Berlinovo Wedding Blog

Let them eat cake - Again!

We got to go to Bijan’s bakery today to order our cake. Our baker is a friend of my dad’s. He also happens to be the best baker in the bay area (at least in my opinion). We brought a picture of the cake that we liked. We have fewer people than we originally estimated so we are having a 3 layer cake instead of a 4 layer cake. This means that we had to pick between two layer flavors that we had already chosen. We didn’t remember what the two tasted like so we had to taste cake again. Well, maybe we kind of remembered what they tasted like, but we weren’t about to say no to cake.

We went with chocolate with fresh raspberries because my fiance liked it best There will be other flavors as well. Cake tasting is by far the best part of planning a wedding. I highly recommend doing it as often as you can!  

Doesn’t the final try on mean the dress should be done?

Mom and I went to the alterations shop for the final fitting for the dress today. She and I were both under the impression that the dress would be done seeing as it was the last fitting before the wedding. Evidently “final” had a different meaning to the alterations lady. The hem was still not finished. The bustle was connected with a safety pin. The alterations lady did not finish the bustle because she wanted to show us an alternative bustle to the one we had chosen. We did agree that the new bustle looked better. It also needed 4 more hooks. Shockingly, those 4 extra hooks cost more money.

Mom and I will have to do a thorough inspection of the dress when we pick it up on Friday to make sure that “done” really means “done”.

Wedding dance boot camp

We signed up for Wedding Dance Boot Camp with my sister and her husband. It was a three hour class that was designed to introduce pre-wedding couples to different dances so that they could chose what kind of dance they might like to do for their first song. Needless to say, when we were doing introductions and were asked to give the date of our wedding, many were surprised to hear us say, “next week”. They were aghast at our unpreparedness. They may have even snickered. Little did they know, we were not THAT unorganized, and had actually been taking dance lessons for a whole WEEK already!

We learned the foxtrot, rumba, waltz and dance club two step.  It was a crash course, and was a ton of fun, even if in the end we may still end up doing more of the high school “rock” than actual dancing. I will have it be known that my fiance and I are not doing any of those dances for our first song, including the high school rock. We are rebels.

My brother-in-law, who brought his dancing shoes with him (he claims both shoes are lefties) showed off his athleticism and picked up dancing quite well. All his and my sister’s pre-dance class disclaimers were for naught. After a mere three hours of training, he will be a “dancing fool” at our wedding (well, he will be part of that phrase for sure).

Honoring the family

One of the nice ideas that I found in one of the wedding books was the idea to put old family pictures around the placecard area. I got some pictures of my grandparents, my parents, my fiance’s grandparents, parents and even his great-grandparents. It was a lot of fun to look through the old pictures! Also, we think it is a great way to honor the people who make up our history, some of whom have passed and others who will just laugh at the memories that the pictures invoke.

Things I learned: starting the box

One bit of advice given to me by a friend, who got to her wedding location (many miles away from her home) without the toasting flutes, was to start the ceremony/reception box a week before the wedding. Start gathering the items that will be needed for the wedding. I have found this very helpful, because it has given me a few days to remember what I need to bring and let me tell you, it is amazing how much crap you need (especially for a do-it-yourself decorating wedding). I have a ton of candle holders (that will most likely go up for sale on Craig’s list the Sunday after the wedding), flutes, cake cutting utensils, favors, place cards, table numbers, family pictures, guest book and pen, and lists for the event planner. Fortunately, we have a meeting with the event planner the Tuesday before the wedding where we get to drop off all of the stuff. If we have forgotten anything, she will let us know.

Final payments and a lot of faith

Most vendors require their final payment two weeks before the wedding. The florist, the musicians, the DJ, the babysitters, and even the coffee cart guy. I am sure if I had hired an actual “wedding photographer” he would have done the same thing. Two weeks before. Fully paid. And most of them don’t take credit cards. This makes me a tad nervous. While I understand that in the eyes of the vendor it is a great way to make sure that you don’t have any unpaid invoices, in the eyes of the bride, it creates a small voice in your head asking “what incentive does a fully paid vendor have to actually show up?” Yes, yes, I know, word of mouth, small claims court, honesty, but still.

In defense of the vendors, trying to get money on the day of the wedding is pretty much out of the question, or very difficult to say the least. I’d imagine that trying to get money after the fact puts the vendors in the same position as the bride is in as it currently stands. What incentive does a newly wedded couple have to pay a vendor after the job has been done? That money could be much better spent on the honeymoon. This assumes that said newlywed couple is dishonest and as my father would say “suck as human beings”. I am sure that all of the vendors could tell stories of “those” people.

In the end, I just have to have faith (and the knowledge that I will have a TON of free time to research small claims court in a week….)

floods are in right?

My fiance and I went to go check out his tux on Tuesday. The tux rental shop we are using allows the groom to come in a few weeks early to try on his tux (rather than the Thursday before the wedding like everyone else) to make sure everything is correct. Good thing! The pants were more than a little short and the jacket was a little big. Not sure what happened with the original measurements, but they were a little off. Good thing we checked!

wedding fatigue = potential $$

Many wedding books and articles warn that as the wedding gets closer the bride/couple will start to hit a wall. This is the time when all of the hard work, all of the budgeting and cost savings could go RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. It is also the time that unscrupulous vendors could take advantage of the unsuspecting couple. So be careful.

