Fear the Crab

As I sit here, munching on cereal bars for lunch, I am reminded of the time I tried to make Rice Krispie treats. I emptied the entire box of cereal into a big pot, because the ingredients indicated that it took the entire box to make the treats. Then, according to the instructions, I add the butter, so I added a stick of butter, because the ingredients indicated that it took an entire stick of butter to make the treats.

Unfortunately, the instructions did not make it readily clear that I was supposed to melt the butter before adding it, so there I am trying to mix cereal and cold butter whilst the stove is still on. About the time I realized the inevitable outcome of this concoction, I had a central mass of stuck cereal around a gooey core of butter, surrounded by burnt krispies.

At least I had a bag of marshmallows to snack on.

My “elite cooking skills” can be traced to Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood. In particular is the episode where Mr Rogers made peanut butter.

From what I recall, Mr Rogers took a plastic Ziploc bag and filled it with unsalted peanuts. Then he added a stick of butter. The next step, and this was very important, was to close the bag (otherwise everything would fall out).

The final step would be to take a rolling pin and run it across the bag until the peanuts and butter were mashed together to form.. peanut butter!

It took about 10 years for me to figure out that this simple recipe was incorrect, though now I have no idea how they actually do make peanut butter.

I broke down and bought useless crap again. It is amazing how one month of shopping abstinence can disappear in a flash of credit card craziness. In one day I spent approximately $130.00 on music, books, and movies. Let’s check out the list:

• “Cossette no Shouzou” soundtrack
• “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” complete soundtrack
• “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” complete soundtrack
• “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” book
• “Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There” book
• “Watership Down” book
• “Saving Private Ryan” movie

I also happen to come into ownership of “Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” because it was my birthday and those DVDs were gifts.

Today my wrists and arms are sore and achy. It’s only been 4 hours of work and it feels like I just want to drop my hands to my sides and stare.

Wedding reception programs are a curious thing. I have attended numerous receptions here and they have all followed the same format. It starts with the receiving line where the bridal party greets each guest, then cocktails and pupus (appetizers for some of your, hors d’oeuvres for the rest). The bridal party is introduced and is seated, some speeches are made. Everybody eats food! More speeches. Wedding cake cutting. Maybe a sappy slideshow. Speech given by bride and groom. Banzai toast given by drunk uncles. First dance, then money train.

Every wedding reception I’ve gone to has followed this format. Now that I am planning my own, I discover that this isn’t necessarily the standard. For starters, it seems the first dance is often held first, after the speeches. Someone told me the money train was a Filipino wedding tradition (I’m still going to have it!).

Granted, some of this comes from sources whose knowledge is based on their own experiences, so perhaps the sequences are just what they are used to. Nothing indicates that I HAVE to follow a particular pattern.

However, I do need to remember and make sure that all the primary players know this schedule. It wouldn’t do to have the band play the song for the first dance before dinner.

Out of all the details involved in planning a wedding, I think the guest list and table seating are probably the most excruciating, white-hair-producing, early-death-inducing pieces of work ever to plague the existence of Man.

Some guests are easy to fit into the program. The immediate family of the bridal party are shoo-ins, of course. Close aunts and uncles can be included, at least as much as their relational proximity to the bride and groom allow.

After a certain point, economics start to kick in. It is amazing how many relatives and friends pop out of the woodwork, and as time goes on the chance of spouses and children being added to the picture increases. Now one is faced with having to decide if spending $50.00-$70.00 per person for food is worth sending an invitation. Just how close is this friend? Do we invite the kids, or just the parents? If we only invite the parents, how would they feel if they see someone else’s kids in attendance?

Some people recommend using an approximate window of one year of contact; if you haven’t spoken to them in that time, they don’t need to be invited. I myself don’t hold to that philosophy, only because I sometimes don’t talk to my brother within a year. It doesn’t mean we’re not close; we just talk only when we feel like it, and if it happens to be a week, a month, or a decade in-between, so be it.

Instead I hold to the concept that if said invitee had something to do with shaping me into the person I am today (for better, of course), then they should be in attendance. Well, to clarify, they should be asked to attend, and accounted for in the wedding budget. Whether or not they do show up is entirely up to them, though I’d hope they’d send a reply to indicate such.

One thing that no one mentions is that a guest list should be drawn up with the intent that it will account for everyone showing up. If you invite 200 people to your reception, you have to work under the assumption that all 200 will arrive. Often I think some couples send invitations with the knowledge that the person will not attend because of a variety of reasons. The invitation is sent out merely because it’s considered the polite thing to do.

And speaking of the polite thing to do, no one ever says anything about who exactly should receive an invitation. How does the politics of weddings work when it comes to co-workers, classmates, and friends? If you invite one co-worker, does that mean you should invite all?

