Paging Angel7 - Saturday''s Game Plan

[Sparkalicious]

Thanks - Glad you''re on the same page about the planners. It was interesting and difficult. It''s only getting more and more complicated now as it appears that EVERYONE in the wedding industry here who we have met with is so nice. It would be so much easier if they were horrible and we could easily dismiss them.

You are bang on with the image thing. The expensive planner I was telling you about ... she was that wedding planner that you see on TV or in the movies except with an amazing and down to earth personality. She actually just won the best of Seattle - All around wedding vendor category. You know when someone is just meant for something ... that''s her. With regards to our planner, we have met with her since and she cleans up nicely. MUCH better second impression than first. She is really focused on delivering as well. I''m really pleased with our choice and didn''t let my first impression dissuade me b/c it was not at all accurate. Our purpose was to get a wedding planner who would be able to help justify their fee by saving us money. Since I am not at all a hands off type bride ... just in case you didn''t notice, I figured that some extra help would be nice and a partner in the wedding industry would be nice as well ... she knows the ins and outs and has great vendor relationships so she should be able to help us out in that regard. Fingers crossed. She went over our "budget" with us and even though we haven''t really even started spending money yet, based on the vendors we are interested in etc ... we are over. Budgets suck.

Haven''t quite picked a florist yet. The one I talked about is my favorite but I interviewed one more and am now waiting for proposals to compare pricing etc. I''m getting pretty excited that we are narrowing things down. I hope that my favorite pulls through but if not, the 2nd choice is not really a second choice at all, she should be terrific as well. I will show you pictures as they come along. Nothing yet, sorry.

Will is a trooper and an all around good guy. He was much better this past marathon weekend. Given our logistics with me living up here and him down there and the urgency involved, he understands that until we nail down these vendors, our weekends are going to be crazy like that b/c that is the only time we have to take care of business. If I was down there, it wouldn''t be so bad, right?

We got the invites! I LOOoOOOOOOOOOooooooo ... ve! them! They are gorgeous. We are finalizing some design elements and once that is all in order and we decide we are going to go ahead, I will show them to you. I can''t wait to show you.

We did get a DJ ... our coordinator negotiated a great deal for us so we are happy about that. Just have to sign the contract and give him a deposit and we are all good. One down, countless more to go, right? It is progress, though. woohoo!

Work is another story.

They have asked me to go to Toronto to help out the centralized team. Fine, no problem. Will''s all good with it. I may have to go out to Montreal for some immigration stuff anyways so ... sounds like not a bad deal for me, right? Well, this is where it gets interesting. Since I was bargaining on getting my package pay out at the end of August or beginning of September, that''s how all of our vendors are lined up. We will be paying them then. We need the money. I expressed this need and they were like ... we can''t pay you until you finish working for us. BS ... they can cut me and then rehire me contract or whatever. They can do whatever they want to do. They don''t want to do that. And ... get this. They asked me if I have friends and family there that I can stay with b/c they won''t be putting me up in a hotel ???

Okay, who''s doing who a favor here??!! Keep in mind that I do not work for some rinky dink family business, I work for one of our Big 5 banks up here that made +++ billion in profit last year. Give me a break! Then, one of the managers asked me if I could ask my parents to borrow some money or get a loan to take care of any the vendors, for example? Does the nerve never end? They did make mention though that they would pay for my airfare. WTF? Did they think that I didn''t know that??? Of course they would ... Why would I be paying my own airfare to do something that they are asking me to do to help them out??? Are you getting any of this? Am I being unreasonable here??? Please, if you have any thoughts - in agreement with me or not, please let me know what you think. I''m thinking I''m pretty okay telling them to stuff it and to figure it out themselves, after all, my position is becoming "redundant" so they didn''t need me anyways, right?

I have a graduate degree and plenty of skills that make me employable so they are not doing me any favors. I just find the whole thing so ridiculous. I told them that I would get back to them next week. Should take me that long to think of a polite way to say ... NO, I''m not interested. ... What is in it for me? I''d appreciate your perspective, really. If you are willing to share, that would be great.

A GPS, huh?! Fantastic! Tell me, how do those things work and how do you use yours? Why did you want one so badly? I''m so ignorant ... please share!

If you are going to be around, I will share some wedding stuff with you but I felt kind of lame writing about it and thought that I might have bored you half to death. Glad to know I didn''t ... yet.

This is a huge post so I will write more another time. Maybe even tomorrow. Woohoo.

Have a great Friday!!!!

