Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Schwag

Bloomingdales gave us Schwag.

What is Schwag you ask? There is a great definition of "Schwag" on this page:
http://www.promosapien.ca/Content/What%20Is%20Schwag.asp

At the top of the page it reads, "Promosapien - promotional products for the human race." Read the history of schwag on that page. It's very funny.

If you've ever been to a trade show, you know about schwag. I used to attend SIGGRAPH trade shows, and my house is still full of the outdated schwag from that endeavor.

A few weeks ago the fiance and I headed downtown with the intention of seeing a movie. But the Chinese New Year parade prevented us from reaching the movie theater. Since we were stuck in the South of Market area we dropped in on Bloomingdales, not because we had an appointment to register, just because we were there. I actually had not yet been to the new Bloomingdales. It's amazing. The whole shopping center is amazing. They have curved escalators. Apparently the curved escalators are an engineering feat.

I was secretly excited that we ended up at Bloomingdales that Saturday evening. It was an unanticapted chance to do one more wedding preparation task. I now get very excited when I accomplish wedding preparation tasks.

Because my fiance was married once before, he new all about fine china, silver, and stemware. I have to admit that I may have only heard the term "stemware" once before in my life. In a prior conversation with my mother she said, "You don't want to register for china! It'll just sit in your cupboards and you'll have to lug it around with you whenever you move. We haven't used the silver that we got at our wedding once (and that was like almost 50 years ago....)." On the topic of china my fiance said, "Well, it's a chance to get something nice." And then in a separate conversation he said, "You're the woman of the house. You should decide what you'd like to have for serving guests." I was touched. Sometimes he's so traditional. And I actually find it to be very endearing and cute. Now if only I could convince him that The Woman of the House shouldn't have to work.... nah, that'll never happen. Today the Woman of the House serves formal meals on fine china and then gets on a plane the next day for a business meeting in New York.

Anyway, I digress. Bloomingdales gave us Schwag. We had just enough time in the store to take a quick look at the housewares, peak at the silver pattern that my parents have, have my fiance point out a stemware pattern that he'd registered for the last time around (oh the joys of being a second wife), and to realize that I was going to have to make yet even more choices (see my last blog entry and comments on making choices). Oh yes, and we met very briefly with a "bridal consultant." Her name was Lindsay and she gave me a cute little cosmetics-sized shopping back with a beautiful yellow ribbon for handles. Inside the shopping bag was: her business card, a small spiral bound Registry Guide with lists of suggested items to register for next to neat little check boxes, a registration form, and a twelve inch by twelve inch fancy photo album. What? A photo album? Yes. It is large, cloth covered, has a window in the front to insert a picture, binder rings that open and close, and 30 photo insert pages. At first I was touched. Then I looked at what came before the 30 photo pages: about 50 pages of full color ads for everything from mattresses to the stationary department at Bloomingdales. Schwag. The fiance actually commented on The Schwag, "Wow, it must of cost them at least $20 per item to produce these..." Well, yeah. If you figure that the wedding guests probably spend upwards of three thousand dollars at any one store, I guess Bloomingdales should give us gifts. It's all so commercial. I now feel like I have a billboard sitting on my dining room table. My instinct is to throw out the 50 pages of ads... but then there are some useful hints in those pages like how to choose china... do I care? The Schwag Package is designed to help you make choices, and to cooerce you into spending even more money in the store while doing so. Maybe it will come in handy when we are actually registering. I see here that I should be registering for a Kitchen Aid electric mixer even though I've never baked a cake from scratch in my life.

Apparently in the last 5 or so years, the wedding industry has balooned (at least the commercialism and financial side of it). If I talk to anyone who got married more than 5 years ago, their photographer cost about $2,000. If you search in the bay area for a photographer with a track record and decent reputation today, their minimum fee is $6,000. What is that, a 300% increase in 5 years? It does seem to follow the appreciation rates of bay area housing. If you bought a house in San Francisco in 2002 for $400k it's now worth $650k. Actually, I think the photographers are doing better than the housing.

The cute little yellow Bloomingdale's Schwag Bag sort of lives on top of the buffet (at least until we are done registering). And whenever I see it sitting there I think, "Schwag. They gave us Schwag." I don't now whether to feel burdened or flattered.

Now that I think about it, Bloomingdales should give us some Waterford Crystal, not Schwag. Like frequent flyer miles. You should get 20 purchase points towards "free stuff" for every gift that is bought from your registry. So at the end when you are missing those 3 coffee cups and 5 desert plates that were not purchased, Bloomingdales just gives it to you for free out of your "frequent buyer" account miles, I mean points. Now that would make me want to register at Bloomingdales.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Etiquette Schmetiquette

Item number Five Thousend One Hundred and Tweny Four on the master To Do List is:

- Figure out the invitation wording

It's harder than you think. On my fourth visit to the stationery store in the Gift Center there was another bride who was trying to do this (by herself) on the spot. I had known enough to plan ahead and figure that out before even going to the store. I had it all typed up (I was so proud of myself!). So I handed her my invitation wording. But my invitation has my parents inviting the guests... in their case, the couple is inviting the guests. So you can't use the same wording. She called her fiance on the cell phone, "Alex, do you want your parents' names on the invitation???" This is just the beginning. Planning a wedding is all about making choices. Approximately Five Thousand One Hundred and Twenty Four choices, give or take Two Million.