Sometimes it’s not so obvious who gets an invite and who doesn’t need to. Do you send to the household, or to the individual families? Take, as an example, a house where the child lives with the parents, but the child is an adult (maybe with their own child). Do both parties receive an invitation, or is only one sent to the house? I’m inclined to believe that two invitations would need to be sent, based on the idea that it is almost like two separate families that just so happen to live under the same roof. I’d hold to that same principle regarding grandparents living with their kids.

It’s Friday, and I’ve only been at work for three hours.

Now that The Folks have taken it upon themselves to spend cash, they’ve also asked for the inclusion of other guests, such as my neighbors. My neighbors have been with me since childhood, so it is the right thing to do. I initially wasn’t going to invite them because of costs, just like I wasn’t going to invite many from the continent.

Well, now I can. The neighbors are in, and so are my friends. We still don’t want to let things get too out-of-hand, however, so I still expect to see the guest list top off at 185 or so. Actually, maybe if we cut it down to 175, that’d be good. I know I’m not paying for the food anymore, but that’s not a reason to go helly-welly with the freebies.

As far as the rest of the wedding goes, I think most things are secured. We’ve got the officiant, the ceremony musician, and a band for the reception. The photographer is booked, and the florist has reserved the day for us. Maile’s dress decision won’t be made until September, but since we have the backup dress, it’s pretty much guaranteed that she’s going to wear something nice. For things like the wedding bands, favors, and invitations, we know who we are going through, and it is not critical at this point to secure any dates.

What remains now are the little details. We need to talk with the officiant about what vows we want and the ceremony sequence. The musicians need to know what music to play. The florist needs to know what colors and arrangements are needed. All the specific details must be hammered out, but it’s a lot easier now, knowing they’re already set and are just waiting.

Sometimes it feels like I’m getting married next week.

The Folks have offered to pay for the hotel for the wedding, which basically includes the reception, ceremony site rental, and parking. In exchange, they want to set the menu. So, happy day. That’s a good $13k off my back.

Just came off a weekend of sniffling and feeling miserable. I got better on Wednesday, and today I came back to work and the joyous drudgery continues!

I was too tired to pack my lunch, so I ate popcorn and cereal bars.

I want to sleep, to take a nap and dream. Actually, I don’t need the dream, just the nap.

I’m looking at loans, and creating a payment schedule. Of course, my math skills aren’t the best, so I don’t know if I calculated the appropriate interest on top of the principal. For example, interest of 6.3% should equate to 0.525% per month, right? And I’d add that to the amount for that month?

The reason I want to work this schedule out is so I can pay off loans faster. If I end up getting something like $80,000 at 6.3%, and I wanted to pay it off in, let’s say 5 years.. well it should be $1,558 a month. Can I afford it? If other monthly expenses total $2,500, that’s $4,000 I am spending. Paying it off in 10 years makes the loan payments only a little over $900, but that’s 10 years.

I suppose I would have a better idea once Maile gets a few paychecks and we can see how much her net income is.

I wonder what the average recommended amount is for setting aside some money? I was always under the impression that you save 10% of your income and let that sit and build up for emergencies. I guess that implies you live within your means and assumes no inflation, as I can’t see 10% of any lower- to middle-class household income being able to pay for ANYTHING these days.

Toured the Hyatt facilities yesterday afternoon. The catering manager met with us to give a brief rundown of the area, where things would be set up, where people will go and where they’ll stand. Also got a rough idea of the floor plan, plus the alternate ceremony site in case of rain.

Actually, the alternate site looks a lot better. The primary site is on a terrace overlooking the beach, with a white lattice gazebo, white chairs, and white carpet runner. We were lucky because there was going to be a wedding that night, so everything was already set up. The bridal party would enter from behind the hotel’s large waterfall, cross a pedestrian bridge (the terrace is on the third floor, and the hotel has a large open area in the middle), and proceed down the aisle.

The problem is that the location is right next to the pool and pool bar. The jacuzzi has front-row seating, though I was informed that it would be closed and covered at the time of the ceremony. On the other side is a restaurant with outdoor patio, and right below us is the busy street of buses, taxis, loud radios, and the occasional ambulance (I should have known about the street, though). So I can get married next to fat men in speedos!

In comparison, the alternate site is indoors, situated right next to the banquet hall so it is very close. It is actually a part of the banquet hall that’s closed off with those standard banquet hall dividers. The room is air-conditioned and is bigger than the outdoor site in terms of the number of people it can seat. It’s true that we won’t get the “scenic” ambiance and outdoor lighting, but in addition to the cons listed above, there was one thing that really convinced me to pursue the indoor location.

Big-ass pigeon sitting on top of the lattice gazebo (“There’s a reason why gazebos are white!”).

Still have to inform the hotel about the change in location, but it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle because the alternate site is already reserved for us.

I also discovered more information about the reception buffet, in particular the details surrounding alcohol service. The hotel contract and printed material was rather vague on things, and left me with the perception of only two choices: everyone pays for their own drinks, or I pay an hourly rate determined by head count.

