.cheers and jeers.

Whew…. There are things that you know about wedding planning via checklists in all of the magazines, advice from your friends, shows on WeTV and more. What no one tells you is that you will want to elope several times. You will reconsider every decision you ever made. Your fiancé will drive you nuts about something minor like the font of a DIY sign. You will have high blood sugar from cake tastings. Friends will be offended that they aren’t in your wedding or providing you a wedding service. Everyone will offer a piece of unsolicited advice to you. People will let you down, you will let yourself down. You will re-reconsider your choices, again. Your other will hurt your feelings; your future mother-in-law will hurt your feelings. You will hurt someone’s feelings. Your bridesmaids will drive each other crazy. They will drive you a little bit crazy and forget to order their dress.

There isn’t a guide or magazine to help you deal with these things. It is called life. Life teaches you how to handle setbacks and disappointments.

I think of this today when I look at my phone and realized that not one friend texted me today. What is so bad about that? Well, today is the annual HUGE food festival in Las Vegas. An event that I haven’t missed in years! My dear M-Zilla works for the title sponsor and is at this event every year, all day long. Up until I got lazy, I was looking forward to finding her and having a drink and some eats with her. This was one of the first places that I met her- when I was just a mere fan of hers. Since then our relationship has grown into something special enough for her to be standing up with me at our wedding. We’ve been all of the above to each other and in the end; it has made our friendship grow into what it is now! Too bad i am lazy.... but it is also 90* and parking is a biotch there. And I had a cake tasting today and my sugar is high. Shocking.

But today, none of my usual suspects ever reached out to see if flo and I were going to this Festival. And why it bothers me is because I am generally the planner. K-Zilla and I are usually the planners. Last year I was at this festival with a group of 10-15 friends. K-Zilla waas not one of them because, as diabetics, this is a difficult place to watch ourselves! She has already informed me that she will pass this year too. And today, not-a-one messages or texted to see if we were going. Some of these friends pull the “I never see you anymore” woe-is-me with me and this makes me question why?? Is it because they rely on me/us to plan and keep us together or is it because they generally could give a crap less and just sit back and wait for me to take action.

In my world of being a bride, a blogger, an aunt, a fiancé, a daughter, an employee, a friend and a diabetic, being the planner is an added stress to my life.

Cheers to those who I can connect with here and there all randomly and then it feels like we saw each other yesty! Cheers to those who are on the guest list because they care and they genuinely keep in touch and ask about me- not just the wedding but how I am. Jeers to those who don’t. We may just have to reevaluate our guest list. Again.

It just goes to show you that in this world, you have yourself. I am blessed enough to have myself, my family and friends who are my family. Remember to put your wedding & wedding planning in perspective—life is short, enjoy the moments. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

.more venue delight.

I love this blog post that was written for Tweet My Wedding!! It truly captures more of venue debacle and delight.

Go there. Read it. And enjoy it.

I can’t wait to stop being a bride and just be a wife. Although wedding planning isnt’ new to me and being a bride isn’t a brand new concept, this wedding “stuff” is overwhelming at times. Not because I am high maintenance or because I am indecisive. But when you work, have a life, write for a magazine and four blogs, oh and have to manage an illness, it gets to be all consuming.

Right now, when I look at my work schedule, my life schedule and my wedding calendar, I am so overwhelmed that I just want to curl up and elope. There are times when I feel so untraditional that I don’t belong on wedding forum sites. There are times when I feel like too many women place too much importance on the little things… this is one of those weeks.

I will update my checklist and provide an update of where we are and where we need to go…. When will this happen? Good question!

The count down is on…. Just over seven months to go.

.a wish and a dream.

Our first “date” after meeting was on a Thursday nite/Friday morning, after Flo had gotten off of work. Who knew that within a year we’d be engaged and getting married right back where it all [almost] started?? Not us.

If you remember back to my post about finding a venue, you would know that I was in love with the aesthetics of the venue. If you remember my post about awful service, then you won’t be surprised to know that we cancelled that venue. Done. Over it. You provide AWFUL service and therefore, we won’t give you our money. Yes, we cancelled because of the “event coordinator” who is really more like a receptionist who was given added responsibility to save money. Big mistake on their part. Big.

When word got out to some industry friends, they were more than willing to help us achieve a dream wedding! I am not one to ever use the words, “dream, perfect or princess”, but I can’t help but use the words “dream and perfect” to describe our new venue and how we now feel about the wedding. It took about a month for us to get it worked out, but they were more than accommodating and more than willing to help us out and create a custom package to fit our desires. That is service. None of this crap where you won’t accommodate us after 4 pm.

