Jenn & Crispin's Wedding Update!

1) Confirmed 70 guests. Need 75 to reach contract minimum. Anticipated more initially; unfortunate that so many can't afford the trip. Fewer = more opulent!

2) Room rates to 89/99 for king/queen. Book by April 23rd under our block. It's a four star hotel w/ free wine hour!

3) I need a final headcount by May 1, and meal selection by April 20th. But if you can get it to me sooner, that would be good.

4) Children can come, but it is an open bar, with cocktails and adult food. It's not a particularly child friendly reception site, no high chairs or daycare, it is an adult event. The garden will be fun though.

4) Most asked question...where are you registered....it is on the website here.

5) Most asked question among non-attenders...the answer is maybe, depends on where you live and my financial situation.


Anyhow, trying to cross post w/twitter and the wedding website, it's hard to convey info on 3 platforms. Unfortunately, those that can read twitter or blogs, aren't the ones I really need to reach.

Santa Cruz & Moving

You know you're a suburbanite when the closest beach is 30min away.

Last month I went to Half Moon Bay. This is the exact spot where people take wedding photos, after getting married at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay (or something similar). Oh ya the beach (cliff) is behind the photographer. It's cold and not accessible from here. I'm not sure people actually get married *on* this beach.


Yesterday, the first warm weekend of the year, I went to Santa Cruz. A people's beach. Yep, we've got beach bums, a boardwalk, even a cute downtown.

Separately I'm slowly moving into my new place. What follows are pictures from the master bedroom. I lay where the bed will be, looked around, and photographed. So instead of perfect formal photographs, I treat you to an exhibit of what I'll see every morning.

View out window, from the bed up into the backyard sky.

View across bed to closet door.


View to bathroom and way out. It's possible a dresser will occupy this wall.

all i ever wanted

all i ever wanted was for people to look at me and say, hey everything turned out well for her.

paranoid about twitter

This blog is hard to find online and I don't use Facebook/blocked Linkedin. But I use my real name on twitter and this blog links back to twitter. Now I don't think strangers look me up. Why do I have this weird weird weird feeling inside . . . How far out of context can you take 140 characters. Or am I just paranoid.

Wedding invites & signing cloth

Invites from weddingpaperdivas in the enchanting forest pattern. They shipped in a week from Mountain View. Some online review said the invites don't look like 'wedding' invites, not fancy enough. Whatever. We only needed 55, but had to order 75, so some will double as wedding announcements.

Oh you'll notice a bird motif. Pure coincidence.

Ikea framed red signing cloth, instead of the guestbook. Still not sure of how to transport this, it's kind of fragile.

Birdcage my mom picked up at an Easter sale for cards, with paper cranes inside now. She thinks people will bring us cards. And a photo of us, taken by my brother. We set up our own engagement session. It didn't come out that well.

Photo from the engagement session, should be for the reception. But I haven't decided on size, 4x6 or 8x10 or color of frame. I purposefully altered it to be high color, but some say it looks seriously flawed instead of artistic.

comparing blogging platforms

have my new domain all picked out. a permanent domain. this time i'll tag, categorize, and seo my posts. question of what i'll do with the domain besides blog and whether i have the motivation/web skillz/server maintenance ability to keep going.


ning - requires non-authors to log in, not really a blogging platform

tumblr - awesome for photos/artists. possible as muffy picture platform.

facebook - no

twitter - like writing haiku alone in a forest

wordpress - the wedding site is on wordpress. requires a server. tons of time. tons of web skills. you kno 99% of the plugins are centered on monetization? blogspot just has adsense.

typepad - not free


oh but blogspot is so user friendly.


btw this is pretty cool: visual search engine searchme.com

Pre-nups are funny

The most common piece of marriage advice I get is to sign a pre-nup. I did some research.

Reasons to Sign a Pre-nuptial Agreement & How they don't apply to me

1) Substantial wealth or assets. In theory by my age I should have a stable well paying career, substantial investments, possibly own a home and certainly own a car. So I'm about 1/5 because I am substantially invested . . . underwater. Pretty far underwater.

2) Have my own business. No.

3) Have kids from a previous marriage. Have already provided for Muffy in event of divorce or death, so not applicable.

4) Expect to come into an inheritance. Used it up already. And then some more. And after that, I graduated and couldn't get a job. Working on using up my siblings' shares now.

5) Gave up a career or lucrative job to get married. I like this one. It's a good story. I suspect it's what a lot of people think when I tell them I moved up here without a job. Until about two seconds into the conversation when they realize that none of the following words applied: lucrative, job, or career.

6) Concern about being saddled with your spouse's debts/future lawsuits. This is actually applicable because C has a lot of school debt. Years ago we used to share a credit card account. Found out today I was still on the account, which is still his main CC. In a legally blond moment, realized that cutting up the card doesn't close the account. So here's the question...is it better to let your spouse ruin your credit b/c he doesn't pay his credit card or student loans, or is it better to ruin your own credit by filing for bankruptcy because you just don't make very much money?

