Stinkerpants

When Bad Things Happen

September 19, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Ramblings While Planning

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

It would be foolish to expect your wedding to be 100% perfect, and I’m no fool.  I expected that a few things would go wrong.  Little things.  You know, the groomsmen are a little bit late, the frosting on the cake is off-white instead of white, etc.  I truly didn’t think anything big would go wrong.  In a way, I think I expected that things would go a lot more smoothly, just because I was so organized. In some ways, that was totally true.  In others…well, not so much.

Although I would love to tell you that everything about our day was all sparkles and rainbows, I can’t.  And you know what?  I don’t want to.  When I started blogging on Weddingbee, I didn’t want to pretend like wedding planning is 100% fun, 100% of the time.  It can be stressful!  I had weird dreams.  I made a mistake booking a vendor.  I had a meltdown in a shoe shop (haha).  They’re all memories and they’re actually pretty funny now.  But to me, blogging about these issues is what makes it real.  It’s what makes blogging worthwhile.  And you know what?  Our wedding wasn’t 100% perfect, either, so I’m not going to pretend like it was. I’m going to share the nitty-gritty, in addition to the wonderful, sparkly, rainbow-y stuff.  The good things, and the bad.  Because that’s life, and your wedding will be no different.

So as I was saying, I expected little things to go wrong, and had already decided not to pay any attention to the things that no one else would notice.  Unfortunately for us, we had some really big things go wrong: one of our vendors–our “day of” coordinators–seriously screwed up.  Like, really bad.  We’re not talking OMG-the-cake-didn’t-show-up-on-time stuff.  We’re talking OMG-they-didn’t-set-up-the-ceremony-right-at-all-and-they-didn’t-know-what-time-the-reception-started-and-they-were-drinking-alcohol stuff.  Yes, it could have been worse.  They could have not shown up at all.  But it was really bad.

After (and during) the wedding, I really didn’t want to think about the things that went wrong.  I guess I had high expectations of the wedding, and I wanted nothing but positive thoughts and memories to look back on.  Maybe thinking of it that way was a little naive, I don’t know.  A few days after the wedding, I sat down with my parents and talked about how the day went, and I was finally totally honest with how I felt about some of the mishaps.  There were tears, but it felt so good to finally be honest with myself and be real about my feelings.  Life ain’t perfect, and the wedding wasn’t perfect, either.  I was really angry at first, but now I’m in a place where I can truly offer some sound advice to you guys, rather than rant and rave about how upset I am (was).

My number one piece of advice is this: no matter how organized you are, or how many details you thought of, it means nothing if your details aren’t properly executed.  Also, go with your gut.  I had such a good feeling about our caterer.  Leading up to our wedding, I was totally confident that they would execute our reception perfectly.  And you know what?  They completely exceeded my expectations.  Our reception was immaculate.  The ceremony, however?  Not so much.  The trolley rides?  Really bad.  When it comes to hiring professionals for your wedding, you can skimp on the little things–go with the cheaper lighting or the less expensive limo company.  At the end of the day, if you’re missing the spotlight on your cake, nobody’s gonna notice.  But the people who are responsible for actually setting up your day?  Be sure you have someone you trust.

What went wrong, you’re probably asking?  Well, it’s a long story that would probably take three posts to cover, and I’m not sure that we really need to get into exact details about what went wrong.  In general, I think most of the problems stemmed from the fact that I handed our DOC’s my plans a few weeks before the wedding, and I’m not entirely confident that they read through it all.  They said to me at one point during the planning process that they didn’t think I needed any help because I was so organized.  I can’t help but think that they put their energy into other clients or personal matters, rather than preparing for our wedding.  They may have thought that they could fall back on my completely organized plans.  And you know what?  Part of it was my fault, too. I wasn’t 100% confident in the DOCs I hired, but the price was right.  I set out to make things as organized as possible and give them as many detailed instructions as possible–no matter how inexperienced they were, if they followed my directions and used their common sense, I figured we would have very few problems.

Unfortunately, they didn’t follow my directions or seem to use their common sense.  Our ceremony setup was kind of a disaster.  Signs I’d spent hours slaving over were in the wrong places–guests never even saw them.  The aisle was set up really badly–it curved in strange places and didn’t follow the measurements I’d given as guidelines, even remotely.  Strangers were talking during the ceremony and the DOCs did nothing to quiet them.  They told me about every little problem, which stressed me out and made me feel like I needed to do something to solve them.  But I’d made a commitment to myself: do not let the little things bother you.  So I plastered a smile on my face and tried to forget that my ugly aisle probably wouldn’t be gracing the pages of Martha Stewart Weddings (haha).