Thankfully the catering manager clarified these things. I do have the option of a hosted bar, meaning that basically I pick up the tab. I can also set a cap on how much alcohol will be served. Let’s say that I decide to limit service to $2,000. Once that amount is reached, I can decide then if I want to extend the limit, change policy to have guests buy their own, or stop alcohol service all-together. I can even select the alcohol to serve, such as only having domestic beer and house wine, or going for the imported beers and premium liquors. The $2k would also include any sodas I decide to have, but juice would be covered by the punch station so I don’t have to worry about that. I figure $2k is a decent-enough amount, given that the reception is on a Sunday.

With the reductions in reception costs (Maile also knocked the guest list down to 160), it comes out to approximately $11k after taxes and service charges (20%!), but before any discounts are applied. That amount qualifies us for “Level Two” gifts from the hotel, which include a free room in the penthouse suite, ten parking passes, and a three-tier wedding cake. Sunday weddings give us a “Level Upgrade” as a bonus, bumping us to Level Three for an additional night in the penthouse, plus ten more parking passes.

Those twenty parking passes will come in handy, since it costs $5 to self-park and $8 for valet service. I’d like to pay for everyone’s parking, so the more “free” parking I can get, the better. I can’t begin to guess how many people would drive, but if I base it off the number of invitations (which comes to 64), I might see parking costs upwards of $500 or more. 20 passes would knock that down to $370, which is a lot more reasonable.

Hopefully the total cost won’t go over $20,000. We don’t have any quotes regarding flowers, dresses, hair and makeup, or stationary, and estimated costs as of now is $18.9k. I know the dress will probably be expensive, perhaps $2,000. If we do our own stationary, we would save significantly there, and the hair and makeup fees would be discounted because we would have family do it. The flowers become key, because I have no idea what an average cost for flowers would be. The price varies widely because of selection, arrangement, and quantity.

Thankfully we have family that is willing to chip in on portions of the budget. I think Maile’s mom is going to buy the dress, and my folks have expressed a desire to help pay for the reception. While those are savings on my end, I still want to keep the wedding around the $20k mark, using that figure as a total, not what I personally end up paying.

So I’m thinking of cutting out some parts of my wedding guest list. With the buffet at $47 a head, and with the list close to 175 people, the prices were starting to look a little steep.

Trouble is, I didn’t have many people on my list in the first place. I cut out my personal friends on the continent, plus some old friends from the old workplace that I haven’t spoken to in years, and I only got the list down to 160. It’s hard because these are the people who’ve contributed to what I am today, and they are the first of my friends whom I would have liked to be in attendance. Some of them know Maile, too.

EDIT: Actually, the list is back up to 164. I forgot to add myself and Maile (because we have to eat, too!), as well as two more people from The Lab.

Still, less people on the list means less of a body count in the buffet line, which would substantially decrease the overall cost of food and beverage. Plus, we don’t need to make as many invitations, which can mean a significant reduction of about $100.

In other areas, I might have to push for recorded entertainment. The hotel will let me hook up my iPod to their sound system for $40, which is 10x less than the cheapest live DJ. I can fill up a playlist with the songs I want and let it run on shuffle, and when it comes time to actually play a specific song, I could delegate some volunteer to be in charge of that (since the iPod still plays as you’re searching for the song).

I also think I will have to reduce the time the bar remains open. I looked at the cost for 4 hours of operation (1730-2130), and I could save over $1k if I cut it down to 3 (so it ends at 2030 instead). It’s a Sunday buffet, so I don’t think many people will want to drink as late anyway. Of course, I could go even cheaper and require everyone to buy their own alcohol…

What worries me, though, is the fact that we still haven’t accounted for other costs, like flowers, hair & makeup for the bride, and even the wedding bands. The three-thousand dollars I “saved” may just go back in, though I admit it would still be slightly better.

I think we might seriously have to take out a loan. The thing is, I don’t want to get a loan and then start “upgrading” the wedding just because we suddenly have an influx of funds. I don’t want to get into the mindset that now I can afford to bring in my elementary school classmates, or the nice principal from Tuba City High. I don’t want to think that I could get a comedy team to perform at the reception, or a 10-piece big band with award-winning crooner.

I would rather make the wedding as minimal as possible whilst retaining some manner of elegance (because it’s for her), even if it means those in attendance don’t get what they’re used to getting (like a live band), or the invitations don’t have a map or directions.

There are other costs looming on the horizon; I can see them, and they think I’m pretty enough to eat.

I was at work, but my station was on top of a large server, where I had to lie down and tap the metal roof to input any commands. The screen was a small LED panel barely able to fit two lines of 10 characters each, and I had to read it UPSIDE DOWN! Aside from my non-ergonomic work conditions, everything seemed normal as we tried to figure out what to eat for lunch.