It is concerning but I'm not sure a pre-nup protects me in a case of debt load 1 (10-20% chance of him defaulting) versus debt load 2 (80% chance I'll never make my share of the cost of living). So anyhow, no prenup for us, but I'm guessing we're the last of our generation to skip this step. Only because normal people a year older have jobs/assets.

Infinite Cats

C's gone but I still have Muffy. And inside today I feel like a Muffy.


Too bad I had to interview for a non-legal job while feeling like a Muffy. My interview went something like this:

1) Why don't you have a job already
2) Why should we hire you
3) What special skills do you bring to the table, that we won't find anywhere else
4) Tell me how you're a good fit for our company
5) Re-answer all the questions we sent to you before (interview 1), but this time in your own words (WHAT??).
6) Sell me my product.
7) Sell me a random product.

If I was an interviewer, that is how I would conduct the interview. Unfortunately I was on the other end.

Accomplishments

C's here for two weeks. Lots of things got done.

Got a cake. Did our food tastings. Ordered invites. Visited florist. Hired the photographer.

Played tennis. Fixed my resume (still jobless!). Started a garden. Made purple velvet cupcakes. Ate lots of Chinese food. Met assorted friends (all with jobs).

Next week....Help with taxes. Check out future residence. Wander SF. Visit ceremony site. Plan out ceremony.

Either Wedding Vendors Suck and/or I'm Retarded

Collected conversations with wedding vendors, proving how I suck at wedding planning.

Dress lady: You should look at some wedding magazines or websites, get some ideas.

Me: Too commercialized for me. I don't want people to think, god this wedding sucks and yet she spent so much. All the food in the world can't take the suckage out of a sucky wedding.

Dress lady: It's true, the best weddings I've been to were just outdoor picnics or potlucks.

Me: It's funny, I hear the same thing. Yet here I am.

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Me: So do you have any examples of your work?

Florist: No, I keep meaning to take pictures but I never do.

Me: Do you have a website?

Florist: I haven't gotten around to it. But if you bring me pictures I'm sure I can do a good job. I can't guarantee that it'll look exactly the same, but it should be close.

Me: So you have no examples or pictures of your work?

Florist: I've been doing this for years.

Me: Do you grow your own flowers?

Florist: No, roses cost too much to grow in California. We source them from local farms.

Me: Where?

Florist: Not from South America, that's where the grocery stores and Costco get their flowers.

Me: So where do you get your flowers?

Florist: Local farms nearby.

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DJ #1: So it'll be $1200 base price.

Me: What's your Saturday price?

DJ #1: The same, Mother's day is a really popular day for weddings, that's why we don't give a discount.

Me: Can we go over the difference between you and an ipod again?

DJ #1: Sure! (sales spiel)

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DJ #2: Mother's day is one of the least popular days for weddings. Your guests will probably want to leave by 9pm. They want to go to bed so they can go to work the next day.

Me: The reception doesn't even start until 7-730. Half the guests are from out of town. They probably need to take off half of Monday, I think they'll stay longer.

DJ #2: Ok, well then, they may stay until 9.30pm. From my experience, people don't stay that long.

Me: I want to play Golddigger at my reception. He's our favorite artist and that's our fav song.

DJ #2: (silence)

Me: I guess it's not a good choice. I think C likes old school rap anyhow.

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Me: What's your lead time for invitations?
Vendor: When's your wedding?
Me: May 10.
Vendor: You should have ordered a month ago, we'll have to rush order.
(I delegated invites to C)
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Vendor: You know, if you don't have an officiant you won't be legally married.
Me: Oh I know. It's a sham marriage you see. We gave up on life so figured a wedding would be good for a few laughs.
Vendor: .....
Me: Just kidding. We have an officiant. It's uh...a friend (actually we don't).

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Florist #2: Where did you get your dress?
Me: We ordered it from China. It was really cheap and looks pretty nice.
Florist #2: (silence)
Me: I have a red chinese dress though in case the white one falls apart on me. It's quality.
Florist #2: You know we have an order minimum for flowers.
(I still don't have a florist)
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Me: So how experienced are you at photographing interracial couples? We have drastically different skintones.

Photo #1: I think we did a white/Asian couple once...it shouldn't be an issue.

Me: So our families are quite reserved and boring, we may have un-photogenic guests, we are not photogenic ourselves, and the friends that come aren't going to get totally drunk and dance. How would you deal with this as a photographer?

Photo #1: Well, we try to make the best of any situation, there are good moments in every wedding. Also we photoshop all our pictures.

Me: You're going to photoshop out the Hawaiian shirts, the Japanese hipsters, the possible rows of empty chairs, and the half eaten food?

Photo #1: You get 2/3 refund if you're unhappy. I also encourage you to shop around.