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Well I was supposed to get a phone call from the overseas job about 50 minutes ago to talk details but it never came. Not quite sure what to do here. Well, I just sent an email....ugh....
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Calm. It is far, far more likely that they are just a little disorganised and have forgotten.
Although it's possible that the Connecticut Secretary of State used the wrong color of sealing wax, and so all of your documents are unacceptable.
I'm calm. No really. I am the very soul of calm...
We've had multiple emails about this for a week and a half now. I guess I'd better get used to the meaning of "God willing" again. It had different nuances in different parts of the Islamic world I've lived or traveled in.
And the kicker is that thinking on this I've given myself a horrible Tom Petty earworm, you know "the waiting is the hardest part..." you're welcome.
Wrong, sir, wrong! Under Section Thirty-Seven B of
the contract signed by him it states quite clearly that all
offers shall become null and void if--and you can read it
for yourself in this photostatic copy: "I, the undersigned,
shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein
and herein contained, et cetera, et cetera . . . fax mentis
incendium gloria culpum, et cetera, et cetera . . . memo bis
punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear
as crystal! You stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks. You bumped
into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized,
so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!
3. I haven't even gotten those back yet. I just don't see how this happens by the beginning of the new year.
4. I probably forgot to fax them my mentis or something.
Anyone here do an overseas move before or shipped books in bulk overseas?
I find it regrettable that the value of what the purchasers buy will have been diminished by in part them being able to be read in part by any Tom, Dick or Harry who clicks on the NYTimes link.
To the OP: the Jules Feiffer looks delightful.
And doesn't Robert Caro have work he should be doing?
The commentary on Bridge to Terabithia is a gut-punch. Man oh man.
10: That book freaked me out so much because when I was 8-11 or so my best friend was a neighbor boy from a conservative evangelical family and we played Narnia in the woods most afternoons. I'm glad I didn't know the true backstory then.
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Lighter Note Bleg. Photography and Photo Album edition.
I'm getting married this summer (June). My church only does evening weddings, because it's a historic site which is open to tourists during the day.
I found a photographer I really like with great reviews who is super prompt and friendly. She has a program where she donates her services to one couple who can not afford her services whose story she finds compelling. She found mine compelling and offered to do them for free. (She said that mine resonated with her Asian guilt.) She doesn't post her rates, but I bet that they're not cheap. Some of these photographers seem to be shooting a picture every minute, and they have an assistant. Packages starting at $3K and up do not seem uncommon. The problem is that she's booked for all of the big weekend dates for 2015, and I don't want to put this off to 2016. She could do a wedding on Monday-Thurs.
The wedding would be at 6 (black tie--maybe write black tie requested on the invitation so that people come in a suit if they don't already own a tuxedo), and I'd have to serve some kind of dinner too.
I think that I can get a function place cheaper. This is not going to be a very big wedding --maybe 50 people.
Thursday night--nobody cares if they get to work a little late.
Monday--out-of-town guests can make it a long weekend.
OR
Does anyone know of good photographers in the Boston area who would do basic digital photos that do not look tacky and goofy for $500 or less?
The beauty of going with free instead of looking for someone decent for cheap is that I don't have to spend time looking, BUT I have to do a weeknight.
Thoughts?
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Congratulations!
Monday evening means a four day weekend for out of town guests, but if you don't have many and/or they're flexible that might not be a big deal. I guess Thursday is exactly the same, though. Good pictures are a really nice thing to have, and they do get expensive (ours weren't that expensive, but we're in a cheaper area), so it sounds like it might be worth it to keep her, especially since she's doing it for free. So...enh, I guess it really depends upon your guests.
(She said that mine resonated with her Asian guilt.)
That's the first time I've heard an ethnoreligious descriptor before "guilt" that wasn't "Catholic".
yeah, published packages are like $3k. But I think that there are people who spend $10k.
How many of your guests are coming from out of town? If it's more than a handful, probably best to do a weekend and pay for a photographer. More expensive ones might know cheaper ones who need the work, or just ask around and see if acquaintances know people who have done weddings. But dalriate is right that nice pictures are good to have--I'd skimp on lots of other things before I skimped on those.
10-15 out of town. Mostly retired people.
Exception is friends from Arizona who are going to a Yale reunion over Memorial Day. I'm hoping that he, a grad student, can stay with her parents in Queens instead of making 2 trips.
The vicar at my church said that $10k is the minimum for a wedding these days. I was hoping for 4-5k total. $1k of which will be going to the church.
That's a lot for a church. Have you tried the Methodists. They're usually free.
My father was a firm believer in you do what your parents can pay for --even if that's just a glass of lemonade. But I don't think that could even coordinate that.
Tim's best friend's fiancée can't come to a Saturday wedding in June, because she has some class to teach but could do a Monday.
17: no kidding. The organists are unionized, so you have to pay their bench fee no matter what even if a friend offers to play. The assistant wants to make it work for me, so I think she might do it for free and waive the premarital counseling charges. If a random, non-affiliated person wants to get married at my church it's $2500.00. Harvard's Memorial Church is even more.
