New Frontrunner!

Yesterday we went down to the shore to visit two waterfront places. One was the one I posted about last time with beautiful online pictures ("Place A"), and the other was a last-minute find where we made an appointment just so we wouldn't "waste" the trip down to the shore (let's call this "Place B").

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Place A was an incredible disappointment. Not only do they have three weddings going on at once, with shared bathrooms and crisscrossing paths that would make it very confusing, it was also situated on a very narrow channel, with a very prominent and ugly bridge in the background. And a parking lot directly outside the main windows. Cars galore! The one gazebo was at the very end of a narrow garden path - pretty, but unaccessible from the inside, and with three weddings going on, who gets to take pictures in it with the good light? Not to mention, the sun sets the wrong way, over the bridge, so there go the romantic sunset shots. When we walked into the downstairs ballroom, it smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, to which I am very sensitive. I stopped dead in my tracks. Fiance asked about the smell, and the lady giving us the tour said: "This is a non-smoking facility." Heh- yeah. I was utterly disappointed. I'm not going to put up pictures of the place - I didn't even bother taking them.

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Place B, on the other hand, was a serendipitous find! It's private, with all the rooms facing a western sunset, a wide channel, and a beautiful dock with all these gorgeous boats docked in the background.


The cocktail hour room is just as beautiful (actually, even more so) than the party room. Centerpiece flowers on pedestals are included, but we are free to bring our own. The bars are premium, and very prominent (which fiance likes a lot).

The ceremony would take place outside in a private garden surrounded by hedges and flower rows. Fiance, I, and the rabbi would be under a (supplied) canopy on the dock, with the marina behind us.

There's a lot of private open air for the reception. Even if it were to rain, there is a narrow strip of overhang, so we could still get outdoor pictures. The cocktail hour room is downstairs, right next to the private garden where the reception would occur, so we can go in and out to take pictures and mingle throughout the cocktail hour.

They have some beautiful areas inside that look great for a faux-studio portrait. They have corners that look like formal parlors and staircases and mirrors that make for great shots.

The food is... overwhelming. Soooo much food. And we read some good reviews online about the quality of the food and place both. As we met with the manager and maitre'd, they were setting up for another wedding at night. It was great, because they took the alloted time to talk to us, and then promptly kicked us out as soon as they needed space for the party - great, because they're courteous to talk to us. Even better, because they will kick us out in favor of the people having the party - a very good thing for when we'd have the party there. On our way out, the father of the bride stopped us and said: "I just want you to know, these people are incredible to work with." And the price is perfect for us!

So... I think we have a new winner. :) :) :) Fiance is going back to check it out again with his parents this week, and then there will be a bridal show there in two weeks. Unfortunately, since it's on a Tuesday, I can't make it, but fiance, fiance's parents, and my mother will be able to go back, taste the food, and see it all dressed up. (My father has to teach late that night - schade!) So.... winner!! We still like the country club, except I like the view and the beach/state park photo option along with the marina and sunset view here much better. After all, in twenty years, all that will be left is the pictures, right?

And and and... they have a beach-themed cake! Chocolate seashells and brown sugar scattered around it to make it look like seashells on a beach, on top of the cake. Que adorable!!!

The only caveat is that the appearance of the sky is so heavily dependent on weather. It can be splendid and spectacular and surreal and sublime... or it can be just gray and blah. It all depends. Good thing the inside is just as beautiful for the wedding.

____oOOo__@_@__oOOo____
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On another note - if we're having a beach-themed wedding, we might have to ease up on the Asian theme a bit. I still want tea favors, though, and a friend had a great idea - instead of the tacky mugs I really want, but are in truth a bit too tacky for a mostly-formal wedding, she suggested Asian teacups, like the kind you get a restaurant. Awesome! I found some that might work, and they're quite reasonably priced! I'm so excited!!!!

Price of teacups: $10.67/dozen = $0.89 each
Number of teacups needed: 132 (approximately 125 guests, we're assuming now, so we'd get 11 dozen)
Total price for teacups: $117.37. Not bad!!!

Another wedding venue?

