Berlinovo Wedding Blog

my amortized six hour dress

I learned from my Bridal Bargains book that one of the biggest places to get ripped off was the “bridal dress shop”. Labels torn out of dresses so that you couldn’t tell the designer (they wouldn’t want you to shop the dress), salesclerks, excuse me, “bridal fashion consultants” trying to up-sell the hell out of all of the extras, or as they call them “necessities”.  I had read the chapter on bridal gowns numerous times. According to the book, all dresses came from China, whether they were designer dresses or not. The dress left China for around $100-$200 and was sold to the designer. The designer sold the dress to the bridal shop for $500. The Bridal Shop sold the dress to the blushing bride for $1000. Quite a hefty mark up, if you ask me. However, China, true to form, is busy knocking off all of the dresses they are being paid to manufacture and you can buy them on ebay. Now, this is not for the faint of heart. You don’t know who you are dealing with, you can’t touch the fabric to know that is not 70’s polyester blend and who knows if the dress is made with lead beading or the fabric is washed in some sort of toxic chemical. But hey, if you are willing to risk it, you can get a wedding dress for bargain prices. I was willing to risk it. I was willing to risk it because it is a SIX HOUR DRESS. This was my answer whenever anyone asked why I would order a dress as special as a wedding dress on ebay. SIX HOURS! Figure most average dresses cost between $800-$1,200 per dress, before alterations. Tack on another $300-$500 for alterations and you have a dress that is going to run you between $1,100 and $1,700. Divide that by the 6 hours that you will be wearing a dress that costs $183-$283 per hour. There aren’t too many things that I will rent for that much per hour. And realistically, you are only going to wear the dress once, so why spend a fortune on it. I knew could definitely save money here!

Lists, Lists and more lists

I feel like all we do is make lists of to-dos for the wedding. This morning we compiled all of our past To Do Lists into one big one. There were three old lists to merge. My fiance takes great pleasure in crossing things off of the list. So much so, that if he does something that is not on a list, he will actually write it down on the list just so that he can cross it off. So this morning we began the task of writing yet another master list. #1 on the list - find him a ring.

So that was today’s big journey. Off to the mall we went in search of a perfect ring. We now know more about platinum (heavy and pricey), white gold (better price wise, but discolors and has to have something done to it every 2-3 years to get rid of the discoloration), Palladium (light and doesn’t discolor, but strong), tungsten carbide (strong, heavy and cheap)& sterling silver (didn’t even bother) than we ever wanted to know. We walked around the mall and as it got more and more crowded, we got less and less interested in being there. I think we did drive-bys in the last few jewelry stores that we went to because we just wanted out. So we did find a ring and it should be in 3 days before the wedding. Too close for you comfort? The manager at the jewelry store was nice enough to offer to lend us the floor model (which was a tiny bit too big) for our wedding if the real ring was not in. Is that service or what?

Bridal shower Part Uno & Due

Mom decided that rather than host 40 people at any given house that she would split the party up into two separate parties at Lisa’s Tea Treasures. This meant that for two weekends we would be bridal showering. The first shower was for family and it was 24 people. I got tucked into a corner and found it hard to socialize with everyone (just a precursor to the wedding, I suppose). We only had a two hour window at the place so it was a bit of a rush to get through tea and sandwiches and open presents. The second shower was yesterday. It was much easier to manage. There were only 11 of us and I wisely chose a spot that put me in the middle of everyone. It was a lot of fun and I think the location saved me from any embarrassing bachelorette gifts. Thanks to Mom and Sister for throwing me two great parties!

I was kindly reminded by one of my friends that there are only 28 days until the wedding. Why does 28 days sound so much shorter than 4 weeks? UGH!

October, August - who needs two extra months to plan?

