I haven't given up. Really. There's just not much to say about trips to the florist. I do have this end of month recap for you all though. Apparently, October was an incredibly busy month.

On October 1st we have:
Reception Location

On October 30th we have:
Reception Location
A Band
A Photographer
An Officiant (note to robn, apparently we did choose the richard simmons people....whoops!
A Diamond Ring
a florist
AND we sent out save the date cards.

Plus, i ate loads and loads of brains. You are all under my power. You will buy us Star Wars Pinball as a wedding gift.

Sigh, looks like Joshua has given up on updating this thing with all our latest ramblings. That didn't take long.

Florist found and deposit left. No links for you!

Ok, I need to finish preparing tonight's lecture so this is going to be short, but I figured I should put something on top of that brain-eating post that Joshua made. Apparently, I'm marrying a dork.

We have 2 appointments with florists this weekend, even though we have no idea what we want as far as flowers are concerned. Hopefully we'll know by tomorrow!

I also have this really nifty ring that I told Joshua he didn't need to buy. I never would've expected to love a piece of jewelry so much. He's a dork, but he rules.

Oh, for those people who are thinking of making hotel reservations, I just thought I'd mention that Joshua and I will be staying there that Saturday night as well, so we can all keep frolicking and whatnot after the reception ends at 5 pm.

That about sums up the latest bunch of stuff. Next stop after flowers: invitations.

IMPORTANT WEDDING INFORMATION

That is all.

Well, we haven't updated lately because we were busy recovering from that outbreak of actually DOING stuff. We're working on figuring out what we want flower-wise and then we'll call florists. I mailed out a stack of Save the Date Cards today (although it wasn't all of them, it was a good chunk). Things might start to calm down briefly. We hope.

Would probably be a good idea if we actually signed a contract or something with that band we chose. Otherwise I'm hiring a DJ who will play nothing but songs by the Wedding Present all night, and no one will dance to that.

In the meantime, I have mid-terms and papers to grade. (Although I feel the need to point out to anyone who is reading this that when a professor tells you not to download your paper off the internet because she'll know, she probably assumes you won't hand in, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" by John Locke and hope she doesn't notice. I guess I took that for granted. Next time I'll add that into my announcement.) But I digress.

Ok, what a weekend. Friday night we trekked up to New York City to see the Delegates play. I'm too lazy to include links today so you'll have to make use of your scrollbar if you want to go visit their website. Anyway, we really liked the way they sounded, they were really good at energizing the crowd and they looked liked they were having lots of fun on stage, so we decided we're going to hire them. Band chosen!

Then we got to drive way too far to visit the second photographer. He takes really nice wedding pictures. But what it comes down to is that they're just that: wedding pictures. L.D. Bright creates museum-quality artwork with one's wedding as the subject matter. We can't really afford him (especially since there are WAY too many people on our guest list) but we're determined to find a way. The photographs are all we'll have after the wedding so we want them to be as amazing as possible, and no one can top L.D. Bright.

So now our next objective is to find a florist and maybe register someplace. I need to hurry up and finish training for that third job so hopefully we can afford all this stuff. Starting to address Save the Date cards too. But first I have to go grade papers!

Look, robn already posted about the photographer trip. She's so good.

In other news, we're going to see the Delegates play live on Friday night at Swing 46. Which is good. The bad part is the show doesn't start until 10:30 and we have that appt with Viccini at 9:30 am on Saturday and that photographer is over an hour away. So much for a relaxing weekend. We really want to have a band decision made by Sunday, but i'm not sure that's possible (unless the Delegates just completely rock). I'm just aiming to have a clear list of candidates so we can have a decision made by the end of next week. We shall see.

So, we met with Photographer #1 tonight. He was a crazy old hippy who nodded appreciably when I told him my birthday (at his request, for astrological reasons), and later talked to me about Cartesian Dualism, Chakras, and Rastafarians. He had more character in his long grey hair than most wedding vendors have in their 3-piece suits. I may not agree with his take on souls, but I sure as heck loved his photographs. He's not a typical wedding photographer by a long shot. I almost cringe to call him one at all, but that's what he does. He's an Artist way more than a wedding photographer, and it really shows. His photographs were museum-quality, and he doesn't go in for any of the usual wedding stuff whereby the bride and groom give a list of situations they'd like to be sure to photograph. He says it's all done by instinct (and once you've seen his results you believe him). We aren't hiring a videographer, so I'm of the opinion that we really need nice photographs. This man more than qualifies.