Can you cut other parts of the budget to increase the photo budget? $500 seems unrealistic. Or, will it bother you if lots of people can't attend, and others that do make it an early evening?
Out-of-towners being mostly retired makes a weekday wedding sound like a great idea.
We spent quite a bit more than $10k two years ago, but it was larger and we had a fairly expensive venue (but still maybe half the price of the top one in that area. It's a kind of absurd industry).
In the standard Christian/Christian-inspired American wedding, photos/video are the only real permanent physical thing you get out of it. Putting the marginal dollar into them instead of for increasing goodwill from having an awesome party is often a good tradeoff, and it sounds like your'e in a really good situation. Even a few years later it's nice to go back and flip through them.
A professor who's several years more senior than I am was proudly telling me about how he had a dirt cheap wedding, at least a factor of two cheaper than anyone else he knew... for $25,000. It made me think that if I get married at some point, eloping might be the way to go.
18: Given that your parents can't pay for anything, what can you and Tim pay for without hurting yourselves? I think it makes a lot of sense to start with a rock-solid fixed budget, and then focus only on what you can afford inside that.
On the weekend/non-weekend. You'll lose out of town guests if you don't do it on a weekend, unless they're nuclear-family level close. On the other hand, the weekday wedding will almost certainly be cheaper all around, not just with the free photographer. Given that budget is an issue, the weekday sounds sensible, but I'd check in with out-of-town invitees and let them off the hook for not showing up: you just couldn't afford the weekend wedding, you know it was inconsiderate, you'd love it if they can manage to come but you understand completely if they can't.
23: Bigamy would spread the costs around more.
Mostly, I think having a 'wedding' is a huge mistake. Get married and have a party to celebrate it, but trying to match 'wedding' norms is not particularly fun and is stupidly expensive.
(Except the Western Pennsylvania cookie table. Buck has western PA family, and I love the cookie table. Every wedding should have one.)
Everybody thinks high-quality photography is so important? I don't get it. I'd think you'd get enough pictures just because everyone will spend the whole time taking pictures with their phones.
.
Emily Post scorns you, Barry. It's "Best wishes!"
You never congratulate a woman on an engagement, because it implies she wanted to get married.
(I love arbitrary, insane etiquette rules.)
But yes, congratulations or best wishes or whatnot to Bostoniangirl.
We're having a post-adoption family party in ten days and I haven't figured out what dessert-type things to have. A cookie table is not a bad idea, except I'm not doing all that cooking and can't really enlist people this close to the time, plus people who bake are baking for Christmas. Still, cake, pie, cheesecake, cookies, something like that? Lee will die since she hates dessert and thinks it's unnecessary. Wait, no, peanut clusters for her and she'll be happy!
I'm with peep on this one. Nice photos are nice, but with the photo-sharing, you can harness good quality by getting sheer quantity and weeding through them.
We went to a wedding where you downloaded some wedding-specific app for guests to photo-share with the bride and groom, which also encourages photo-taking.
You never congratulate a woman on an engagement, because it implies she wanted to get married.
I can't tell if you're being serious. Does this apply to men or just to women? And absent forced or pressured marriages of one sort or another, why wouldn't the fact that a woman is getting married be good evidence that she wanted to get married?
Ten days? If you have people who you can ask to bake for you, ten days is plenty of time. Heck, you could make it part of the invitation -- bring a batch of cookies to share!
That said, I think a weekday wedding sounds fine, as long as you don't have your heart set on a 3 am disco inferno blowout.
If it were a day time wedding we could just have sandwiches at the reception, but I can't do day time because of the church needing to be open to tourists.
I wanted to find a church with a hall, but they wanted like $500/hr for the space, and it wasn't my church.
I think that you can have a party at the USS constitution museum, but they charge like $1750, and I don't know what the caterers they approve cost.
My godparents offered some money but weren't specific.
A tent in the courtyard of the church runs around $2k.
28 was my reaction. If there's one place I'd say to cut costs it's on the photos. Yay you get a nice book with nice wedding photos that you can look at every so often, but that's never seemed like that big a deal, and most pro photos are way too "artistic" and stupid anyway. At the end of the day all you really need are a bunch of candids, and seems weird to let the photography of the event drive the event. This is totally a personal taste thing though. If you really want to cheap out you can often find a friend who's an amateur avid photographer to be the designated "photographer" for the event (ie a guy tasked with taking basic photos of the event and the couple, not someone who does nothing but take pictures) for free or maybe a $100 payment or something. That's what I did in 2/3 weddings so take with grain of salt as appropriate.
You never congratulate a woman on an engagement. You imply she could have been married so much sooner, and probably to a richer guy, if she'd followed The Rules better.
The photographer who would do it for free but is booked on the weekends is Ni/co/le Ch/an. Google and tell be what you think.
I was just going to have a bouquet and skip the other flowers. Probably some wine but no liquor. Unless someone wants to make the liquor a wedding gift.
34: Basically all the people who would say yes are moms of small children who really don't need one extra obligation this time of year, I think. I can ask my own mom, who did offer to bring something. It's really no big deal, but if I'd thought of it earlier (like, before sending invites) I could have done something like that.