So in the end we went with the place that felt more like us. It is a executive club at the top of a high-rise, downtown. I had done a little reconnaissance work on the place and it seemed to be on the up and up. I had heard horror stories about how places upped the price of your event if they heard it was a wedding. So, I had my best friend call the club to inquire get pricing and menus for a “retirement party” on a Saturday night for around 150 people. She and I compared menus and pricing and they were happily the same. Once I figured out they were not giving me trumped up numbers, I called to book them. However, the only dates they had were in April or August. Hmm. My fiance was up for April (he thought you only needed 3 months to plan a wedding, silly, silly man), but I overruled him. As an extra bonus, if a member of the club sponsored us, we could get the “members rate”. I sent out an email to some of my old friends at the accounting firm I used to work for, figuring the firm might have a membership. Sure enough, one of the partners responded and we were sponsored! He will get special thanks at the wedding.

So we had a place and a date. Now the real planning could begin!

Trial run on the flowers

Today my best friend and I did a trial run on the flowers. We got a bit of a late start up to the flower mart and learned a valuable lesson. When they say that they close at 10am, they mean it. We made it up there around 9am, so we had some time, but they were definitely closing up shop by the end of our trip and we were running around a little frenzied. We will be up there much earlier for the wedding flowers.

I had pulled a lot of flower arrangement pictures off of the net (www.projectwedding.com has great pictures of flowers) and out of magazines, so we had a pretty good idea of what look we were going for. We bought armfuls of hydrangeas, dahlias, mums, calla lilies, roses, and orchids. We had planned ahead this time and brought a bucket with water in it to hold the flowers.

We drove over to her mom’s house and started designing the arrangements.

THINGS I LEARNED: Hydrangeas are VERY temperamental. They wilt very quickly. They don’t like hot weather and need to be in water. A trick I learned on the internet… cut the stem and submerge it in boiling water for 30 seconds. Then put it in the arrangement. (http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/cut_dont_wilt.html)

My reception hall is long and narrow with 2 tables across and 6 tables long. Visually, I did not want a room of clone tables and table arrangements. We designed 3 different kinds of flower arrangements. After 5 hours of creating and taking apart flower arrangements, I think we have got the final designs completed. I am really happy with how they have turned out.

I am not sure we have saved tons of money on this. I have chosen some very expensive flowers and the trial run has to be added to the overall cost. The average cost of flowers at a wedding in big cities according to Bridal Bargains is $2500-$6000 in a big city. I consider the heart of Silicon Valley to have big city prices, especially since a friend of mine just got married and I know her floral bill was in that range. Those statistics being stated, we are well under the low on that range, so I feel pretty good. We will see how I feel when we are arranging these the day before the wedding.

a word about art museums

My favorite reception venue was the art museum. It was unique. It was interesting. It fit me. My fiance was okay with it too. The guests could spend the cocktail hour wandering the galleries. If they weren’t dancers, that was okay! The galleries would be open for a while after dinner too. How great was that? It was a little more expensive than I wanted it to be, but I thought I could find a way to fit it into the budget. I would have to get a caterer, which would be a little work, but the museum had a vendor list, so I was going to rely on that. I was 99% sure that was where the reception was going to be until I asked the all important question.

“What exhibits will be here in the month that I want to have the reception?”

Well, one hall was going to be closed, one had Mexican heritage paintings and one was going to feature an artist named Camille Rose Garcia. Seemed like a pleasant enough name, but I decided to check out the art… just in case. The name of the exhibit was Tragic Kingdom. Hmm… doesn’t sound too appropriate for celebrating a new marriage, does it? With pieces like Orphaned Nihilist Poison Rations and Subterranean Doom Party (Cake) I suddenly had to mark the art museum off of the list.

It’s January and you are booked until November?!

We got engaged in December and while my fiance will tell you that my mother and I started wedding planning the day after we got engaged, I can tell you that it didn’t really start happening until January because of the holidays.

First thing I did was consult my list of invitees (I will admit, I had started that list before he proposed) to see how big of a venue we would need. Mom and Dad added a few people and my fiance added a few and we ended up around 150. And so the search began. We looked at golf courses, wineries, hotels, wedding halls, historic houses, social clubs and my personal favorite, the modern art museum.