Anyway, words can’t describe my excitement after giving the verbal “YES!!!” to the new venue and words can NOT ever describe how excited I was to send my “cancelling and give my deposit back” letter to our first venue. I hope that they take my words, read them very carefully and reevaluate the way that they treat their clients.

So why didn't we do this in the first place?? Well, with our original guest list...it was out of our budget. While it sucked, we had to make some trims here and there...We hacked about 50 people from our original list. This also included previous cuts... but that is the first way to stay within a budget.

I try not to be an emotional sap too much…but we get married where we had our first official date, our first smooch and where Flo first looked into my eyes and said that he has never seen green eyes and love them. He still says that to me every nite before we fall asleep.

The contract is in my hands, we are just going to review, sign and deliver on Tuesday when we do our walk through.

In the meantime, allow me to introduce you to our new venue, the JW Marriott

Here we are checking it out:



And here it is:




.above photos found here.





.above photos found here.

.service without a smile, part 2.

::::::::::A follow up to this post.::::::::::

This will kept light, short and sweet. We had our venue walk through on Tuesday. Is it a bad sign that I was nervous? Nervous to walk into a venue that we’ve booked and are paying for? It wasn’t like we are sneaking into an Art Museum after hours, right???

Long story short…. Everything went well until we overstayed our welcome. I just personally feel like if you need something to do something unfavorable, there is a right way and a wrong way to address it. For example, if the room was being used for something else and we were still in there (after being told “psh, take your time”), instead of “If you need more time, you will have to book another appointment. We thought you were only going to be here for a few minutes” … Why not try, “Nearlywed, if you guys need more time to work on your details, would you like to use the couch in the foyer? We have to turn the room over for another event. Thank you”. Just my opinion.

When I was a wedding coordinator at Caesars Palace, I dealt with this all of time. Often, a couple who just booked a wedding or hot & tired tourists would use our chapels for a place of rest or planning. My line was, “Hi- we have a wedding starting in about 10 minutes [this is usually where people get the message and just get up and leave anyway] so I need to ask that you allow for their guests to come in. If you’d like, there are chairs in the office/hallway, etc.”

I totally understand that our venue is an active adult community, not an event venue, and that their residents are priority #1. Totally get that. My problem is how they interact with clients. Hopefully this uneasy feeling wears off…. Right now, I’m having awful thoughts and visions about the reception. Gawd, is this being Bridezilla-y?? Am I really becoming that bride? Or is there a difference between demanding that people cater to you and expecting to be treated a certain way, as a client???




On an unrelated note, my mom met M-Zilla at our GNO over the weekend.
Here is a pic of us all together- My face is rather large, isn't it?

.who presents this bride.

Last nite Flo and I took MOB and FOB to our ceremony venue and having our own little walk through. According to our sales coordinator at Caesars, the new garden chapel is underway. Ground has been broken. So the chances of us getting married here are slim, but it was still fun.

.practicing the "who presents this bride?".

.we do.

.we can't wait.

Nine months and one week to go, it is getting super exciting. Tuesday is our reception walk thru. We actually got that worked out, if you read my previous blog about the service we were getting at our venue, you can rest easy knowing that they "accommodated" us, (begrudgingly) and that we are going there on Tuesday (at the time I first requested). Imagine that- taking your client when it's convenient for them. We will see how this one goes.... if we walk out of there without bucking horns, no more words will be written.

PS: I won $22 on one spin! Sweet!

.license and registration.

One of the things I’ve always looked forward to in wedding planning was starting (and now finally finishing) the registry. In my vision, we’d pick our stores, sign up and then spend an hour or so scanning the items we’d like. Boooop—boooop—boooop and done. The reality could not be further from the dream. Sheesh.

Our registry is set up currently with two stores. We spent one hour in one store and I was done. I mean stick-a-fork –in-me kind of done. It was exhausting. I’m not much of a shopper- yeah, I know difficult to believe, but I am not a leisurely shopper. I get what I need and then bounce. This was exhausting! Whew… So needless to say, I haven’t stepped foot back in the store, all of the work was done line, with the exception of linens and towels. Some things are best left to be experienced before scanning.

Flo has been a trooper. He scanned, he compared brands and colors and crapped out at the same time I did. At least we are in the same pod when it comes to attention spans.

Moving along…I intend to finalize the remainder of items within the next week while MOB is visiting.

