Photographers

We’ve interviewed two photographers, and while the work both presented us with was nice, we decided to go with the second one, based on personality.

Photographer I

The photographer we called was not actually available for our wedding date, but he had another photographer that he often worked with who would do the wedding for us, with him acting as contractor. We met with both the photographer and contractor on Feb 14 (yup, Valentine’s Day).

The meeting stretched to an hour and a half, but mainly because the photographer kept bringing us on meaningless tangents. She was very concerned with make-up, which to me is not something that we needed to discuss until just before the wedding, not on the first meeting.

While the contractor’s prices were within our budget, we were not overly impressed with the photographer. If the contractor himself had been available for the wedding, however, we likely would have hired him.

Photographer II

We arranged to meet with Photographer II on Feb 21, a week after meeting the first one. By that time, I had started disliking the first one more and more, and was concerned that all photographers near our price range would annoy me. However we were pleasantly surprised with Photographer II.

We met him near the Bethesda Metro station at the Hyatt Hotel’s lobby. This meeting also stretched to more than an hour and a half, but this photographer’s tangents were interesting and often related to his photography (no discussion of make-up, thank you very much). He was also very excited about the chance to photograph a wedding in a dimmed planetarium. He had already thought about the challenge, and decided that perhaps the best way to deal with it would be to have him take flash pictures (if the officiant allows it) and his wife take natural-light pictures. That way, we would certainly have pictures that turned out, and perhaps have some with the “starlight” as well.

Overall, his prices are going to be more than the other photographer we interviewed. However, we don’t have to worry about paying for the reprints and albums until after the wedding, so I look at that as an after-wedding expense, rather than as part of the wedding budget. We can save up for it separately after the wedding.

The Best Friend’s Guide to Planning a Wedding

by Lara Webb Carrigan

This is another in the pile of wedding books that I’ve been reading. This one is fun and easy to read, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s sprinkled with cute, romantic wedding tales along with a few horror stories. There are some lists of questions for various vendors, but I found these to be less complete than those in other books. However, at the end of each chapter on the various vendors, Carrigan includes a list of things that should be present in the contract with the vendor. This is unique to this book (at least, of the books I’ve looked at so far), and could prove to be quite useful.

Site Scouting II

We visited two places today and talked over their sites with the banquet managers. One was the Stardust, where we ate Saturday night. The other was the Waterford banquet center at Fair Oaks. I think we had already made up our minds to go with the Stardust when we went to the Waterford, but though we should at least see one other place. The Waterford had a nice all-inclusive package that originally attracted us. It’s quite a good deal, however, the center really didn’t have the personality of the Stardust.

We had visited Marco Polo last week to see if we liked it as a reception site. The food was good, if out of our normal eating-out price range, so I arranged to meet with the banquet manager today. However, after seeing the Stardust Restaurant last weekend, we decided to cancel that meeting, and meet with the Stardust manager instead.

A few points we talked about:

• They’ve been in business almost 6 years, and last year did about 10 receptions and closed down the restaurant for other meetings several times.
• They were available Sept 19 or Oct 2; sadly, not Sept 26, which is the date I was shooting for. Oh well…it’s not like I was set on that date; it just seemed like a good compromise between having the wedding late enough that Dave and Jen’s baby will hopefully be old enough to travel and early enough that it doesn’t run into the Minnesota reception.
• Our party would probably have 3 servers plus, maybe, one more for the bar or to just help out where needed.
• Parking is usually not a problem on Sundays. In fact, she described that part of town as a ghost town on Sundays.
• They don’t require a deposit, though neither do they have a contract. In some ways this is a little worrisome, since we have no guarantee that they will hold the restaurant for us. On the other hand, they don’t have any hidden fees — no cake-cutting fee or corking fee, etc.
• We’ll choose 4 entrees from the menu, and guests will be able to choose what they want when they reach the reception — there will be no foisting entrees on guests that they had to choose a month earlier.
• We can choose to have a few appetizers out for the guests for the time before Andrew and I arrive.

Overall, I think we quite liked the manager. When I asked her to tell me about something that’s gone wrong, she admitted that sometimes there is a delay in getting the appetizers out, since they don’t want to have them just sitting out when only one or two people has arrived. They are working to solve this by hiring a sous chef who is better at managing people than the chef.