The ceremony itself went perfectly.  I was totally thrilled with the ceremony we’d written, and with our reading, and with my Uncle Bob’s reading in Hebrew.  The weather was perfect, the chuppah was perfect.  At one point, my dad stepped on my veil, which was hilarious.  It was all quite wonderful.  I was very happy.

After the ceremony, our trolley ride was to begin.  So many things went wrong.  Basically, a lot of the guests didn’t end up with tours and most of them arrived to the reception a half an hour late.  Some guests were waiting around at the ceremony location for a long time, waiting for their trolley.  Prior to the wedding, Mr. Cream Puff and I were very, very excited about our trolley tour. Mr. Cream Puff told me later that he had visions of hanging off the side of the trolley, waving to onlookers.  Sadly, this is not what happened, though I must admit: this probably wouldn’t have happened anyway (you know, because of the risk of bodily harm and all).  We drove straight to our reception and still missed the entire cocktail hour.

I was very, very frustrated with the DOCs at that point, but I was really trying not to let it affect me.  In retrospect, I should have sent them home right then.  The reception was handled by the caterer, and the only job the DOC had at the reception was to take care of my family (ie, handle any drama, make sure Mr. Cream Puff and I have water), and I figured they couldn’t screw that up.  My third piece of advice?  Don’t think to yourself, “well, they can’t screw it up that bad” and also, know when to cut your losses.  Think twice–you only get to do this day once.

At the reception (which, as I said earlier, was immaculate), our DOCs were nowhere to be found for most of the night.  There were a lot of issues that could have been handled by them, and I have no idea where they were (well, that’s actually a half-truth: at one point I went on the back patio and found them drinking alcohol and socializing with the guests).  These aren’t the reasons why I say that I should have asked them to go home after the trolley mess, though. Every half hour or so, one of the DOCs would find me and tell me how much time was left in the reception, and would periodically tell me about every mini-crisis as if I needed to help solve the problem.  That really put a damper on my enjoyment of the evening, which sucked.  I doubt that the DOC knew she was doing this at the time, but it just goes to show: there are unexpected ways to screw things up.  You can’t think of everything.

I can honestly say that our wedding would probably have been ruined if I had trusted our DOCs to set the whole thing up.  Thank goodness for our caterer, who set the reception up perfectly and was responsible for executing most of the details I’d slaved over.  And thankfully, pretty much everything else went smoothly.  We were missing one of our ceremony musicians (string duo, anyone?) and we didn’t up with the cake spot we’d ordered, but neither of those things were important and none of the guests noticed.  I simply called, got my money back, and forgot about it.

So, my friends, to recap: Do not skimp on a DOC.  If you need one, pay the price for a good, experienced one.  This is the execution of your day we’re talking about: it deserves a bigger slice of your wedding budget than some of your other details.  Secondly, listen to your gut: if you’re feeling a little iffy about something that really, truly matters to you, deal with it before the wedding.  Sometimes, it’s worth losing your deposit.  Third: don’t make excuses or say, “they couldn’t screw it up that bad.”  If you think they could screw it up at all, get rid of them; it’s not worth taking the chance.

Hopefully our experience will help some of you!

PS–thank you so much for all of your support for my E.Coli, guys!  I’m feeling a lot better–almost recovered, in fact!

I Have a Husband! Weird!

August 14, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Ramblings While Planning • Recap Photos

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

Hi guys!!  Mr. Cream Puff and I got back from our honeymoon late late Tuesday night.  I just logged in to WeddingBee and saw that I am now logged in as “Mrs. Cream Puff.”  WEIRD.  I still haven’t used the term “my husband” in a sentence (mostly because I have no need to refer to him in the third person, as we’ve been together nonstop for the past 2 weeks), but I think it will probably feel weird.  I was just getting used to calling him “my fiancé!”  Now he wears a ring on his finger, which looks totally out of place (but I love it!).  I keep thinking, “you’re married?!  To whom?!” And then I realize he’s married to me.  Which, of course, starts me thinking about how weird that is all over again.

What?  You want me to stop blabbering and tell you about the wedding?  Okay, okay.  Overall, the wedding was awesome!  I was totally thrilled with how our color scheme panned out.  The girls looked fabulous together, and the guys’ ties were magnificent with their tuxes.  I hadn’t talked about our flowers too much, but I was totally blown away by them.  The chuppah looked FANTASTIC in Crissy Field, it really did.  I was thrilled.   And the day?  It seriously couldn’t have been more beautiful.  Check out our guests and the perfect, blue sky:

We were really, really lucky with the weather.  After about a week of super cold weather, I resolved not to think about it anymore.  After all, there’s no use in stressing about something that you have no control over, right?  Right.  The day before the wedding, it was 62 degrees, but pretty windy.  At the rehearsal, we were feeling pretty chilly, and I was really hoping that our guests brought their coats, like I warned them to in the invitation!