The registry is no task to tackle on one’s own. I enlisted the help of my sister, who could take down Martha Stewart any day, and A-Zilla, who can give Silvia Weinstock a run for her sugar flowers any day. Each of them are rock stars in the cooking and baking fields, respectively. They were sent my password and give carte blanche to have their way with our registry. So what does S-Zilla do? Tell me that I have too many vases and not enough sheets and towels. Ey-yi-yi. Regardless, I am much appreciative of their assistance, recommendations and assistance with this daunting task.

Today, MOB and I are talking about her vacay to Vegas (vacay starts tomorrow! Whoot Whoot) and she had received a phone call from a relative stating that they had received our STD! YAY!

Sidebar: The STDs are being received and six days after sending them, we did not receive any “return to senders” back! Sweet! And we are getting nice feedback on them. Double yay! That deserves a Chardonn-yay!

Resuming: Well the relative said that she had gone to the website- no it is unknown if this is our wedding website? Or our registry sites? And the comment was “The stuff on there is so expensive.” Ey-yi-yi. Yea, I did register for a Dyson vac. And all-clad cookware. And a wine fridge. But I also registered for a kitchen timer, a garlic press, a pancake turner and wine charms.

This goes back to my thoughts on how the worst of people come out to play in the best of times. The comment wasn’t, “MOB, we got the STD and it is very creative, very nice, they look great, etc. Too bad I can’t make it to Vegas.”

Ok- this may sound ungrateful, bridezilla-y, etc. But my comment back to MOB was, “They don’t need to get us anything. If they want to get a gift and the registry is overpriced, that is fine. Don’t get anything.” The reason nearlyweds do take the time to set up a registry is for the showers and for friends and relatives who wish to get the couple a gift. This way, they are getting exactly what they wanted, the colors, the brands, etc. It is actually a helpful tool for those who are feeling generous at gift giving time.

I have advice on making the registry process less daunting… but it is late and I am tired. So in the meantime, I will leave you with two photos of the excitement that was registering in store.

.service without a smile.

I didn’t want this blog to be a ranting place because my fear was coming off all Bridezilla-y. However, it’s been plaguing me about some of the craptastic service I’ve encountered so far in my planning.

We will start with the dresses… When I booked my ticket to the East Coast in March, I immediately contacted a few stores to set up gown appointments. The week before my appointments, I called to confirm my times and voila! One place did not even have me in their books. I kindly explained that I will be traveling across the county and have a very tight schedule so this appointment needs to happen. It was a no-go. So I told her to fuggggeddaboutit and moved along. After jostling my schedule they call back saying “ohh we had an opening!” Yay. Psh. So like a sucker, I took it.

My next dress gripe was follow up. Only once, yes, one time….wait, I lied, twice, has a store called to follow up on my visit. If a bride cries, wants to take photos or calls her BFF and her parents while she is in a gown in your store, chances are you can sucker her into buying it. No, really, you probably can. Of ALL the places I’ve visited and filled out a customer card and they’ve written down the dress that brought me to ear to ear grins, only two ever called to check in on me and see if I was still interested.

Maybe my business skills are of a different set than others, but customer service should always be the prime goal, correct? This should be your goal, regardless of what state the economy is in. However, in this especially solemn economy, one would think that service standards would be stepped up a bit? It is a battlefield for business right now, isn’t it???

Lately, I’ve been having issues with my reception venue. Emails aren’t being returned and when they are, they are cold and hard. I had requested a time to come in and show my parents the venue, I said that my schedule is open but need something later in the afternoon, like 4 or 4:30. Recalling that they shut down and the coordinator was less than enthused to ever work up until 5 pm, I tried to squeeze out the latest appt possible. Today, I feel combative with our reception contact. She point blank said, “My office closes at 5 pm. I do not schedule appointments that late in the day.” Maybe she has afternoon recap meetings? Maybe afternoon tea or a nap? I’m not sure how one can read an email and respond with that and not even say, “Let me check, maybe one day I can adjust my schedule to accommodate that.” As an event planner myself, there are days when I come in early to accommodate event set up for a regular client. There are times when I am here on a Saturday at 4:30 in the AM for a charity walk. It ain’t pretty, but our clients are satisfied and that is what matters.

I called the community and found someone who is willing to help us out! She has asked that we forward the emails from our coordinator that say, “My office closes at 5 PM and I will not take appointments that late.” Since when is 4 pm late when your office closes at 5??

Stay tuned for the update.