Fear the Crab

Couldn’t sleep last night. Only managed to squeeze in 4 hours before the silly alarm started.

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that the RSVP cards I sent out with the wedding invitations are missing the line “will ______” in which the recipient can write “attend” or “not attend” to indicate whether or not they are coming. I can’t remember if we had initially put that line into the print request, or if we completely blanked on that. I can’t find any copy of the proof, so I can’t verify either way.

Since there’s nothing I can do about it now, I’m thinking people can just scratch out the number of guests and put “0” if they aren’t coming, or just mail the card with “can’t go” or “will go” written on it somewhere. Otherwise, I guess I might just have to call everybody and ask. A sucking fectacular turn of events, I must say.

Photo session was a blast. Had quite a lot of fun. At times I felt stiff, like I didn’t know what to do with my arms. I think it was partly because some of the poses were a bit unnatural; the two of us don’t normally stand cheek-to-cheek and stare at each other. However, I think a good reason was the fact that for a Sunday, the university is pretty crowded. I’m sure we gave all the international students staying at the dorms a nice pleasant distraction.

I might have to cave with the videographer, and settle for the standard package of a slideshow, pre-bridal reenactment, and wedding ceremony highlight. The cost to do what I wanted is prohibitive, and the work to finangle an alternative is too much. My last resort is to ask the video guy if he can just focus on Maile, and don’t make me look all sappy-fied and romantical.

The reason for this is because the reaction people will have to seeing me in soft focus, looking like a Hallmark movie actor showering the woman with love, is NOT going to have people think, “Aww, how romantic.” Rather, everyone will be, “Pshaw, okay, if you say so.”

Not too worried about that right now. There are more pressing matters at hand, namely the fact that my USB jump drive has failed and I’ve lost all the work I’ve done for the wedding. The drive contained my wedding spreadsheet, full of addresses and vendors and the total budget. I managed to save some files with a utility called PhotoRec (free), but unfortunately, the big wedding file couldn’t be recovered.

Maile has an older copy. Actually, she had the most recent work, but she accidentally overwrote it with an older email attachment before sending it to me. It’s not a loss, since it still has a lot of the work I put into it. Most importantly, it has all the costs!

Hopefully there won’t be any actual work today, so I can get some recovery tasks in.

Maile and I have been going to a personal trainer, to get in shape. Primary impetus was the wedding, of course, but hopefully we’ll learn a few things that we can do beyond that date. The first session left me swollen and sore as my muscles tried to adjust to the new workout. I could barely lift my arms to dig my nose. And this left me with the question of what to do when I had to poop.

Of course, by the time the second session rolled around, I had gotten a lot better, and could easily number-two with the best of them.

On Sunday we have an appointment with the photographer, to take engagement photos. Contrary to what people might think, these aren’t the photos where we are dressed in our finery. Rather, it is a collection of shots in our normal dress, in a location that “hold special memories” for the two of us, as the photographer might say.

There aren’t a lot of picturesque locations for Maile and me. I’m not having any photos taken at HHV, nor will we be at Sunflower Lounge. So it just leaves the university, which has a few spots that are scenic, yet familiar. And since it’s on a Sunday, there is less of a chance it will be crowded.

Running into a spot of trouble as far as the video is concerned. I’m not content with a soft-focus, slow-motion re-enactment of the pre-bridal preparation to be shown during the reception, mostly because that’s not really who we are. Yet to do anything else as a substitute would require a significant chunk of change, something which is quite painful for a budget already in the red. Either I need to stop eating, or content myself with sappy scenic lovey-dovey scenes that will make anybody familiar with the two of us scratch their heads in bewilderment.

A few months ago, Maile and I bought a loose diamond for her engagement ring. We got a 1.30 H VS1 solitaire for a reasonable price, and even though it’s a VS1 you can hardly see the inclusions. We put both the diamond and the certificate in my safe until we were ready to have it set.

A few weeks ago, Maile found a wedding band set that she really liked, so we arranged for the jeweler to work on it. The engagement band had embedded princess-cut diamonds, and the same for the wedding band. The total weight for all rocks in this set was 1.50. I think the mount was meant for another princess cut, so we had to order a different head to fit the solitaire.

Already this was burning holes in our pockets, but Maile was happy, and when Maile is happy, my headaches go away.

