Tina & Jeff's Blog
Sunday, February 22, 2004
  When Tina chose the bridesmaid's dresses, she found that she could get them at a significant discount from BridalMart. And while the addition of the name "mart" (such as KMart, Wal-Mart and Kwiky-Mart) usually doesn't imply a label you'd find on a fashion show runway, it was the EXACT same dress, just at a better price (about $70/dress cheaper). So we were willing to enter the melee that happens on a weekend day at BridalMart back in November to order the dresses.

As we were placing the order, Tina read through the contract they placed on the counter in front of her. Scanning it pretty quickly, she noted her concern that the document she was about to sign stated that BridalMart was only required to deliver the dresses by the day before the event. As the date listed on the form was May 22, 2004 (the actual wedding date), we were a bit concerned that at worst, BridalMart ONLY had to deliver the dresses on May 21st.

Talking with the counter clerk, we discovered that she had no ability to change the terms of the agreement. They would still only deliver the dresses by May 21.

A quick-thinking Tina, however, solved the issue. She asked the counter clerk if she could change the event date. The counter clerk said she could... thus the date of our event as far as BridalMart was concerned became March 22, 2004. This would give us 2 months' lead time in the event the dresses were not exactly as promised.

Tina signed the paper and BridalMart told her to check her mailbox for the postcard letting her know that the dresses have arrived. [Note: If you're a business owner and you're going to tell folks that they have to "do" something on a time schedule, please find a faster method of contact rather than the US Post.] We thus waited for the next three months.

Yesterday the postcard arrived. Let's forget that they didn't know how to spell "bridesmaids" on the pre-printed postcard (they had it as "bridesmaides"). The postcard told us that we had two weeks to pick up the dresses... from the date they arrived (which was a full week before we actually saw the postcard).

Luckily we were headed in that direction today... so we now have four bridesmaids dresses hanging around the house. If one of them is yours, we'll get with you soon on how to pick it up. 
Saturday, February 21, 2004
  (Note: This is a cross-over blogisode - meaning that it's the same post here as on Jeff's personal blog with minor differences. Thanks for playing along.)

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

I'm tired of addressing wedding invitations.

My fingers feel like they're going to fall off. But at least the outside envelopes are done, now to do the insides.

What's that you say? Why am I doing it by hand? What possessed me to grab a caligraphy pen and hand-write 200 or so invitations?

Well, I'm a sadist, really. And I'm cheap. An addressing service (yes, folks, there are people paid to address envelopes) will do it for about $1.50/envelope. This includes the outer envelope - the one with:

Mr. and Mrs. Full-first-name-middle-name-last-name
Fully spelled out street address
Fully spelled out city, state and zipcode

And the inner envelope:

First name of each adult on the first line
First name of each child on the second line

But as I'm only done with the outer envelopes, I still have to repeat the process with the inners. Sound simple? Sure. Simple for me? Of course not.

First we had to order the invitations - you can read about some of that adventure in other posts on this blog. We paid a little extra so the envelopes would arrive sooner than everything else (with the idea being that I would actually get started addressing them sooner. I tried.

I say, "I tried," because my first few envelopes were done with a caligraphy marker... and without me knowing that I was supposed to be doing the full-name-no-abbreviation thing apparently required by formal southern tradition. OH, and I had wanted to do the caligraphy in purple. Apparently, only black is the allowed color. Oops.

So first was a trip to get black caligraphy markers. I came back, did a few envelopes and Tina then informed me (after an hour of addressing) that while these were fine for my friends, it wasn't going to work for her family. I realized that this meant that I was doing it wrong for everyone and was going to have to go back to the store.

See, the marker has a wide tip. I needed to see if there was a smaller version. I found two more black caligraphy markers and returned home to discover that nope, they're the same size. Which meant that I just wasn't going to be able to use markers for this. I was going to have to (insert dramatic pause here)... buy a real caligraphy pen. (I also had to get a "light box" - a little translucent table with a nightlight installed under it - so that I could project guidelines drawn on a piece of paper inserted into the envelopes. This way, it appears that I'm really great at making letters of equal height and in a straight line.)

Three guesses on who doesn't know the first thing about caligraphy pens but had to learn quickly while standing in the aisle of the store! :)

Yes, I found what I thought I wanted, went home and opened the box. These pens aren't the $2 bizillion pens that they used to use for nice writing. They're idiot-proof pens for people like me. I followed the directions to insert the ink cartridge, attach the right "nib" and tried to start the ink flow.

Hmmmm... no ink flowing. I wrote with a down-stroke, an up-stroke, a side-to-side stroke. No flow. I tried a damp paper towel to help siphon the ink down the nip (this is a real suggestion made on the instruction sheet... I didn't just make it up myself). No flow. I tried shaking the pen. No flow. Finally, I shook the pen in sharp downward motions (like I was 'resetting' a thermometer) and then used the paper towel method. Flow.

Now I started addressing. It's an amazing thing to see how small I can get the letters with a real pen.

And today, two weeks after I started (and LONG after the rest of the invitations arrived thus showing us that we wasted a bit of cash on the envelope rush order), the outer envelopes are complete. But only because I did 80 of them yesterday.