This weekend, we're going to try to see another wedding venue - this one by the ocean, and actually on the water, giving me the gorgeous water photos I want. It's actually got gorgeous views of a marina. Pros: water, gorgeous views for photography, lots of food, flowers included on tables, only one wedding at once. Cons: location, no outdoor location for ceremony.

And we already have that country club we really like, but doesn't have the greatest view (it's still pretty - full wall of windows in all rooms looking out on a private country club with a beautifully maintained golf course. Heavy on greens, light on flowers. Makes sense, for a golf course. So, we'll visit this other place this weekend and see how we feel. We want to book soon, even though we're ridiculously early, because neither fiance nor I will have time next year to devote to wedding-planning. And then 2009 will be here before we know it (I hope)!

Here are some pictures from the website. Note the pretty backdrop with water and boats, the great photo ops, and the great flowers (provided by the facility) on the dinner tables. Also notice the indoor ceremony... not sure how I feel about that yet. I guess it depends on how I feel about the place in general. More to come after we see the place.

Favors Part Deux - DIY!!

Brain storm! Instead of buying all the pre-made tea tins:

• Tins: $0.51 each
• Teabags: 250 for $66.00 = $0.26 each * 4 bags/tin = $1.05 per favor
• Labels: $30 for 100 sheets of 12 labels each, to print on (that would be... 1200 labels); assuming 150 favors to be made, then $0.20
• Ribbon: $15 ought to cover lots of ribbon, for 150 favors, so $0.10/favor
  

That brings the tea part up to $1.86/tea favor.

Add that to $1.94 per mug (see last post) and now we don't need the infuser, because the tea will come in round bags (I ADORE Republic of Tea), that would be about $3.80/favor, mug and tea together. Much better than before!

I think I'd go with white honeysuckle tea and white jasmine tea. Asian flowers and delicate white tea. Yummmmy!!

(Actually, when the cost of shipping and taxes and extra costs like imprinting and computer ink are factored in, each favor will probably be closer to $4.50/$5. Still, better than the $7-9 before this DIY idea! When you take $4 and multiply it by 150 people, and then do that repeatedly for every facet of the wedding, the pennies start to add up...)

Favor Idea

Here's an exciting idea for wedding favors (at least tableside). Since we're having and outdoor wedding around the beginning of summer, I thought it'd be nice to have Asian-style sandalwood or red silk fans on the chairs of the ceremony, to make ita bit more bearable, in case it's too warm.

So, for the tables: I'm an absolute tea fanatic. I would love a tea-themed favor: personalized mugs, tea bags or tea tins and an infuser, plus or minus a personalized jar of honey. It would look something like this (except the imprint on the mug wouldn't say Godfather's Pizza - it would be the double happiness symbol with our names and the wedding date, or something like that; and it would either be in white or gold lettering):

The price breaks down as such:
- Mug ($1.45-$1.94)
- Tea Bag ($0.85)
- Tea Tin ($2.35)
- Tea Infuser ($2.20)
- Honey Jar ($2.35)

Totals:
Assuming no tax/shipping for the objects, for now, and also for the $1.94 mug, which is the only way it comes in the red color, unfortunately.
- Mug + Tea Bag ($2.79)
- Mug + Tea Bag + Honey ($5.14)
- Mug + Tea Tin + Infuser ($6.49)
- Mug + Tea Tin + Infuser + Honey ($8.84)

Bottom Line The honey is probably superfluous. The mug and tea bag is cheaper. The mug with tin and infuser is nicer. I guess it depends on how many guests there will be and what the budget shapes up like. So... would this look too tacky as a favor?

Obviously, this looks much nicer:

I think the honey jars are out of the equation. Cute, but too much. And too expensive, in the long run. Most are probably going to end up tossed out anyway.

The mug would look something like this. But since I don't have Photoshop at the moment, this probably isn't the best representative sample of final product:

Chuppahs

Who knew chuppahs would be so expensive, even to rent?

There's this website that sells them for about $500 a pop, not including some way to put them up - stand, poles, human servants... The chuppahs are beautiful, but honestly, what are we going to do with a chuppah after the wedding, if we buy it? That being said, here are a few designs I like. (I'm a big fan of green, in case you couldn't tell, although I think I'm going to have to compromise on that, considering that the dress and theme I want is red.)