It took me a full week to figure out the wording on the invitation. And I learned some interesting things in the process. I did not anticipate the complexities. In general, you can just put "whatever you want." But I just had a good friend ask me via email, "What should we wear to So and So's wedding?" The couple did not indicate the preferred attire anywhere in their invitation package. Nor did they indicate whether or not I could bring a guest (nor was my fiance's name on the invite). If you do it right, your guests are ideally not left with a bunch of important questions. The other reason that I wanted to research the topic is because I am getting married in the evening at a Museum. So a certain level of formality (or atleast respect for the facility) is expected.

So I researched it. Did you know that "request the honour of your presence" is only to be used when the wedding is in a house of worship? If it is in a secular location you are to write "request(s) the pleasure of your company." I hate to say it, but "request(s) the pleasure of your company" kind of sounds like you are inviting people to a love-fest (read: orgy - if you want to be truely honest about it...) But that's the etiquette rule. If you really want, you can say "request(s) the honour of your company." But that does not sound as good as "honour of your presence." And realistically, if you have 150 people at the wedding, you're asking for their presence. You probably won't have enough time, with all of those people there, to enjoy everyone's company. But they will still be present, which is what matters. Semantics.

Oh yes, and you can spell "honor" as "honour." With the "u" is the more formal spelling. My parents hated it. They thought "honour" was too stuffy. You can do it either way. But you have to be consistent when you write "favor" or "favour of a reply" on the response cards.

And if you are going to be truely formal, you use your parents titles (Mr. Mrs. etc.). Well my parents are Doctor and Honorable. They did not want their titles. Too stuffy. So we put their first names.

And! Apparently in Jewish weddings sometimes the bride and groom's names are connected with an "and" instead of a "to." Mary Jane "to" John Doe Smith or Mary Jane "and" John Doe Smith. It's a little thing. But it's choice number Five Thousand One Hundred and Twenty Five. And? or To?

Oh yes! Then... I was going to set the arrival time for 5:45 pm. That is what it says on our Save the Date cards. But, you are not supposed to write numerals on the actual invitation. Everything is spelled out. So, it usally says "at five o'clock in the evening." Or "at half past five in the evening." I wanted to write 5:45. So, is it "five fourty-five in the evening?" Or is it "A quarter TO six?" Or "At quarter OF six?" Three-quarters past five??? This was actually a twenty minute conversation with my parents. Then it was another twenty minute conversation with my fiance's mother who teaches English. Each person I consulted had a different answer. My parents said, "at quarter to six" (or maybe they said quarter OF six... now I can't remember...). My future Mother in Law said five fourty-five. AND, I could not find the answer to this question anywhere on the Internet. I spent more than an hour looking for the answer to this specific question. It's not that it was THAT important, but I just wanted to know. After much thought I settled on five fourty-five. When I submitted my text to the owner of the stationary store, he told me that in his 20 years of experience in the business he had not written :45 on an invitation more than a handful of times. It's just not done. Whowouldathought? So after all the investigation, I changed it to half past five anyway. The coordinator thought I should set it for six, but then admitted that she's always prompt. My mother thought we should set it for half past five thinking that people would be looking for the mis-placed gift or getting lost on their way to the location. I opted for my mother's level of caution. It's a park. The view is gorgeous. People can hang out for an extra 15 minutes.

Additionally, you are not supposed to put the attire on the invite itself. That is because in Victorian times, everyone KNEW what they were supposed to wear. Today, it's mass chaos. And it's even worse if you live in California (Who ever said that casual was better?). My mother told me today that she has to buy a dress for my wedding. What? People don't own simple cocktail dresses? We set the attire as "Black Tie Optional or Semi-Formal Attire." So it's: wear something nice and decent but don't knock yourself out if you don't want to. Now people are stressed about what they are going to wear? Oy vey. I wanted a day time wedding... because I like the sunlight. But the museum doesn't do daytime weddings. And the fiance liked the idea of the more formal event. Okay. You all have to go buy a dress now. Sorry. Guys: wear a tie. Oh, yes... I came across a new term in my research: Creative Black Tie. Look it up. I almost put that on the invitation. Because I liked the way it sounded. And because I am creative. And I think it should be okay for people to wear a tux with a black shirt and no tie. Why not? It's still dressy. Well one of my bridesmaids who plans events for a living said that sometimes people interpret that as "Costume Okay." I don't want costumes. So I took it off. My mother said that it was just as well, because people wouldn't know what it meant anyway.