The problem? Apparently his work is well-known enough that his customers pay the price. He had pictures of some NBA star and of Regis Philben in some of his albums because he's photographed several celebrity weddings. That sounds like a good thing (speaks more of his quality) but in reality it's a Bad Thing. Maybe even a Very Bad Thing, because it means he costs double what we had budgeted on the high end of our photograph guesstimates. (Which may mean we have to settle for someone else).

We have another meeting on Saturday (Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!) so we'll see what happens. I suspect I won't be satisfied with a place that hires out 10 different photographers to do their work, which is what this DiBella guy seems to do. We'll see!

If she wants a car for the money we paid for the ring she'll have to settle for one of these.

I just want to reply quickly to that Christopher Priest link that Joshua put up and say, "Right on!" If he would rather buy me a car, then far be it from me to object.

Oh, and that poll is not scientific! Joshua is cheating by entering multiple band votes from different IPs, while I'm stuck here not able to vote at all.

He's a rotten cheater.

Tomorrow is a meeting with Photographer #1. (Then Saturday I get to see if Tom Dibella can figure out which wine I put the iocane in). I can't wait to be done with all this deciding stuff.

Today was a busy day as far as weddings go.

We met with the officiant tonight. He was very nice, seemed to understand our desire to have the ceremony be as religion-free as possible. He also had tons of good information on ceremonies/receptions in general. So, scratch another thing off the list of things to do. We're kicking ass and taking names here! Still wish we had the whole band thing sorted out of course. We're trying to decide between a band and a dj. Bands have the benefit of being, in general, a bit classier. The DJ has the benefit of costing 1/4 as much as a band (plus as she likes to say, Sinatra actually sounds like Sinatra). So our website came with some built in polling app, figured we may as well put it to work, so without further ado:

Band or DJ

From the better late than never dept (unless yr christopher priest):

Took off from work today to go pick out a diamond for robn's ring. My mom hooked us up with her friends Bob and Adrienne who got us a really, really, really nice stone for a very reasonable price. It's sparkly. She won't quite need a wheelbarrow to cart it around when we get the finished ring (in about two weeks), but it's definately nice. Who knew i'd ever be talking about a nice diamond engagement ring. It's bizarre. Anyway, Bob & Adrienne were super nice, and very helpful, so when the wedding rolls around, make sure you all tell them you read about how cool they are ;).

Who am i kidding, the only people reading this won't talk to anyone at the wedding anyway.

We're off to meet a potential officiant (or as robn likes to say, someone to officiate) at Bennigan's (he says he's a regular there!).

A special saturday morning treat, added hotel info and hotel directions. The wonders will never cease. Find them over there under links.

Um, I would just like to go on record as officially stating that 1) tall people do not deserve to be penalized $300 for being tall and getting married and 2) $2000 is too much to spend on a dress, and once you add in a veil (yes, that's right... a veil), well I don't even want to talk about it. My friends are going to have blackmail material for the rest of my life. But at least I don't have to think about froofroo dresses for another 6 months!

He LOST the photographer links. Lost them! I'll post them here so he can't have any excuse for not calling them. I'm leaning toward LD Bright because they had a great advertisement in a magazine, and frankly what else am I supposed to judge them on? There's also Tom DiBella, whose work I like once I get past the colorization (and the fact that he looks a little like he's about to say, "So clearly, I cannot choose the cup in front of me!")

Anyway, we're slackers. We'd both rather make robot blogs than actually call vendors for a wedding. Just wait till I start making Joshua call florists.

So we have a reception place. And that's about it. Yesterday the save the date cards arrived. They look nice. Those should get sent out soon, then the secret will be out!

Next step is finding a band, a photographer and a florist. All of these things cost more than you'd expect. Unless yr robn, then yr dead on with the estimate for band cost. Anyway, the frontrunners for bands are The Delegates and New York City Swing. We figure that swing bands are pretty cool, lounging around to Sinatra all afternoon will be a Good Thing (tm). The best thing about the Delegates (besides the fact that they're on the Rollerball soundtrack!), is that in their little info flyer they said, "We will play most requests, but we will NOT play the Macarena or Celebration." Not playing Celebration is my number one requirement for a wedding band. I was such a dork on the phone with the guy from the Delegates though, i'll never understand why robn makes me make all the phone calls. If she ever heard me on the phone i bet she'd stop.

I'd post the photographer links, but I've lost them, i'll let robn post them :).