The diamond was set a couple of nights ago. When Maile brought it home, she called me to say she was starting to have second thoughts about the diamond we bought. She said the color was “rather warm,” meaning that it was more yellow than she once thought. I asked what she thought the color should be, and both her and her mom feel the diamond is more of an I-color. Then I asked what she wanted to do, even though inside I knew what she was going to say.

Maile wants to contact the vendor for our diamond and see if there are better colors in stock. This, of course, would mean a much higher price than what we already paid, and I’m wincing at the thought of having to shell out more when we’re currently operating on thin strings. Maybe later on in life we’d be able to afford an upgrade, but for now I’m thinking that despite everyone else admiring the diamond as a quality rock, in the back of her head Maile is going to constantly see the “warm” color of yellow. And when Maile sees something that concerns her, she feels compelled to take care of it right away. Much like me. And when we can’t take care of something right away, we’ll fret about it and be unable to focus on anything else.

Last night as we were talking, Maile mentioned to me that she was thinking of going to try to find a lower weight diamond with better color, perhaps a 1.20 or 1.25 with G color. That makes me feel a lot better, because that means the price shouldn’t be THAT much different from what we paid. I could even go upwards of a $200 difference if we couldn’t haggle the price. But, if the difference was more than that, Maile and I both think we’d be better off waiting.

So we’ll see what happens.

Went to Kim and Philip’s wedding reception on Sunday. Sat next to some cool people, fondled some cool pins, and ate some cool food. I had to give the second banzai toast, so I drank three tall bottles of Sapporo (40 oz?) as preparation.

There is one thing that drinking copious amounts of alcohol does to me; loss of short-term memory. As an example, when I gave the second toast, I briefly explained the significance of it, then launched into the thing with volume. When I sat down, I could not remember what I said. I had to ask Maile, “Did I say it this way, or did I screw it up and ruin everything?”

Yet, at the time, everything was lucid and all my thoughts came into crystal clarity. I knew what I wanted to do, how to do it, and all the little mental notes I left myself were remembered (such as bringing my glass with me to toast). It’s just that once I did it, I couldn’t remember if I did it correctly like I wanted to.

Freaky.

The boutique called Maile and told her that they got her dress. So she’s rather excited, to say the least. The dress ended up being a bit cheaper than Maile anticipated, though it still punches the wallet at $1,500.00.

Speaking of punching the wallet, the quote from the florist was $8,000.00 for everything. Bridal bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages for the mothers and grandmothers, archway for the ceremony decorated with flowers, stanchions, drapery, cake decorations, lei for the emcee, and centerpieces for 20 tables. Now, $8k is a lot of money, and much of that is for the archway (which we’re renting for $1,200) and the centerpieces (which we’re buying for $3,000).

We’re going to see if we can knock that number down to a respectable $3,000.00. For starters, the groom and groomsmen don’t need flowers, the cake doesn’t really need decorating, and the mothers can get by without corsages. We can also provide our own materials such as the vases for the centerpieces and linens for drapery, and get leis from elsewhere.

We will also see what the florist can do given our budget. The florist’s vision has little to no green, meaning there wouldn’t be any stems anywhere, and yet the size of the arrangements means more flowers. The types of flowers are more towards the expensive end, too. So we’ll see what we can do.

Today I joined Maile on her diet. Now I am a willing participant in the Medifast plan, since I could stand to lose some weight. I figure, since we both managed to kick the smoking habit, the two of us can maintain this diet without cheating.

The meeting with the crane people was.. informative. And with the data I’ve collected, I think we can safely come to the decision that we’re probably not going to do it.

See, the concept is that you can use their stock designs, bring in your own custom design, or have a combination of the two. Their stock designs are nice, don’t get me wrong. Custom work does, of course, require an additional fee.

Yet, their stock designs seem immutable. The company seems unwilling to do a 90-degree rotation on things. Maile was interested in having two koi form a circle, ala yin-yang imagery. One of the koi designs the company had was the perfect shape, with the right curve. All it needed was a twist to the left, then a mirror-image copy to complete the circle. If I’m paying $700 for a bare-bones stock drawing, I’d at least expect the ability to do a simple rotation of it.

So, I don’t see us going through with it. I mean, heck, the company doesn’t even provide us with paper. I mean, I see us doing the folding ourselves (it’s “traditional”), but now you’re telling me that we have to buy our own paper?

