Don't Skip the Day-Of Wedding Coordinator

From: 'The Wedding Planner' movie

We met with our day-of wedding coordinator today and I continue to be so excited to work with her. One of the event managers at the hotel where we are having our wedding event manager is also our day-of wedding coordinator. H & I are planners and so we don't feel like we need a general wedding planner, but the day-of coordinator is a total must-have.

Essentially, she is on top of her shit. Timeline, coordinating with all the vendors, bringing lunch to the bridal party, menu changes, hotel guest gift bags, all of it. There are so many behind the scenes things that go on during a wedding, I am really finding the value in having a day-of wedding coordinator.

The true value of a wedding coordinator can really be seen when you experience a horrible one. I was the MOH for a friend's wedding and the wedding coordinator was awful. She constantly looked like a doe caught in headlights, she didn't speak with confidence, and was constantly MIA. It got to a point where I took a walkie talkie from her and took charge for about an hour before the reception.

In experiencing first hand a good day-of coordinator vs a bad one, here are some things that I would look out for. There are tons of articles out there to help you figure out what questions to ask your coordinator, but I'm just coming from a personality perspective.

1. Confidence - If your wedding coordinator sounds confident and speaks with authority, then people will listen to him/her.

2. Organization - Things like having a portfolio to keep notes, a brochure, business cards, a website, etc. All these things point to a person being organized. Meeting with a potential client (you the bride & groom) is like a job interview and they should be prepared. I'm not saying they should be conservative or on guard. Just prepared.

3. Kindly Opinionated - This is your first time getting married, so you're going to ask questions like, "What do people typically do in X situation?" If their response is, "It's your day and up to you on how you would like to handle it," that's the wrong response. You have no idea what to do, but your coordinator has been through several weddings. So they should be able to provide a couple different options/opinions that will allow you to decide on what's best for your situation.

3. Appearances - You meet with your coordinator a few times, and so they should be presentable at all times in order to make a good impression on you. If they look like they have their shit together, more likely than not, they'll have their professional shit together.

4. Connection - You should feel like you have a good connection with your coordinator. If you like that person, and they like you, you'll be excited to work with them and they'll want to work harder for you.

Happy hunting!

Died and gone to craft heaven

All hale the craft goddess!

The last time I was in Michael's was when I was the MOH for my friend's wedding and I was there to get last minute double-sided boobie fabric tape. That was a year ago. Now I'm here to attempt my first DIY project.

I wandered the aisles for an hour before putting anything in my basket because I was so distracted by all the wonderful colors of yarn, sparkly knick-knacks, baskets galore, and every single type of glue under the sun.

Did you know that Tori spelling has a line of DIY jewelry at Michael's? And *gasp* it's actually a pretty good idea and the jewelry was kinda cute in that jersey-shore-i-like-claire's type of way. (And I do.)

The DIY project I want to do is create a special hanger for my wedding dress photo. I picked up 16 gauge wire but really needed 12 or 14 gauge wire. Total fail. I also picked up some stickers for my photobooth photo album, 15 rolls of discounted ribbon (70% off!!), and jewels & glue to bedazzle my wedding shoes.

I seriously stopped myself from going haywire and getting all the embroidery thread in there. I hope my DIY project goes well. Eek. This may be my 1 and only DIY project...so we'll see.

The Dirty Side of Wedding Planning

Photo Courtesy: lilmisscakes.com

It's 1 month away from getting married and I haven't blogged a single thing about my wedding planning journey. It's been full of ups and downs (mostly downs), and I wish there was a practical list of things to do, timelines, advice guru, anything that was out there that could have prepared me for this journey. Oh wait! There are! It's called Google and your married friends.

There is a ton of good advice and bad advice and the main problem is that there is a ton of it. So here's my 2 cents of what I have experienced so far and things that I wished people told me. It boils down to 2 pieces of headline advice - 1. You will fight with your fiance, and 2. Planning your wedding is a job and not all fun & games.