We started out thinking that we were going to have a wedding on a Friday or a Sunday because we could get cheaper rates. We threw around the idea of having a wedding brunch, but Dad wasn’t too excited about that prospect, so it quickly was dismissed. The thing that surprised me most was how booked all of the venues were! It was January and we wanted an October wedding. We figured October was a little off season, so we could get better rates. The weather is still pretty nice in California in October, so we thought we still might have the option of an outdoor fall wedding. Boy, were we wrong! I am no longer sure there is an “off season” in weddings and if there is, October doesn’t fall into it. A lot of the venues were booked through November on Saturdays, or there were a smattering of dates available, none of which were in October. Fridays and Sundays were still available, but they were going too. We were told we needed to book soon. It was January!!

I have to admit, this was probably one of the most stressful times for me. You cannot even start the wedding planning without having a place and a date. We went for onsite visits at a few golf courses and wineries. I wanted to try to compare apples to apples, but they do not make it easy. Some places had wedding packages, others were a la carte. Some charged for linens and glassware, others did not. Some let you bring in wine and charged a corking fee, others would only serve their own alcohol at significant retail prices. There were so many differences. How was I ever going to figure this out?

What is all of this crap on our tivo list?

I got home one day, flipped on the TV and saw a list of wedding shows a mile long on our TIVO list. Bridezillas, Who’s Wedding is it Anyway?,  Ryan and Trista’s Honeymoon spots on the Travel Channel, Wedding Bells, A Wedding Story, and more.

“Uh, what’s all this?” I asked my fiance, who had a big smile on his face.

“I recorded everything that had to do with weddings to get us started.”

Oof! That was very nice of him, but wow! Wedding overload. We quickly weeded out the shows that were too sappy or that made me cry. Brizezillas is a train wreck, but it is strangely intriguing. Who’s Wedding is it Anyway had some great wedding planners and tips on it. All and all, I have found myself watching way more wedding shows than I would have anticipated and I figure that after my wedding, I will have no interest in any of them. But for now, they are good places to learn what to do and most of the time to learn what NOT to do.

prioritize, budget and prepare for heart failure

For most people, wedding planning, at least a large wedding, only comes once in their lives. The bridal industry knows this and realizes that they must squeeze every last penny out of you because this is most likely their only shot. Keep that in mind when you start pricing things. At least here on the west coast, the word “wedding” or “bridal” alone can cost you 30% more. Having never shopped for anything wedding related, I considered eloping soon after I started pricing the wedding. This is why you need a budget. The cost of a wedding can get out of hand quickly if you don’t have an end number in your head. All of the wedding books that I read said to start with a budget, and while it seems impossible at first, it is a very important step.

Step One: Prioritize. My fiance and I looked through all of the potential expenses and decided which two were the most important to us. I also took into consideration that my parents were paying for the wedding and made sure to as them what their important items were too. It broke down like this… #1 on the list:Food & drink. We were throwing a huge party with all of our friends and family and we wanted them to be well taken care of. Plus, we are Italian. Food & drink is central to our lives. That was an easy number one. #2 Music. My fiance wanted to make sure that there was good music served up by someone who knew what they were doing so that the party would be jumpin’. So we had our top two. Now we knew where, if extra money was to be spent, we were going to spend it.

Step Two: Get the overall budget written down, then break it out into the main sections, Ceremony/Reception, Clothing, Flowers, Music, Invitations, etc. This will at least give you a starting point. Because I am an accountant, I could hardly stop myself from creating a spreadsheet to track everything. It has been very helpful, since I have had to move things around in the budget to keep everything on budget.

Step Three: Take a deep breath and get ready for some serious sticker shock. Remember, this is the only time many of these vendors are going to see you. You are most likely not going to be a repeat customer. On your side though, you are a walking advertisement for them. Your recommendation has some value. But be ready, you are about to enter a whole different world.

Quick disclaimer about me

One thing that you need to know, that I am most likely NOT your average bride. I have not had a “vision” of my wedding since I was 12. I do not need the perfect dress, I just need a dress that works. I do not need to the perfect bouquet, any flowers that are in season are fine. I have definitely developed opinions as I have gone along, but I did not start with an adolescent dream to which I was wedded. I started from scratch and built up. I find that if you are willing to be flexible and creative, planning a wedding can be fun, a challenge, but fun none the less.