The way I see it, $700 should get you at least the things I mentioned. Instead, it only gets you a plain white or black frame, the acrylic layer of stock designs, and one color of cranes.

Wait a minute. If I’m the one buying my own paper, and I’m the one folding the cranes, why do I have to pay extra to have more than one color of cranes in my design?!

I dreamt I was attending a wedding at a hotel. Seemed to have a very local, almost casual, feel to it. The only thing significant in my dream was that the bride found out some of the food couldn’t be delivered because of a “worm infestation.” I didn’t know if that meant the food was infected, or the banquet room was, but I do remember thinking that it was standard operating procedure.

Met with the chair-cover vendor yesterday. $8 a chair, for 200 chairs, equates to $1600. I will admit, chair covers greatly change the appearance and atmosphere of a wedding reception, especially when it matches the table linens and settings. I know some people would say that regular hotel-provided chairs would be fine, and I’d be inclined to agree. I would also be inclined to think that a regular t-shirt and jeans are appropriate wedding attire.

And that analogy is basically the difference between having and not having chair covers. Both “work,” but one just happens to give a more formal appearance. Besides, Maile wants them, so we’re going to have them.

The vendor also said they can dress the head table and cake table, but this decision will wait until we’ve heard from the florist. I may not even want table dressing, or only the head table. I don’t know. Maile and I have set a cap of $5000 for flowers (which is still expensive, but apparently the low expensive), and depending on what the florist quotes us, we’ll have to see what we can take away or substitute in order to retain the original vision.

Maybe we’ll just have low centerpieces on every table, instead of a mix of tall and short. Maybe we’ll have a few less flowers in the bouquet. Maybe the men won’t have boutonnieres, only handkerchiefs.

When I think about it, all this money is really paying for the convenience. No doubt I could find cheaper, if not free, substitutes by simply doing all the work myself. I could find, grow, or pick flowers and arrange them. I could buy linen in bulk from fabric stores and dress my own tables. I could fold my own cranes and arrange them into a nice pattern… wait, I’m still folding my own cranes. Anyway.

The point is, a lot of this money is for the fact that I don’t have to do it all myself. I won’t have to set up or volunteer someone to set up things, and I won’t have to worry about breaking things down and taking them home. I find myself asking each vendor what their set-up and breakdown policies are. Do they bring their own equipment and tools? What about transportation and storage? Every vendor has been self-sufficient. And why not, considering the thousands of dollars you’re giving them?

After speaking with the florist, it seems we might be in the market to spend approximately five to eight.. thousand dollars. Wai-wha-huh? The florist has great vision, I’ll grant her that. She can really fit the flowers with the overall theme of the wedding. But such talent comes at a price, I suppose. When she gives me the final estimate, I’ll have to see what we can compromise, take away, or otherwise finangle to get the cost down to $5K.

Today I meet with a vendor who specializes in chair covers. I’m not sure how high of a priority we’ll place on this, though.

We still need to find someone to be an emcee, and the cranes need researching and possible folding.

I attended a “wedding workshop” yesterday at The Wedding Cafe. The harpist we hired was going to be there, so I figured the least I could do was introduce myself and hope that she could put a face to the name on the cheque. Maile joined my adventurous endeavor to listen to what a makeup artist had to say. We ate food at 10% off and drank smoothies, also at 10% off.

Whilst sipping and nibbling we met a nice man who runs Dynamic Sounds, an emcee and wedding consulting company. Basically you hire him to either help coordinate your wedding’s theme, emcee your reception, or both. During our talkies I discovered that this guy has some pretty good ideas. I asked for his business card and I think we’ll be contacting him soon. It’s still undecided if we will use him for an emcee, but seeing as how we haven’t actually picked anybody else to do it, it’s nice to know we can try and reserve him.

Of course, with all things vendor-ish, it requires money. I think I overheard him saying that consultations run about $300.00! I don’t know if we want to spend that much. Otherwise it means people like James, Kimberly, and Richard may suddenly lose their invitations! Bwahahahaha!

Next week there is another wedding workshop, and the officiant I’ve emailed is supposed to be there. I will probably attend to introduce myself. My attendance will be determined by what time I get done at the dentist, though.

Today I meet with the florist, and then on Monday I meet with some vendor who does chair covers. Sometimes I think we should have eloped.