Then there's other places that rent them. Also for upwards of $300-400. Those, at least come with stands. Is this worth driving a good hour out of the way to pick it up, set it up yourself (20 minutes to set up, tear down), decorate, tear it down, drive it back to where it came from?

Or what about having four attendants (two groomsmen, two bridesmaid) hold the chuppah, by which I mean a tallit, for us?

If we get married in a synagogue, I'm sure they'll have their own chuppah. But we're probably just going to have the ceremony at the reception site, for convenience's sake, and also because we don't particularly belong to any synagogue (wayyy too poor, although we do attend services at one, and fiance does have his parents' synagogue, I guess), and because I want to get married outside.

What to do, what to do?

I guess first things first: book a place, and also talk to a (our?) rabbi about the marriage process. We should probably get started on that soon!

Scam!

I got a phone call from Joanna at http://www.21stcenturytodaysbride.com last week. She said I'd won a prize package of 3 things from a drawing done at a bridal show we'd attended last month.

1. Free three-day, two-night hotel stay at destination of choice (from 15 choices)
2. Free $500 online shopping spree at World of America catalog.
   
3. 40% off their items

All I had to do was come to their presentation and pick up my prizes. Since she called on my way out the door, late as usual, I was excited and didn't stop to think further. I called fiance whilst running to class to let him know. He didn't seem so excited. Once again - late, didn't stop to wonder why. Later that night, I realized that something sounded kind of fishy. I typed in the name of the company, got a whole list of consumer affairs complaints and alerts on this company, tied to Royal Prestige, who apparently buys the names of bridal show attendees, and then tries to get them to buy their outrageously-priced cookware based on false scare tactics used by aggressive salesmen at their presentations. Afterwards, couples are left with expensive crappy cookware they didn't want and ruined credit records. In fact, four states have actually brought successful lawsuits against this company for this awful tactics. Hello, time share scam!

Fiance decided he wanted to attend the presentation anyway, to heckle the presenter and to see if we could make something of the prizes. The gist of the presentation is that these pots and pans have a 50 year warranty, don't use Teflon (which they claim causes Alzheimer's and cancer and kills birds - patently false) , and make better food. The medical benefits of their pots are supposedly backed by doctors from the Mayo Clinic! *gasp* So, we got there for our 11am appointment and were told by a pudgy grimy man at the front door that we were 15 minutes late and thus couldn't attend the presentation because there was an interactive feature at the beginning. Hmm. Also, I couldn't help but wonder when the man had last brushed his teeth, given that there was only one visible in his very gap-toothed smile (cute on a seven-year old, not so much on a 40-year-old). So we went off and decided to come back at their next presentation, since we were going to be in the area for a while anyway.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a jovial man who ushered us into a small room set up for a presentation - three rows of six chairs each, arranged in twos for each couple. Two pairs of chairs were filled up front. The man placed a clipboard on the next chairs in the front row and asked us to fill out a questionnaire. We sat in the back row next to the door (all of 6ft away from the front row, really) and started this ridiculous questionnaire that went something like: "Would you rather have products with a 50-year warranty that can be replaced for free or products that have to be constantly replaced at cost?" and "Do you value the health of your family" along with other questions like occupation and address, etc. I let fiance fill out the form. He has a talent for being obnoxious when he really feels like it - it's cute! We both listed our occupations as physicians, which is close enough, as fiance is 2 months away, and I'm 2 years 2 months away. Greeter man, who oozed with all the unctuousness of a snake-oil salesman, slithered back into the room and asked us to move to the front. I politely refused. He asked again more forcefully. I refused again more forcefully. He raised his voice. Fiance spoke up and asked why we had to move. Another couple arrived and took the front seat anyway. Snake-oil man left the room temporarily, with our completed questionnaire. When he returned, we still hadn't moved, except the room was filling up with more couples, so pretty soon, we wouldn't be able to move. He asked again for us to move, fiance said: "I want to know when I'm getting my prize." Snake-oil man asked us to step outside. He was pissed, and it was scary. I could see how he could definitely use high-pressure tactics to "convince" people to buy his crap. He took us aside, said: "You obviously don't want to be here. Here are your prizes. Please go."

