Fear the Crab

I spent money over the weekend, even though I have wedding plans and need to fix things around the house. Buying even something as small (and significant) like wedding bands is pricey! Deposits must be made, I need enough cash to cover, and I still haven’t seen any quotes for flowers.

Sometimes I think saving money is a lot harder than trying to quit smoking. In a moment of weakness I satisfied my craving for video games with Call of Duty and Medal of Honor for the GameCube. Older games, sure, and cheaper because they were used, but that’s still $30 that I could have used to buy one rose for my wedding.

No one makes a patch or gum to soothe shopping addictions, do they?

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.

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.

I just finished writing a check for $1000.00. It is for a non-refundable deposit at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki, where I will be having a dinner reception. I don’t know if it’s the sudden loss of one thousand dollars or the fact that it’s non-refundable, but I am left with a big empty feeling in my heart. Strange, no? Why am I paying $1k? It’s for a wedding reception. I am getting married next April.

Surprise!

It will be held on Sunday, 6 April 2008. Maile and I initially wanted August 8 because it symbolized triple prosperity (quadruple if you consider we have been together for 8 years). However, it seems everyone else on the island is shooting for that date, because by the time we got around to checking availability (maybe a month ago), everywhere was booked. Those places that weren’t booked had a strict policy of not accepting reservations longer than a year in advance, meaning we’d have to wait until August of this year to get August of next. Or, they had the location open for a ceremony, but no place to hold a reception. Or, they had plenty of room for a reception, but only for lunch, and since 8/8/08 is a Friday not too many of our friends and family can make it to lunch.

We’ll have to be happy with double prosperity for the date we decided upon. 2008 ends in an 8 and is a multiple of 8 (by 251, in case you didn’t know. I didn’t; I had to look it up), and see reference to how long we’ve been together for bonus. We started dating 5 April 2000, so it’s only one day removed from the anniversary. Some significance there, I think. A Sunday means weekend, which means more people would attend. It also means some people will go to work the next day, so alcohol prices will decrease for some nice savings! Plus, the Hyatt gives a 5% discount on food and beverage, plus some extra comps for Sunday/weekday weddings.

Contrary to popular belief, the bride is not the one who is coordinating things. That duty has been volunteered upon my cousin Melanie, who takes a particularly masochistic delight in wedding plans. I would not venture to guess where she gets this excited energy for something so.. I don’t know, particular? I think I would be the first mate in manning the ship of wedding designs, since I have been designated to handle most of the decisions. Mel does all the research and I choose what to go with. Mel finds available locations and I decide where. I also make phone calls inquiring about availability of officiants, musicians, and stationary. Mel is checking on flowers.

Maile plays Bratz on the Gamecube and takes Lucky to the dog park.

Now, this picture is oversimplified; Maile has to make a few decisions, after all. And I’m not totally in control of everything, nor would I want to be. However, my lust for knowledge compels me to try and know the itty-bitty details of the wedding ceremony and subsequent reception, and it is here that I am introduced into the diabolical world of the wedding business.

Bunch of blood-sucking leeches, the lot!

Time was, a wedding was a simple affair. Show up at a place wearing nice clothes, say your lines, eat some food, congratulations you are wed. Now, you have to book your venue, often times the same location, but other times two separate bookings for the ceremony and reception. You have to book the photographer, you have to book the officiant, you have to book the entertainment, and oh no the photographer isn’t available that day is there another date we can book the ceremony no the date is blocked by another function and what do you mean there’s a convention that weekend?

Madness, I tell you. In addition to the big things like the ceremony, there are invitations to create, favors for your guests, the cake, flowers, hair/makeup, and the clothes. And each of these things (above included) there are individual vendors you have to go through. Granted, some are more easily worked in than others (I haven’t heard of a printing company that would refuse to make last-minute invitations), but each of these aspects incurs individual costs. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a vendor who would offer to cut your wedding cake and serve it to the guests. Speaking of which, some places charge you to use a cake knife!

After all is said and done, I’m looking at over $20k. I’m just going to sit a while and stare at that number.

Bought more socks today. Same size and type as before, those lightweight hiking socks that seemed to only come in women’s sizes. They’re very comfortable, though.

Bought the End of Evangelion DVD. Haven’t watched it yet, mostly because I’ve already seen it and bought it just to complete my collection.

Bought dinner at Jurison’s Inn in Waikele. They have some good mochiko chicken, with a sauce that they make themselves. It’s a bit of a sweet sauce, and seems to go well with the chicken.

Bought some Listermint and a couple of packs of cigarettes. The Listermint because it’s better than Listerine, according to lab tests conducted by Maile at LCC. It kills more germs, and it tastes better. Not to mention, you don’t get that burning feeling when using it. The cigarettes I got because I’ll only be smoking at home, so I left them in the freezer to stall the staleness from sinking in.

I bought a lot of stuff today. Thank goodness tomorrow’s payday.

Didn’t meet up with Maile after work as originally planned, but it’s not as bad as one might think. We both had a lot of studies to catch up on, and tonight was the best night to do it. It turns out for the best, because I was able to finish my math assignment, leaving tomorrow totally free to see her. Maile should also be done with the work she has left to do. We might watch a movie, or rent one and kick back at home with some popcorn.

I read in the news that the factories in Japan have started to airlift the parts to the factories on the mainland, so the US can start production of their cars once again. This bodes well for the arrival of my truck, regardless of whether or not it was assembled prior to the lockout. There’s also word that Hawaii will be exempt from the lockout because we’re so dependent on shipping for most of our goods and supplies, so that’s a good sign that consumers won’t feel as big a backlash as we once thought.

Did the laundry, but when I left for work a lot of it was still damp on the line. Did some of my math homework, so the day saw some progress.

I’m finding the quitting of cigarettes cold turkey has started to reach its difficult point. I see people smoking at school and at work, and just seeing it brings back the urges. The toothpicks help. Part of me is thinking that perhaps I could buy a pack and keep it at home, only smoking when I am at home. The reasoning behind this is that I only smoke one or two while at home; a majority of my smoking was whenever I was out. The drawback to this is that the mere act of smoking will likely heighten the urges and make it worse down the line.

The lockout of the shipping ports on the west coast has worried me as to the expected delivery date of my truck. There are a lot of questions unanswered regarding the whole deal. The biggest is whether or not they built the darn thing. Toyota City showed me a list of the different models and how much of each were going to be received, but I don’t know if that meant they were already built or they expect that much to be built and shipped. If it’s already been built, it’s highly likely that their delivery will just be delayed. But if it hasn’t been built, the delay could be way longer than ever thought possible. I say this because I just saw in the news that the factory that builds pickups has stopped production because the parts from Japan haven’t or can’t arrive. There is some consolation, though. I already have the paperwork that basically reserves my truck in my name, so whenever it does arrive, it’s mine. I just gotta remember not to spend the money I have reserved.

Tomorrow I plan to see Maile. I think she’s going to visit me at my house, since I’m pretty much all by myself now that the folks are in CA visiting my brother. We’re not going to do much because we both have a lot of studying to do, but it will still be nice to see her.