 

[Sparkalicious]

Yay! Finally ... I wrote my GIA Diamond Essentials test yesterday! So glad that that is over. I feel as thought I''ve been doing this course forever.
The first exam was lost in the mail so the proctor never rec''d it and it took us such a long time to coordinate our schedules to get together and write the test. I''m finished and now I just have to wait for the results. I think I did well but you never know, right??? Fingers crossed.

I''m not sure if I told you or not, but we finally received our package information and my last day of employment is September 4. I''m thinking about taking up the art of the squeegy. I will become a squeegy kid. Clean people''s windows in rush hour traffic. What do you think?

I have been employed for so long now that it''s crazy and scary to think about being unemployed but with all this immigration stuff and trying to get my visa to work in the US and the wedding stuff and odds and ends, I''m going to be super busy!!

More about all that some other time.

Tomorrow Will and I are off to Miami. Maybe just in time to catch a hurricane??!

My cousin is getting married this weekend and I am her maid of honour so I''m pretty excited. It should be fun. We''ll be back next week though ... Too short. Not much time to do anything but I needed to get back to work since we are closing down to help with some of the transitioning and stuff. Boo, huh?!

How are things going with you? You''ve been so scarce lately? I still have updates for you about the wedding planning and stuff. I''ll update you some other time as well.

Do you happen to know of or would you recommend me to try out any particular wedding website? We''re looking at creating ours now and I''m not good with this stuff so not sure which to go with.

Later PS friend! Have a great weekend!!

Hope all is well!

 

[Sparkalicious]

Okay so you haven''t been around in a looooong time.

I miss you tons - in a non-creepy virtual friend type way, of course. It''s pretty funny considering that we are PS friends. I really want to "tell" you something and then realize that you aren''t around to hear it. I thought I would share some of my "updates" in the BWW forum .. other brides aren''t as excited about my wedding planning as I am. Go figure! I know that you would at least feign interest and that would be okay with me.

I''m going to post just for the heck of it b/c when you do come back I''ll forget all about what has happened in the interim.

Okay soo .....

- YAY!!!

I passed my GIA Diamond Essentials course! Wooo!!!

Really happy about that.

- We went to my cousin''s wedding in Miami and she was gorgeous! Great wedding AND we somehow avoided being affected by the hurricane too badly. Her wedding day was beautiful.

- I have officially been laid off (bad, bad words) and am now unemployed

and living in limbo until my immigration stuff comes through to be able to work in the US. Not a great feeling, as you can imagine, especially when planning a wedding, however, I knew that it was coming and I have either been going to school and working or just working for the past 15 years so a little reprieve and some free time to take care of stuff that always get left in the dust when you are working is nice ... I hope that it doesn''t last for long and am getting anxious to wrap things up with immigration. From what I understand, we are almost there but ... we''ll see.

- I asked you about a wedding website last time and I''ve actually found a great one now. It''s the one my cousin used. It is great. I''ve spent SUCH a long time compiling details and putting our wedding website together. It''s craziness. I couldn''t be more pleased with how it looks though. Once our save the dates go out and our wedding website is revealed, I hope that our guests enjoy it as much. If you do check in, I''ll be happy to share it with you and I welcome your feedback. I only wish that we had more digital pics. We have lots of film pics from earlier in our relationship but few digital ones ... That kind of sucks since pics do such a good job of illustrating "our" story, right?

- I am super, super thrilled with a map that we had done by Laura Hooper Calligraphy. She did a great job. I posted it in BWW but, as mentioned above, it doesn''t appear that other people are as excited about my map. Too funny. It really is only a customized Seattle map with items relative to our wedding ... why would other people be excited?

It is gorgeous though. I really, really wanted this map and since we decided to go with postcard style save the dates we figured that this map would make a perfect magnet. It should be gorgeous. I can.not wait to see the finished product. Our save the dates went to print this week and should be finished by the end of the month, I think??? Now that everything is starting to come together and ideas are now turning into reality, I am beside myself excited. Agh! This reminds me of the kind of excitement we felt when we were ring shopping for you.

I hope that you are doing well and that work is treating you right. Hope to hear from you when you get a chance. I''ll still keep posting stuff for you and adding details to this thread. Even if you don''t come back, it''s kind of cathartic to actually share it with someone who might be excited b/c I''m trying not to share too much with friends and family b/c I don''t want to drive them nuts and don''t want to take any of the fun surprise type elements out of it for them.

Again - hope you''re okay .. Later!