The prizes?

1. A $500 voucher (the website claims we get two, but they only gave us one, and lied when I asked about a second one - said the voucher would work twice when it obviously wouldn't) to a website decorated with shamrocks that didn't even load or exist the first time I tried it. Hours later, I found out that the website requires you to pay shipping and handling costs that are worth more than the MSRP of the actual (crappy) items that were being sold.
2. Information on how to redeem our two-night hotel stay. It involves sending in a $50 money order (heh) to reserve a date more than 2 months before requested stay. Ridiculous blackout dates, can only check in between Sunday and Wednesday, and a 1.5year window in which to use it. At questionable hotels.
   

Lovely. At least we didn't waste time on the presentation. Fiance thinks snake-oil man freaked out at the fact that we both listed ourselves as physicians. Our attitude probably didn't help either. We would have poisoned his sales. Didn't help that I was sitting with a medical textbook, reading in my back-aisle seat. It was what I planned to do, if we were obliged to stay for the whole thing.

Apparently, sometimes it's not such a bad thing to be obnoxious. :)

Catering Halls

Prerequisites in my choice of wedding venue are:

• availability of outdoor ceremony
• the outside should be pretty enough that I don't have to add too many flowers of my own and it should still look gorgeous
  
• also important is decent indoor ceremony for inclement weather
  
• lots of natural light, a pretty view (most preferably with water involved), and somewhere for people to step outside for fresh air
• outdoor reception would be great as well
  
• not right on a major road, so guests won't hear traffic go whizzing by if they step out for fresh air; privacy is tantamount
  
• decent cost
• includes emergency plan for things like blackouts, hurricanes, etc
• fiance likes alcohol, so open bar is important too, even though I've already told him that a good 75-85% of my guests don't drink alcohol.
  
• non-rude staff, which is surprisingly hard to find around here
  
• doesn't smell bad, which is also surprisingly hard to find around here
• a lot of potential reception venues I've visited have this inexplicable odor in them, like too many people, or a stale airplane. Even if the space is large, many places smell like coach class on a cross-country Continental flight sometime in the fourth hour of flight.
  

So far in the front running for my choice of ceremony/reception venue is choice A. I like this place because of the windows, the views from inside, the privacy, and the flexibility of pricing and minimum number of guests. I liked this place enough to forgo having water on premises for pictures. As a bonus, they do allow us onto the putting green of the country club for pictures. However, the outdoors are pretty plain, along with a plain little gazebo. Lots of green, since it's a golf course/country club, but not too many flowers.


Here's choice B, which I LOVE for the view. The location, though, is less than ideal. It's at the Jersey shore, which would be fine except that on Memorial Day weekend, about 20% of NJ (literally) and a good portion of PA is headed for the Jersey shore. Hotels for guests and transportation/traffic might not be so much fun at the shore right around then. Also against it is the fact that it's a restaurant. For some reason, I don't like the idea of getting married in a restaurant. Also, there's two weddings at once going on here, and I don't want to duke it out with another bride for space and photographic views.


Last is choice C, which is very nice, and for the cost is a great deal, especially since they throw in silk flower decorations all over. This significantly lowers the cost of flowers. They also have an outdoor wedding ceremony area with which I'm in love, and some water and golf opportunity pictures. However, they require a pretty high minimum guest count (150), and they charge a premium for holiday weekends, which is really too bad, since we want our wedding on a holiday weekend.

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We're going to visiting a few more places, I think (hope?) and then putting a down payment soon. I want to get a venue settled, because I just really want the date (right after I graduate from school, right after my birthday, and Memorial Day weekend). I'm the type of person who will feel a lot more settled after I have a date. Unfortunately, I'm also the type of person who will forever second-guess the decision and suddenly see all sorts of appealing options after the first choice has been made, along with its non-refundable deposit. There's a bridal show at choice A soon. I hope that'll help me make a final decision.

Fiance and I had dinner with both sets of parents last night. After a while, we got around to talking about the wedding. Basically, we've got license to do whatever we like and not worry about the budget. Too bad - it's not in my nature not to fret about money, even if it's being given as a gift to me.