Scouting Reception Sites

We checked out four places today:

• Tivoli Restaurant in Arlington — We’ve been to the bakery before, but didn’t know that the site had banquet rooms. The banquet coordinators were not in, of course, since it was Saturday, but we were able to get a look at the room through the glass doors. It looked nice, though not much personality, and the view wasn’t great (a view of tall hotels and squat businesses around the mall).
• Potowmack Landing Restaurant along the Potomac in Alexandria — The web site made it look like the restaurant had a great view of the Potomac, so even though it was a “fish house”, I thought we should take a look. The restaurant, indeed, did have a great view. However, the Chart Room, where the reception would likely take place, had a great view of the parking lot. I didn’t actually smell fish, which was a plus, but it seems unlikely that we’ll do the reception here since I’m not a fish person at all.
• Il Porto Ristorante in Old Town Alexandria — We’d never eaten here, so we went for lunch. It’s a nice Italian restaurant, and the food was quite good. We also noticed that they had a room upstairs, which is were the reception would probably be. I think we would seriously consider this place, if it wasn’t in Old Town. The main problem is that there is that our guests would either need to find a nearby parking garage (we parked 5 blocks away) or try their luck with street parking (which is metered).
• Stardust Restaurant in Alexandria — I wasn’t impressed with the pictures on the web page, but they had several vegetarian entrees on the menu and were reasonably priced, provided we have the wedding on a Sunday. So, we decided to visit. I’m so glad we did. The Stardust is a quirky, fun restaurant that really matches our personalities. The food was quite good, and as we were eating, I was already picturing the reception.

Planetarium Call

We’ve been making plans for the wedding around holding the ceremony at the Arlington Planetarium. It seemed like a good idea to call the planetarium director to see if we could really do this.

A few things we discussed:

• If the public shows are running, we would need to be out an hour before the evening show (Saturday), or couldn’t schedule the wedding for an hour after the second afternoon show (Sunday). However, the public shows usually don’t start until October, so if we have the wedding in September, the schedule should be fairly open.
• The fire marshall says that no more than 70 people can be in the room, so we will have to honor that.
• We should visit the planetarium before the end of the school year to determine if there is anything special that we will need to make the wedding work. Classes are out by 2:15 PM, so after that would be best.
• Caveat: The seats are supposed to be replaced by the end of the summer. However, this is a government operation, which are notorious for slipping. The director doesn’t think this will be a problem, since he will insist that the work be done before the school year starts, but thought he should mention it lest Murphy’s Law kick in.

Interestingly enough, two other couples have, in the past, asked about holding their weddings a the planetarium. In one case the wedding was postponed, and in the other, the couple ran off to Las Vegas to get married. That means that ours will be the first. Cool!

Bridal Show

We went to the Patriot Center today for the Bridal Showcase. Several other women had dragged their fiances, too, so I didn’t feel too badly about bringing Andrew along.

We picked up brochures from several hotels reasonably close to the Arlington Planetarium, though it’s difficult to find much that’s, say, walking distance. If we don’t get a list from Devri soon, we’ll start doing site visits at a couple of these places. One is a Holiday Inn in Ballston and another is a hotel (can’t remember without my notes which one) near Tyson’s Corner. Both have some good-looking all-inclusive wedding reception packages including an open bar (which we don’t really want), champagne toast, seated or buffet dinner, coat room, a bridal suite, and discounts on rooms for out-of-town guests. The one at Tyson’s is actually very close to our budgeted amount, though with gratuity and taxes, we may have to do some scrimping.

We also talked with a baker who is just getting into wedding cakes. Her goal is to work with brides on a budget. I liked that….I *am* a bride on a budget. I was also impressed that when I told her my theme, she seemed to get excited and started spewing ideas for how to incorporate stars and moons in the cake.

There were loads of photographers there, too, though most were way out of our price range. We did find a few, though, that were more reasonable, and we will definitely be contacting several of them.

The show, though, has gotten me worried about all the planning that is involved. We are at t minus 8 months, and we don’t even have a reception site locked in. Usually that is taken care of at the one year mark. And several of the photographers were already booked up for the Saturdays in September, and some in October. We need to get on the ball!