So my fingers feel like they're going to shrivel up and fall off. 
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
  Well, not much wedding stuff has been happening recently. We've been busy celebrating Valentine's Day, trying to sell the house and doing other random stuff.

But I still have to do the invitations.

However, I DID enable "commenting". Which means that if you look at the end of this post, you'll see the word "Comment." If you click on it, you'll be able to enter your own direct comment about a specific post (ie: if you want to talk about the donation link back in January, go to THAT entry and click the Comment word beneath that post.... or perhaps you'd care to share your own horror story about Belk's). Anyways, whatever you post, we all will be able to see.

A warning, however. Anything posted that's inappropriate will be removed at our discretion. So, if you care to try to tell the world that I still carry my blankie around, be advised that that comment might never see the light of day! ;)

Have fun! 
Friday, February 13, 2004
  Wow. 400 people have looked at our wedding website. Well, 400 views. And if you click on the counter, it'll give you all sorts of interesting statistics. For example, the busiest viewing hour is between 4 and 5 pm and the busiest day is Wednesday. 81% of you use Internet Explorer (no surprise here given the fact that it's preinstalled on the same 80-something% of you that are viewing from some flavor of the Windows Operating System).

Perhaps most interesting is that 3% of you use the Safari browser (which is unique to Macintosh users). I thought that *I* was the only Mac user looking at my own website. But it's simply not possible to account for all 3%. Then again, we don't know all of who is reading the site as only *12* of you have signed our guestbook.

But the most esoteric statistics are the screen resolution and color depth settings that you guys use. Did you know that of the standard screen resolutions (1600x1280, 1280x1024, 1152x864, 1024x768, 800x600 and 640x480), there is another .5% that uses some "other" setting? I don't know what that other setting can possibly be. Does one of you have a REALLY big or REALLY small monitor? CONFESS! :)

It's good to know, though, that all of you use a setting better than 256 colors! It means that our purple main page should look very good and not all funky to any of you. ;)

OK... on to more serious wedding stuff...

We've done a lot of work in the last week or so. First we had to go get stamps. We need a LOT of stamps (two for every invitation - and as you can guess, the inside is different than the outside). Would you care to guess whether you can get the same design in the same quantity at the same post office?

Of course not. So we've got a lot of stamps. And we like them. So you better like them, too! Even if the return-envelope stamp isn't the same as the outer envelope stamp.

The next step was to buy our wedding bands. After much searching, a lot of discussion and several trips to various jewelry stores, we found the ones we wanted. Thus, as of today, that piece of our planning is DONE! Woo hoo!

Tina's portrait is scheduled... the Mother of the Bride's dress is ordered... and I sent the tux instructions to the guys.

But invitations haven't been getting addressed at the speed at which I would really like. The reason for this is quite simple. It's a HUGE project. There's the box for the outer envelopes. A box for the inner envelopes. The "light box" to shine light through the envelopes so I can see the guidelines. The pens. Extra paper. The invite list. The whole mess takes up my kitchen table.

I've had house showings, however, all week. So I can't pull it all out simply to put it all away again a few hours later. I've had so MANY showings, however, that I'm hopefull that the house will sell and I can just spread out again for a little while.

And if all this isn't enough, Belk is still giving us fits. Just don't shop there AFTER this event. But DO shop there now if you are looking for gifts for us (as all of the poking, prodding, complaint calls to customer service, etc, finally yielded the stocking of stuff we asked for). It's taken us almost 2.5 months to get them to bring some of our stuff into the Burlington, NC store (we registered in the Raleigh store so Burlington would say that Tina is "not one of their brides").

As you might imagine, our argument is that Tina is a Belk Bride, not just a RALEIGH Belk Bride. Belk's central customer care line agrees with our train of thought... and they're encouraging Burlington to hop the same train. Thus the Burlington store now has a load of stuff on "our" shelf back in the China/Crystal area. Just go and ask if you can't find what you need. And if you REALLY have trouble finding "our stuff", ask for Stacy Stankoski (she's the Merchandise Coordinator) to help you.

Granted, asking for Stacy only works at the Burlington Belk store ... I doubt she can help you if you're at Crate and Barrel or some store other than the Burlington Belks. Then again, go to the Burlington Belks and ask her if you're having some sort of difficulty you think she can help you. I'm SURE she'd love to meet you! :) 
Thursday, February 05, 2004
  How many pens does it take to address a few hundred wedding invitations?

Well, apparently it takes quite a few until you find the one that's going to allow you to write the names and addresses without smearing the letters together.

All in all, I've been to A.C. Moore 3 times in the last 3 days. But I think I finally found the right pen, ink and the lightbox (which allows me to see the guidelines through the paper). So I actually might get all the envelopes addressed in my lifetime. Can't you people have shorter names or live in a state with only one word (like my friends Joel & Steph in Ohio)?

But that's really all we're doing as far as wedding planning is going. Some of you apparently haven't donated to our honeymoon fund yet, though, so scroll down and play along. :) We really want to go some place cool. 
This was just a space for folks visiting our website and who want to get up-to-the-minute answers about our wedding. The wedding is many months ago now... so this blog is now just about "us".

ARCHIVES
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08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004
01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005
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