1. You will fight with your fiance. A friend told me that her friend almost broke-up with her fiance because they were fighting so much over wedding planing. I thought that was the dumbest thing I have ever heard, but now that we're a month away from the big day, I actually believe it's possible. A disagreement about how the RSVP should look turned into bickering, which turned into a full blown fight about respect and trust. Tears and snot flew from my end. Heated words spewed like fire from H's end. It was a complete mess. Ultimately, it's about what I want versus what he wants, and it's aggravating when I don't get what I want. What we have to keep reminding ourselves is that no one cares or pays attention if the ribbon on the party favors is a bow or a regular knot. Guests will just be thankful to have a little some to nosh on before dinner arrives.

2. Planning your wedding is a job and not all fun & games. I'm a procrastinator at heart. I leave things to the last minute and it drives H crazy. Which is the main source of advice #1. If I did 1% of the shit I pulled with wedding planning at work I would be fired. While it's great & wonderful to pin beautiful cake cutters and create an inspiration board around how to decorate it, you need to get your ass into gear and choose a venue, choose a dress, choose a caterer, etc. Have fun, but you still need to treat it like a job because you are planning an event. So create deadlines, budgets, alternative contingency options, and stick to them.

I sound so cynical. Eek. I am really excited to get married to H and I'm excited to throw a kick-ass party. I've had fun looking at froofy wedding things online. I just wish someone gave me these 2 pieces of advice so that I would have spent less time gazing at weddingbee.com and more time making decisions...thereby causing less arguments.

Weddings in San Francisco Cost How Much?!?!

Yay, I got engaged on Xmas morning!  It was very sweet and very special and the luster of the ring has not lost it's shine, but the glow of being newly engaged has been trampled, spit on, and kicked to the ground.  Yes, that's totally dramatic, but it's really how I feel sometimes.

I've had mini panic attacks on the sticker shock of how much things cost, H and I fight before every site visit as well as a couple times in between, several nights of online research going to 3 in the morning, papers and notes are scattered everywhere about vendors...and it's been only 3 weeks!  I thought this was supposed to be fun...well, I'm not having fun yet!!

I think a lot of my anxiety and frustration stems from the sticker price of a wedding.  In 2004, I was living in San Francisco and making about $30K-$35K a year, and I put away $100 every month to start my 'rainy day' fund.  At least that's what I told brain, but my heart knew it was more like a wedding fund.  Since my first job at 16, I stopped asking my parents for money (except for college tuition) and so I never expected them to pay for my wedding.  Don't get me wrong, when they offered to buy me a car (used), or offered to help with a down payment on my condo (for low-income people) I gladly excepted with open arms and a smile.  I'm not stupid and refuse money, I just don't ask for it.

As the years passed, and as I made more money my monthly savings increased.  And when I met H, I was able to put even more money away since it wasn't just me saving, but both of us.  But I still remember how hard it was to put away a paltry $100 away every month 8 years ago and I need to let that go.  I need to let go of the fact that I've been saving for 8 years and it will all be spent for 1 day.  I need to accept what I want for my wedding and how much it's going to cost.  I need to let go that it's not necessarily being fiscally irresponsible.  Or is it?  I constantly cut corners in order to save money...is it okay for me now to spend a lot on myself?

The average cost of a wedding in SF go anywhere from $25K - $50K with a guest list of 100-180.  That's AVERAGE!  What the eff.  Seriously...average?  I'm so average that I'm right in the middle, and it's still causing me anxiety to think of it.

I cried a little on H's lap last night, we talked about budgets and our vision for what we want in our wedding, and he fed me some sugar free red vines and make me feel better.  I know that the budget isn't going to change, it's my attitude and outlook of what kind of experience I want to have that can change.

My hope was that our budget was $30K with 150 people.  But realistically, I thought it was going to be $35K with 125 people.  Neither of these scenarios are going to happen...so I'll be tracking the real cost of how much it takes to plan a wedding in SF down to the penny.  Even the cost of gas to visit these places.

I can make this at home for cheaper...

SFGate.com had an interesting article today about restaurant mark-ups on food - Restaurant markups deconstructed.

Whenever I go to a restaurant, I always look at the menu and base my choices on 3 questions:

1. Can I make it at home?
2. Can I make it at home, but never cook it?
3. What is the price of ingredients and cooking time in relation to the cost of menu price?

Basically, is it worth it to me?  I know that to base my choices on these types of questions makes me a horrible foodie, but I am also first & foremost a frugal Asian person.  For example, I hardly ever order pasta because it's so cheap to make it at home.  Unless it's gnocchi...I effing love freshly made gnocchi and making it at home just isn't the same.  I'm Asian, not Italian.

