. Old dress it would be.
Manicure, pedicure, veil, hair piece, decorations, fooforrah – definitely not critical.
We needed gas for the car, we needed a place to stay post-wedding (because I do not care how frugal it is to stay at a parent’s house in town, I’m not staying there on our wedding night), we needed our travelers to be situated, picked up and dropped off at the right times. Ok, scheduled, sorted and sorted.
I called the tailor trying to explain the situation – he wouldn’t let me. “I understand ’emergency’, come come, just come in, I can do this!”
“But … no, I don’t think, please, let me explain, it’s — “
“No no, just come in!”
He didn’t really understand. Sweet man, but really should have let me explain. After pinning me up and giving me the price quote and explaining the alterations, he offered to rush the job and have it ready at 5 pm Friday.
Er.
How about noon?
Er.
Today? You need it today???
….. *nod nod*
….. I’m going to have to alter the price a little.
……*nod nod*
$10 more.
/head tilt/ — In my head: really??— I will see you in at closing, sir!
We went on a panic shop for PiC and found his entire outfit minus a shirt at Macy’s in 2 hours. Then his shirt was another 15 minutes at Banana Republic (yay for gift cards!) And back to pick up my dress. Fit. A. Dream. It was an exorbitant amount, but for a three hour rush job, I can accept that.
Despite a semi-early exit from work, the errands took us long enough that we didn’t leave until *really* late. The drive was easy, though and we arrived at dark o’clock in the morning. I napped for a few hours before heading out to get a hair trim and pick up a guest arriving at the airport. Or so I planned. I was held hostage at the hair salon while my long-time stylist trimmed and then styled my hair as she felt was more elegant and appropriate to the occasion. Hostage, I tell you! Not only would she not listen to what I asked for, she wouldn’t tell me what she planned to do. Point blank refused. “I’ll take care of it,” she says.
And then she undercharged me massively for it. She didn’t put it up or anything but I know for a fact she charges $75 for bridal hair before tip. She only charged $38 for cut and style, and wouldn’t let me tip her. Have you ever heard of such a thing??
But, she was right. It looked really much better than my original rush-out-the-door hair plan. We even had time to stop for coffee before our airport errand. Miracle worker, that woman.
Back to the house to get dressed and futz around on the internet. Oh, and book a hotel for that night! Hotel points, FTW!
{to be continued}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
October 30, 2011
Changing our Tunes
Remember how I said wedding planning was a pain, and I didn’t like it? Well, I (and PiC) didn’t like it so very much that the unthinkable became thinkable. And then ….
Well, at first, I thought it was a joke.
A couple days after that post on the 11th:
“What about the end of October?”
“What about the end of October?”
“What if we just went to the courthouse?”
/head tilt/ “… to … do what?”
“You know. Get married.”
— *mentally reading the calendar* you’re going to be traveling most of this month. When are we going to talk or do anything about getting married with even just a few people present?– “Surely you’re joking.”
No answer from PiC.
Ok, he must have been joking.
October 23rd, he returned from a trip. The subject was reopened the next day. “You weren’t kidding? You’re not kidding? Right now, you’re not kidding me? You’re kidding me. Right? What? WHAT?”
He was not kidding me.
Wheels started turning. Panic set in a little bit. It was all a joke before! Now it wasn’t! Holy chickaree! But aside from a few moments of {why are we doing this …??} it felt right. Mom’s health has been steadily declining. I haven’t been happy with any of the earlier compromises or attempts at planning largely because of my worrying over her health and how she’d be able to handle any kind of event even though she wanted me to have one. I personally didn’t want one. Talking to my dad Tuesday night confirmed that she’s not having any sort of miraculous turnaround or even stabilizing. There was no sense in holding out for her sake.
PiC being happy to have a much smaller one, even elopement style, was amazing. He was always happy with the idea of small but not as small as I wanted it to be. Also I was stuck between the all or nothing situation and wasn’t sure how to find my way out. How do I invite some of the relatives I really want to share this with and not create a family rift? And that alone would be too many people in combination with his family and friends. So I sacrificed all of my family but three. Plus surrogate family – old friends so close I’ve been adopted into their clan. My heart was appeased.
This compromise of around 20 was manageable – I was pretty sure I wouldn’t lose my composure. We were sorely missing some very good friends but the days hurtled past and we couldn’t dwell on that. Or anything.
Calls were made. My most amazing long distance people booked their flights (even cross country) the second I confirmed we were trying to do it last Friday – before we even had plans. We rushed to the SF courthouse for a license on Tuesday. He confirmed the courthouse appointment on Wednesday. We picked a restaurant that night and made the reservation on Thursday. We confirmed most of our guests up until Friday morning. I was confirming and adding seats to our table as late as arriving at the restaurant for lunch. This was not a normal wedding by any stretch of the imagination.
{to be continued}