Hired a coordinator

I hate to say it, but the one company was the only coordinator to get back to us. I left messages (phone and through web forms) to four different companies, and Sagewood was the only one who got back to us. We’re guessing that the others took one look at our budget and decided that we weren’t worth their time. That’s nice.

At least we were both happy with our coordinator when we met with her a couple weeks ago. I’m looking forward to getting the planning underway.

Met with a wedding coordinator

I actually left my name with four different wedding coordinators, and only one got back to me. The only thing I can think of is that our wedding is does not have a high enough budget for the others to bother with us.

Fortunately, we liked the coordinator. She doesn’t have a lot of experience herself, but has been working with the company for about a year. The company, however, is owned by someone who has been coordinating weddings for years. The owner also makes sure she knows what’s going on with the various weddings of all her coordinators, and would certainly be a resource for our coordinator if there was anything we needed that she didn’t know how to help with.

Also, there will be 1-2 interns working our wedding on the wedding day, so that the reception site will be ready when we are, even with our coordinator overseeing the wedding itself. Since she is part of a larger company, should she have a family emergency or for some reason be unable to oversee our wedding, there are other coordinators who will be available and up-to-speed on what needs to be done.

Unless we hear from the other coordinators, or unless there is something weird in the contract, we feel comfortable enough with them to sign on.

Engaged!

After a long day at work, I met Andrew at the Greenbelt Metro station so we could go to the Old Greenbelt Theater to see Winged Migration. The plan was to go to the Chinese restaurant next door for dinner afterwards, but half of the restaurant was taken up with a private party, so the line was fairly long. When I suggested that we head back to Vienna, and go out at someplace closer to home, Andrew happily agreed, suggesting that he might be in the mood for Lucciano’s.

It took about 5-10 minutes for us to get seated, and while we were waiting, I noticed that he was wearing his suit pants. I asked why, thinking it was a bit weird, but figured he just needed to laundry. He just said that he wanted to be a a little dressy for tonight, since we were going out. Of course, this just made me feel a bit slovenly, since I was wearing blue jeans, an oversized t-shirt and ragged fleece shirt. Sigh.

After we were seated and ordered, I went to the ladies’ room. On my way back, I noticed Patrick on the table (note on Patrick — he’s a stuffed puppy, pictured below, that Andrew gave me for Christmas 2001. I still sleep with Patrick every night, and he follows me around the house when I’m stressed or sick or just in need of a companion when Andrew isn’t around. He’s my favorite stuffed toy.) Lots of things started going through my head, the foremost of which was, “Jeez, did Andrew think I had that bad of a day? Did he think I really needed Patrick to pick up my spirits? And if he did, why didn’t he bring him out sooner?”

Patrick the proposing puppy.

When I sat down, I gave Andrew the, “what’s this all about?” look. He said, “Patrick is concealing something under his front paw.”

I pulled up Patrick’s paw, and saw a box of Godiva Chocolate. Looking further, I came across the box. The ring box. While I was pulling out the ring box, Andrew said, “Patrick and I have something to ask you. Will you spend a lot more time with us?”

I think I said “yes”. I know I pulled the ring out and put on it. I nearly started crying, but forced myself to keep it together.

An after-the-proposal-note: After dinner, we were waiting for the check, and the manager came by. He looked questioningly at my hands clutching the box of chocolates on the table, and Andrew indicated that I hadn’t been wearing the ring before we came in that evening. The manager said that he was going to remember this, and anytime we came in together, he was going to make sure we got that table. He’s the kind of person who might just do that, too.

A Bride’s Book of Wedding Traditions

The book catalogs some of the roots of our current wedding traditions. Many traditions date back to ancient times — for example, using the fourth finger on the left hand as the wedding ring finger originated in ancient Egypt. The other traditions date back to marriage by capture, marriage as a means of property transfer, marriage as a means to produce heirs, or superstitions about evil spirits.

I want to avoid any of the fertility traditions — there will be no baby’s breath at my wedding! However, the superstition traditions are more than welcome. I’m not superstitious, but it’s still fun to buy into a little of the hype. I’ll certainly be wearing “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue”! Though I won’t go so far as making my bridesmaids dress exactly like me (to confuse evil spirits).

Unfortunately, I was often left wanting more explanations on the traditions — the short paragraph or two was often not enough.