So now, after reading this article, I will have to make some adjustments to what's considered 'worth it.'  I never thought about the cost of insurance needing to be factored into my food.  From now on, I'll know that it costs $1 just to wash my cup of free water.

Burger Throw Down

A Ham Burger Today did a taste test against In-N-Out vs Five Guys vs Shake Shack.  In-N-Out clearly won based on their own scoring criteria.  However, they pretty much said, 'Fuck the scoring sheet.  Shake Shack is the winner.'

Numbers aren't everything, and the Shack's dominance in the meat department should clearly be weighted more heavily than the other categories.


Seriously?  You created your own scoring sheet, but decide that it's really not that important since your fave burger place didn't win.  I was excited to read the article, but then when I saw how they came to the results I felt like I was being Bush-boozled.

Long Meadow Ranch Winery & Farmstead

2 dollar corkage fee!

BF, mom, and I went to wine country for Mother's Day.  After boozing it for several hours we had a late lunch at Long Meadow Ranch Winery & Farmstead.  This place is effing amazing - cheap corkage fee, fantastic food, and you get a token to drink more for FREE in their tasting room.

STARTERS

Creamy Mac + Cheese

Pretty dang creamy & cheesy.  It was good, but I'm not a mac & cheese person.  Mom & I had a bite each while BF slopped up the rest like a Dyson.



Cheddar Biscuits With Honey Butter

My friends know that I have had a long time obsession with butter.  (BTW, fave butters are Spaghetti Factory's garlic butter and Neiman Marcus' strawberry butter) But these biscuits were so oily and cheesy to begin with that I didn't put any butter on it.  Slightly crispy on the outisde and warm, moist, and chewy on the inside.  So good and I'm a sucker for anything that comes in a cast iron skillet, but I was annoyed. 

     SERVER: Would you like me to bring you some bread or chedder biscuits?

     BF + MOM: Sure!  We'll take some biscuits.

     (Server leaves)

     ME: You know they charge us for that, right?

The server made it sound like, 'Oh yea, sure...we give bread to everybody.'  Rule of thumb that I never can remember:

     FREE = Bread is brought to you automatically

     $ = Server asks if you want bread

I shouldn't be eating carbs anyway.

Salad of Lacinato Kale with Chile Pequin, Lemon and Toasted Grana

The picture makes the food look kinda gross, but it's really good.  Even BF, who can't stand kale actually like it.

Potato Gnocchi with Lamb Ragu, Peas, Mint and Grana

This was my dish and I couldn't be happier.  Being a drinking light weight I needed as much fatty & rich foods to keep me from passing out at the table in front of mummy dearest.  The ragu was perfectly gamey, but not too gamey, and had the perfect sauce-to-chunky meat ratio.  The gnocchi was crazy good.  They were teeny tiny soft pillows of carby goodness.  I would squish each pillow between my tongue and the roof of my mouth and it would ooze like butter down my throat.  Hands down the best gnocchi I've ever had in the whole entire world.

Cheeseburger on a Potato Bun with California Cheddar and Arugula

I thought this was a great burger with the nutty arugula and soft bun, but BF didn't think so.  Here are his thoughts:

The burger they serve is not a burger in my opinion. It tasted more like an Italian meatloaf. Don't get me wrong its good but I wasn't in the mood for a meatloaf sandwich. I was really craving the taste of a grilled beef burger. That charbroiled or grilled flavor of beef you get from a burger. So if you're looking for a good juicy burger know that this is closer to a meatloaf than a burger.

California Rock Bass With Wood Roasted Sausage, Fingerling Potatoes

And Cioppino Broth

This was Mom's dish and I had 1 bite and it was delicious.  She also Dyson'ed up this dish so I guess she really liked it.

More Drinking?

We were too full for dessert, and too sleepy from all the wine.  But for anyone who wanted to drink more they give you a token for a free wine tasting across the pathway for up to 4 people.  We didn't have to use it that day, so it's being saved for our next trip there.

 

Ambiance

The restaurant was converted from a nursery, so it looks like a barn inside with huge airy vaulted ceilings with a shabby chic country coziness to it.  I would definitely come back here again.