Why do all of the rules exist, if no one knows what they mean? Why have rules, if people won't follow them anyway? Why care about etiquette when people don't even know what the etiquette is?

Do you know why wedding invitations often come with double envelopes? In Victorian times, the mail was carried on horse back. So the outer envelope got dirty. Additionally, a servent usually removed the outer envelope before presenting the mail to the man or woman of the house. Today an inner envelope allows you to indicate that a single person may bring a guest. It is apparently not kosher to write "and Guest" on the outer envelope... according to etiquette. So you write: "Ms. Jane Doe" on the outer envelope, and "Ms. Doe and Guest" on the inner envelope. What's a bride to do sans inner envelope? Go against etiquette and dirty up the outer envelope or call every single guest to explain that they can bring a friend? Who decided anyway that "and Guest" was improper on the outer envelope? I read somewhere that supposedly the post office doesn't like "and Guest" on the outer envelope, which makes absolutely no sense.

And what about that pesky piece of tissue paper? In earlier times, the ink on the invitations would smear on to the adjacent paper pieces. So layers of tissue were inserted to prevent the ink from smudging.

Why do we use two envelopes and tissue paper today? Apparently because people haven't realized that the modern post office hasn't delivered more than one piece of soiled mail in thirty years and because they think that the printing process hasn't advanced at all in the past 100 years. My invitations have one envelope and no tissue.

It took me no less than FIVE visits to the stationary store to complete the invitation ordering process. I had to chose a style. Papers. Ink color. Font style. Layout. Enclosures. At home I typed up everthing and even made an exact layout of what the front cover should look like with the names, date and illustration. They got it wrong in the proofs, of course - despite my meticulous notes and visual aids. Why do I care so much? I don't know. Maybe I really want to be an event planner. I just care. I don't know why. I agonized of over the exact paper choice when our first choice was no longer available. I cared. Immensly.

I studied theater design for 7 years. A large wedding is a theater production. You have costumes, sets, and just yesterday I called Impact and Phoebus - two bay area lighting companies. You have to light the rooms. The space only comes with can lights in the ceiling. We talked colors, angles, gels, patterns. Seven years of college level training... so that I could produce a wedding. I'm trying to imagine whether the men can wear only the dark red fabric of the bridesmaid's dresses as a pocket square or whether the ties and cumberbunds or vests should be the same color. Right now I'm leaning towards dark red pocket squares and silver ties/cumberbunds/vests. Michael at Black Tie Tuxedo thinks that everything should be black. I didn't study costume design for SEVEN YEARS to make everything black!!! I care because it is my art. Are weddings art? They can be.

The invitation is a passion. The colors, the wording, the papers. I hired a calligrapher. I found one on Craigslist for a very reasonable rate. You just care, when it is a passion.

So my inviation wording is a mix of formality and personal touch. First names are used and "honor" is spelled in the American way. It's a Jewish wedding so I chose "and" instead of "to." We are not in a house of worship... but I put "honor of your presence." It just sounds right. Everything else, is traditional. I can now open an invitation etiquette consultation business.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Three Months To Go!

The wedding is exactly 3 months from today.

Everyday people say to me, "What else needs to be done? You've taken care of all the major things. There isn't that much more to do is there?" Or some variation of one of these sentiments.

Here's the To-Do list that I created this mornning of items that really have to happen this week:

- Send the security deposit for the location
- Find a Rabbi
- Send my shower invite list to the person planning the shower
- Update the website
- Organize all of my papers, contracts, and receipts (which are spread across 4 different folders and are stored in no logical order)
- Send a deposit check and signed contract to the musicians
- Make decisions on the food
- Schedule a tasting of the food
- Tuxedo shop appointment for the groom
- Shop for men's accessories (ties, vests, cumberbunds) in silver
- Make decision on favors
- Follow up on final proof for invitations
- Pick up flower girl dress
- Start registration process

So, no. I'm not almost done. In fact we haven't even made a choice on the caterer, or the exact food. Nor have we registered. We've put off registering like 5 different times because of long to-do lists, and busy schedules. So, we'll have a wedding with no gifts. Maybe that is okay.

Now, I did go to yoga, workout twice, lift weights, and arrange for two separate doggie play dates this past week. So I guess life is good. You can only do so much planning at one time.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

The Cycle of Life

The Rabbi died today. The one that was supposed to marry us in approximately three and a half months. Or maybe it was yesterday. I'm not sure exactly when. My fiancés mother phoned to give us the news today. At the end of the conversation my fiancé said, "So does this mean that he isn't going to marry us?"

Well, he was in his 80s. So it's not like we didn't know that this was a possiblity. At least it didn't happen the day before or even worse - the day of the wedding. At least we have 3 and a half months notice so that we can make another plan. But it's very sad. He was a long time family friend of my soon-to-be in-laws and their entire family. Why does everything have to change? Why couldn't he have held on another 6 months? It's sad.

And now I have to add something back ON to my to-do list: Find Officiant. Ugh.