The day of the wedding, though, coats weren’t needed at all.  If you know much about San Francisco, you know that even the warmest days usually start out with a heavy, chilly fog.  The morning of our wedding, however, was CLEAR and absolutely gorgeous.  By the time the ceremony rolled around, it was a PERFECT 75 degrees.  It couldn’t have been better.  And just to show us how lucky we were, the next morning was freezing cold and foggy, with a high of 63.  We were SO lucky.  People were able to enjoy our outdoor ceremony without being too cold or too hot.

After the ceremony was over, our reception began.  It was SO beautiful.  Our caterer, Thomas John Events, did an amazing job setting up the Green Room.  Our band was totally amazing–hardly anyone left before the reception was over, which I totally credit to the band.  The photobooth was a total hit (and worth every penny, despite my doubts) and people marveled over all of the details.  People repeatedly told me that it was the best wedding they’d ever been to, which over course meant a LOT to me.  I can honestly tell you that not one of my details–not one–was overlooked by our guests.  I got comments on every single thing.  It was awesome. So worth it.

I’m kind of inclined not to show you guys any of our non-professional pictures.  Our photographer, Kim, was so awesome, and I can’t wait to see the pictures she took and show them to you guys!  It’s very strange to have the wedding over and try to figure out what to tell you guys about until I have the photos to illustrate with.

Do you guys have questions?  Things you want me to blog about?  I’ve missed you!

That’s it for me!

August 1, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Ramblings While Planning

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

Last night I finished my last DIY project:  I had family and friends who were in town come over for a pizza party and trolley-car decorating party.  We made four cheesy signs using cheap-o acrylic paint and foam board, and had a great time eating Zachary’s pizza.

And now, my friends, this is it:

Crissy Field or bust!  The Cream Puffs are GETTING MARRIED!!!

Thank you all so much for the love and support you’ve shown me through the months.  Overall, wedding planning has been an amazing experience and I’ve met some lifelong friends.  Blogging on Wedding Bee has been a very fun experience to me, and it really wouldn’t haAnd you guys–oh, members of the hive.  Thank you SO very much for being so awesome.  Whether I was proud to show you my latest project or bemoaning my mortifying breakdown in the middle of a shoe store, you guys were there for me.  Thank you SO much for sharing your excitement with me!  I am really excited to come back after the wedding!  Thank you!  Pretty soon, we will be…

Finding a Babysitter for our Babies

July 21, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Ramblings While Planning

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

When planning anything, our children are a major consideration for Mr. Stinkerpants and I.  Even if we’re leaving for just one night, we have to figure out what to do with our kids!  The cats are usually okay for a couple of days, but our pooch is another story.  Usually, we’re going camping or something, and she gets to come with:

Our wedding and honeymoon, however, have to be dog and cat-free.

Because our cats are low maintenance, Mr. Stinkerpants’ parents have agreed to look after them.  Lulabelle, on the other hand, needs constant care (she is a dog, after all), and we didn’t have a regular boarder.  We want to know that she’s happy while we’re gone, so leaving her at the vet for nine days was out of the question.  We want to leave her with someone who will love her and care for her and take her for walks.  So we searched high and low on Yelp for a good dog boarder and came across Doggy Lama.  This weekend, we had to leave her for a trial night, and MAN did we miss her.  When we left her at the boarding place, she wanted to come home with us so badly!  The guilt!  Nine days away will be pretty hard (for us at least).

One helpful thing for us is that Molly of Doggy Lama posts pictures on flickr when she takes the dogs she’s boarding on walks.  You best believe we’re going to be checking flickr on a daily basis from our iPhones while we’re in Mexico! I was feeling nervous about whether Lulu was having a good time, because she seemed so sad to see us go.  So I checked flickr, and lo and behold, Molly posted a few pictures of Lulabelle on flickr.  She looks like she’s having a great time!

I’ve seen other doggy boarding places with webcams, so you can always see what your pooch is up to.  I know I’m not the only gal out there with furry children!  What are you doing with them while you’re getting married and on your honeymoons?  Are you worried about missing them?  I know I am!

Even though I will miss my little Lu Bear, I can rest assured that she’s having a great time.  And if I ever worry about it, I just have to look at this smiley picture from Molly to put my mind at ease.  :)

Too bad there aren’t any webcams for the kitties!

A Puffy Meltdown

July 14, 2008 in Wedding (also on Weddingbee) • Ramblings While Planning

This post was originally featured on Weddingbee.  To see all of the comments, you'll have to check them out over there!

Wow, I am totally mortified.

Friday was, overall, a horrible day.

