favors?

inspired by a quasi anniversary dinner at Mermaid Inn, celebrating one year engaged! Could be fun to put these at each place setting....

Fortune Teller Miracle Fish

And, only $30 for 250!

Bronx Beat

At some point I was going to go into detail ad nausea about all of the places we considered for the reception/party. If you grow up in the Bronx, when you get married, you used to be contractually obligated to have your wedding at one of a string of catering halls on Shore Road in New Rochelle. I won't name names, you know who you are. We went one afternoon, right after the Botanical Gardens broke my heart (damn you abigail kirsch).

I can't really summarize how each experience was more horrible and not us as the one before. I can ask you to watch this video and imagine these women planning your wedding. Or, even better, their husbands, with pinky rings, offering you "top shelf liquor, your johnny walker, your johnny walker black"



skip to 2:42 when she talks about her husband...it's funny

Shower The People You Love with...

Not sure why the day before Easter is a desirable date for people to throw parties. As in, the day of both my future sister in law's baby shower and my bridesmaid's bridal shower. Let's list the reasons for going to each, shall we?

Baby Shower
Pros
She is my future sister in law
It is organized by the woman who my future mother in law says would like to plan me a shower
My future mother in law thinks that "I've done everything to exclude her from the wedding" despite my hours long conversations about the color of her dress
FH totally wants me to go
I need to beef up my in-law interaction

Cons
She's having four baby showers. yes, FOUR.
It is in Ohio, on easter weekend, flight prices are already at $250
The drive to Ohio is death because of the state of Pennslyvania and their penchant for 2 lane highways
I would have to stay with in-laws, at the intersection of anger and passive agressive
I need to beef up my in-law interaction

Bridal Shower
Pros
She's one of my bridesmaids
It's local, meaning I could still spend Easter with my family
She's only having one shower, see above
Her FH is a chef, it will be delicious
I heart her already and have no emotional baggage

Cons
I can't be perceived as choosing friends over family
I haven't gotten the invite yet, have received invite for baby shower

Complicating factors
Before I knew about the bridal shower, FH already told his mother that we would try, but probably wouldn't be able to make it that weekend.

website remix

We're not sending save the dates so I feel compelled to create a wedding website. That and we have the getting from the bronx to brooklyn fiasco and the whole my fiance hasn't picked a hotel just yet nightmare.

I hate the knot.com and weddingchannel.com, can't use those sites. I have stalked others via those sites and don't feel like going there.

Just visited http://www.ourweddingday.com/, that wasn't helpful and nothing was clickable, so annoying.

My mac is too old to upload the new iweb software, which I so desperately want to use.

We may just choose mywedding.com, seems to be the easiest free one although the templates are uber cheesy in their non-offensiveness.

Then there is google sites, but I feel like google already has claim to a large part of my internet presence (email, blogger, reader, calendar). I'd like to go on a google diet.

Anyone out there have a good service? and want to hold my hand through this?

Budget Friendly*

Yeah...budget friendly and NYC do not go together. Don't get me wrong, they definitely go together for all the lovely couples down at city hall, on the waterfront or small intimate restaurant celebrations, (all of whom I love and bitterly want to be at various times) but for me....well, I have a 254 person guest list. Thank you over-breeding grandparents. Dad's 1 of 12, Mom's 1 of 4. And yes, there are two priests and a spinster in those numbers who didn't produce children.

We discussed cocktail receptions, I brought up a bbq truck, we thought about renting gyms. Turns out a cocktail reception costs as much as sit down because you 'have to provide continuous food for four hours' yeah, we heard that. FH didn't realize how big the list was and denied the bbq truck/surprise picnic wedding. fatal fiscal mistake. And I'd already rented a school gym for my sister's bridal shower 9 years ago, we were poor and had 100 women for a bridal shower. yup. ridiculous.

So we decided to copy a wedding we loved. My cousin and his wife had a church wedding, greeted people at the door, which I LOVE, and afterwards had a mid-day brunch at a restaurant they rented for the day.

So, budget-friendly meant keeping the cost per person at our venue to under $100 per person. How hard could it be to rent out a restaurant for under $100 a head? v. if you are doing Saturday night in or near NYC.

Then I found kvetch.indiebride.com, where there was a whole thread about Bubby's Brides. Bubby's the brunch spot? with the pies? YES. And message board brides raved. We went, met Jojo, found the price to be justunder $100 with food and drink (not including tax and gratuity) and fell in love.

The best part? We live right across the East River from Bubby's and can point out the building to ourselves.

The worst part? We're getting married in the Bronx and having the party in Brooklyn. Think everyone can handle getting a metro card and a map and figure it out? And my parents think they are getting eggs for dinner, but I can't fix that.

And yes, you have now multiplied $100 by 254 and come up with $25,400. I have too. I know. It's a lot. It's our little part to keep the economy alive.

excuse me?

Spoke with the future mother in law (FMIL) last night.

Her: Soooo, I hear you and FH saw some rehearsal dinner spots
Me: We did
Her: Any ideas you want to share??
Me: FH has all of the information on the places, you can ask him about details
Her: Oh.... okay
Me: Yeah, I've delegated the rehearsal dinner, but I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about it!

Him on couch: *squint*grimace*

that's what you get when you let your husband bully me.

what happens after

why, hello, Hawaii. FH was put in charge of honeymoon related planning. And has come up with some delightful plans that will involve me on a surfboard at least once during our TWO WEEK STAY. I shall now look forward to this.

Is it bad that I have the bad economy to thank for affordable prices? As long as I thank the gods that be that we still have jobs on a daily basis, methinks.

ps, I'm not going to feel bad/ashamed/embarrassed about not having a cutting edge honeymoon location. I'm going to love this in every way, shape and form. Hey, if it's good enough for Bourdain, it's good enough for me.