I can attest to the fact that once you hit the wedding wall, you do not pay as close attention to things. First of all, I don’t really have time to find a better deal and second, I have been finding a better deal for 7 months now. It is tiring. I have found myself willing to just pay a little extra to have the box checked. Most of my financial decisions have been made, so there is nothing too big, but there are little things. And as we all know, little things add up.

I hit the wall on Thursday. Now, I am sure the straw that broke the camel’s back was the Jordan almond debacle that had happened earlier that day, but the ramifications were far reaching. Thursday, I had a meeting with my event coordinator and the florist (the meeting had been set the day before in a rather harried manner).  My florist wanted to show me the chair covers and sashes and we had to decide on the vases that I wanted for the ceremony flowers (I decided to outsource the ceremony flowers because it was too overwhelming to figure out how to balance a larger arrangement - I attribute the outsourcing to fatigue, my fiance attributes it to wisdom). My florist had also kindly let me chose a fabric from a fabric store for the chair sashes because she did not have a color that I REALLY liked. She had new sashes made- all for the same price as if I had picked one that she already had. So she wanted me to see the sashes to make sure they were okay. As we sat there and discussed the chair covers, the florist asked if I wanted table runners. They were a nice addition of color; they had tassels; they had a modern flair; they were only a small addition to the bill. This was the decision that I made that was not based on any past rationale I had applied to planning the wedding. I agreed to the runners. But even as I made the decision, I knew that it had been made through a cloud of fatigue. I couldn’t picture how the tables would look with the runners, but I said yes anyway. Now, I should have known that if I couldn’t visualize it, I didn’t want it. But I was tired of making decisions, so I just went with it. To be clear, I don’t believe that my florist was trying to sneak something in. She was giving me an option that was completely normal. As a matter of fact, before I changed the chair covers business over to her, the event coordinator had asked me the same question.

The next day I IMed my best friend to ask her opinion. I described the runners and the way they would be on the table. She was not for it. She thought it would be too much. We have colorful enough flowers. She was right. Anyway - who is going to miss them? They were an added expense that was not necessary. I canceled the runners. I needed the sanity check and my best friend provided it. I just hope nothing else comes my way, because I am not making totally logical decisions anymore. From now on, I will just refer people to my best friend. She is the decision maker for the next week.

Where the *&#^(*#&#@@! are my almonds?

I ordered my Jordan almonds (the super fine if you all remember) from jordanalmonds.com and scheduled them to show up on Tuesday. I wanted them to be fresh. Tuesday came and went. Not one to waste time, I emailed the company to ask them to track my order. No response. I called them. There was a very sweet sounding lady on the answering machine instructing me to leave a message. I left a message. No return call. This did not make me happy. I went home on Wednesday. No shipment. The next morning I decided to try a new search “jordanalmonds.com review”. Top three hits:

1.  ForaBetterWedding.com where the site was rated a 2.0 and people all had the experience where there candy was never delivered and there was no response to their emails or phone calls.

2. The Complaints Board - this is self explanatory

3. The Candy Blog - where there were 160 comments from people who had all been ripped off by this company (now there are 161 comments). Listed in the comments was some fascinating information like all of the affiliated sites (there are more than just jordanalmonds.com, there is also hometowncandy.com and EBulkCandy.com, to name a few), there were places to write complaints (NJ Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commision), someone even figured out the registrant of the web site and posted his phone number. There was talk of a class action lawsuit and even a guy who lived in NJ (near the registrant’s address) who expressed the desire to take his Louisville Slugger to some knee caps.

ARG! So I called my credit card company and disputed the charge. The lady was appropriately empathetic especially once I told her that the product that I did not receive was jordan almonds for my wedding in 2 weeks. She credited back my account. According to the many comments on The Candy Blog, many folks did this and got their money back.

I called another online site to see if I could get almonds shipped asap. Sure, they could do that, but shipping cost more than the almonds themselves. I looked up the Cakeworks, figuring they would have almonds. I called them and they had them for a good price. Then I called Mom and delegated the purchase of the almonds to her. She got there, and the good price was not exactly accurate. As a matter of fact, it was about about 30% more than the price I was quoted. Irritating, but not an emergency. So Mom got the almonds and we made a deal. I would come over so that we could start the favors and she would provide dinner. I must give mom credit here - she has already prepared all 115 of the flowers centers, so we were ahead of the game on the favors. We got 45 done. 70 more to go!

Are you NUTS?

This question is the first one to come out of anyone’s mouth when I start talking about my wedding flowers.

Let me assure you, I am not, indeed, nuts, although there have been days in the last seven months, that I have wondered.

After reading many bridal books and looking at a friend of mine’s initial wedding flower proposal (gasp!), I decided to “create” (there is that word Mom loves!) my own wedding arrangements. Now, I am not foolish enough to think that I can create bouquets and boutonnieres, but I have done flower arrangements for weddings before. Okay, make that one wedding, 10 plus years ago, but still! I have done it. Actually, my best friend and I have done it, so I enlisted her and her mom’s help.

This, by far, has been the biggest challenge. For months now, we have poured over books, websites, magazines, anything we could get our hands on, really, to try to figure out a design.

We have been to the Flower Mart to look at flowers and vases. We have done trial runs. We have bought flowers and put them in water to see how long they last and what they look like after a few days. We have done our homework. Cross your fingers! I have 6 volunteers that are willing to help the Friday before the wedding, so I am hoping to make fast work of it (or at least be done before the rehearsal!