It started out in the morning. I was facing a packed day, with work and wedding things to accomplish. I was driving down a busy street in San Francisco, on my way to have my eyebrows done (very important, haha), when I’m hit by another car. Yay. I get out and look at the side of my car, and it is messed up on three different panels.  Luckily the woman who hit me (she tried to change lanes without looking) pulled over, but I really do not want to be dealing with this right now–especially since she specifically didn’t admit fault at the scene. Now we get to pay a $500 deductible which we may or may not get back (pending our insurance’s investigation), 3 weeks before the wedding.

After I spent an hour on the phone with our insurance agent, I had some irritating personal things to deal with, only to come home to find an ominous email from one of my bridesmaids. Sure enough, when I was finally able to talk to her on the phone, she told me that she has to drop out of our wedding for health and monetary reasons.  I was totally understanding about this and didn’t get upset with her. It would have been nice to know this earlier than three weeks before the wedding, but whatever. I am trying to take things in stride these days. I had to take my FMIL on an errand, so I tried to forget about it (sort of).

Then, about an hour later, I realized that the programs I’d slaved over are now printed with the wrong information. UGH. I’d dropped them off at the shoe place in our town about a week earlier to be bound, so I decided to stop by to see if they were done. I was hoping they weren’t, but had a feeling they were. As a preface (I was planning to post about this eventually), I made a few concessions by having the programs bound at the shoe shop. First off, they only had a straight stitch, and secondly, the machine they used left some little grooves on the paper. At that point, I was over it and just wanted them done.

I went into the shoe shop with FMIL, and the super nice wife of the shoe guy was very excited to tell me that they were done. My heart dropped a little, but I decided not to care. After all, I am taking things in stride. So she goes to get the programs and shows them to me, and they are bound with tan thread. I said, “oh no, they’re the wrong color.” I said this really calmly, because at this point I am so traumatized by the stuff I’ve been dealing with all day that I think I might be incapable of feeling. So she calls the shoe guy over, and he’s a little bit argumentative with me at first, telling me that I never told him I wanted black (which I soooo did). Obviously it was a miscommunication.

I realized that there was nothing to be done about it, and that it really didn’t matter. So I said, “you know, it’s not that big of a deal, I’d just like to pay for them.” He obviously felt bad about it, which in turn made me feel bad about making him feel bad.

I could feel myself getting a little bit emotional and really wanted to leave the store. I took out my credit card and asked him how much I owed him. He said something like, “is it really a big deal?” He didn’t say it in a confrontational way–more like a concerned way. I said, “you know, it’s not. It’s just that I’ve had a really bad day.”

And at the end of that sentence, I start to cry. Oh yes, that’s right. I start to cry in the middle of the shoe shop. Which of course makes him feel even worse, which only makes me cry harder. FMIL Puff, standing beside me, looks at me and says, “Hmm. You easy to cry.” OMG. I say to her, through snot (lovely, huh?), “I am not easy to cry. I have been planning this entire wedding by myself for a year and a half, and no one understands why I am stressed out.” Snot. I am trying to gather myself, but I totally can’t. I keep trying to give the guy my credit card to get out of there, but he won’t take it.

So there I am, crying in the middle of the shoe shop. A full-on Ugly Cry. And I can’t stop. I have been trying to handle the stress of my life for the past however-many-weeks, and it all came pouring out in the middle of the shoe shop, in front of the shoe guy, his wife, and apparently his whole family. I. was. mortified.

Suddenly I am surrounded by people. A girl about my age asks me if she can give me a hug. She tells me that she got married two years ago, so she knows exactly what I’m going through. Another woman in the store says her daughter was recently married and that it’s really hard. They were so nice to me. The girl even got me a kleenex.

I turned back to the shoe guy and asked him once again if I could pay.  I tell him that they look nice and that it doesn’t matter.  I hope I told him how appreciative I was (I will definitely go back and thank them when I’m not a total mess).  He took my credit card and barely charged me anything for all the work he had done.  He was so nice.   I was finally able to leave the store with FMIL, who was totally bewildered and still could not figure out why I was crying.

I went home and cried some more and it felt SO GOOD.  So good.  I called my mom, who laughed at me and made me feel even better.  Then I went out to dinner with Mr. Stinkerpants, and he bought me a gigantic margarita, which also helped.  It was blue.  And then the next night, we went camping, which helped even more. I am now over it.  The only thing that is still bothering me is the unknown of the car accident.  I’m also a little perturbed that my bridesmaid couldn’t have told me earlier that she wasn’t planning to come.  But alas, there’s nothing to do about it at this point.  :-/  I’ll tell you this: there is no way in HELL I intend to reprint any of those programs!  Those suckers are done.

I can tell that I am getting to the end of this process now, because I’m having meltdowns (apparently I don’t handle prolonged stress very well!) and I have no desire to fix any of my DIY projects.  It’s a good thing I didn’t leave any of them to the last minute, or I would have let it all go.  At this point, the only part of wedding planning I’m going to miss is checking the mail!