33: I am serious that it is an actually existing, albeit archaic, rule of etiquette, and the reason is essentially what I gave. Women are supposed to be innocently and passively pursued, rather than the pursuers. Congratulating a woman on an engagement implies that she got something she wanted, which would mean that she actively sought to become engaged, which makes her an unladylike pursuer. "Best wishes" rather than "congratulations," makes it clear that she was just standing there when some man swept her off her feet, and you're hoping it works out well for her.
At least tents don't have indirects.
There're really only two necessary components for a wedding, some kind of vows ceremony and an open bar. All else can be jettisoned.
28: The people I know don't do this. Nobody at that party I used to go to had a camera. It was hard to get a photo if me, and the Flickr pool would be so much the worse.
35: swing band calling it quits at 12:30 is fine.
42: I guess that makes sense. I've never heard that before. I wonder how many people I've unknowingly offended. Oh well.
42: there is a wonderful line in "Kind Hearts and Coronets" where the villain hears that a female character has become engaged to a fairly idiotic and priggish man. She says "Aren't you going to congratulate me?" to which he replies "No, I will congratulate Lionel. I compliment you."
If I had to guess, I'd bet that the engagement thing constitutes a very small portion of those you have unknowingly offended.
47: It really doesn't make any sense, and you've never unknowingly offended anyone by violating it, unless you spend a lot of time with George Plimpton-class WASPs. Insane rules just crack me up.
34: Anyway, I'm not going to have any trouble finding food and everyone's going to be fine and have a great time. It was just a "Oh, man, I could have had a Pittsburgh-style cookie table!" moment. Putting off the actual stuff but knowing generally what I'm going to do has worked fine for me in party-planning in the past and I'm sure it will this time too.
37: FSIL might do that but hers are too "artistic". Also she's having her second kid (18 months after the first) in May.
44: open bar not really in the budget.
48: No, friend is a kid music teacher/musician who can scrounge up people.
54 -- bottomless wine or beer also will work on a budget (even if it's 40 bottles of $5 wine and a keg for 50 people; maybe with a bottle or two of whiskey under the table for that one uncle). Am I saying to shift money from the photos or set up or catering to the alcohol? Yes I am. Priorities.
I think they only stomp on somebody's leg at a Jewish wedding. Or maybe that was something else stomped on. I wasn't paying close attention.
57. It's a wedding not a first night.
I don't know what a Pittsburgh-style cookie table is, so I'm imagining a big edible table made of cookie. With French fries on top.
Something like that. I like cake better.
Nice photos are nice, but with the photo-sharing, you can harness good quality by getting sheer quantity and weeding through them.
Absolutely disagree. The photos from wedding attendees will not come close to the quality of the professional ones. Also, with as small a wedding as you're having, the pool of possible candid photo takers is smaller. Cut more on the things you're doing for other people. (Food, liquor.)
42 In that case, a hearty congratulations!
It's just a table with dozens of different types of cookies. I don't know if there are traditional required cookies, or it's all improv (I am an outsider to the strange folkways of Pittsburgh), but if you have a sweet-tooth, which I do, it is way, way, better than cake. (They also have cake, but wedding cake is generally dull.)
Also, I say 62 as someone who had three extremely experienced photographers with nice cameras as guests at our wedding. We got some cool shots from them, but they in no way replace the documentary work of the professional photographers.
56: I will serve alcohol, and my Dad may not be there--could die before then, currently not speaking--but he's an alcoholic. Priorities!
Can you arrange to buy all of the alcohol yoruself (just wine and beer, I'm assuming), and then just have a person hired to pour that?
Whereas a lot of my favorite photos are guest candids.
The photographer who is willing to donut for free includes in her regular contract that she gets a piece if cake/dessert.
You can just leave a couple of bottles and a six-pack on each table at the reception or under each pew.
This is an apt thread to update from several years ago that my partner's lawsuit against her former (college) employers
Uggh, sorry to hear that.
71 would actually be really cute for the right kind of informal wedding.
68: That's what I'm hoping to do. Depends on the venue and the liability stuff. Cambridge boat club was one option, but you have to have a cop there because it's on public land. If you do pit luck, you can buy your own booze, but otherwise you need to use an approved caterer.
All of these options sound super expensive. I guess Cambridge is an expensive place.
73: Depends on what you think of as cute. I see the younger demographic groups subtly circling the room, collecting beers that they suspected might go unloved.
76 is totally right. And really, I was trying to find something in the North End, because that's where the service is going to be.
71 reminds me of when my undergrad physics department decided to try to start an annual holiday party and over the course of a few hours somehow wine bottles kept migrating from all over the room to one particular table.
My niece is having the full deal in Charleston next May. My brother is already lamenting how much of what you buy ends up in a dumpster within hours after vows are exchanged.
82: Your brother should find a place with restrooms or get some porta-potties.
Depends on what you think of as cute. I see the younger demographic groups subtly circling the room, collecting beers that they suspected might go unloved.
Adorable!
Not at my wedding. But if I attended someone else's where they did that, I'd think it was great.
And really, I was trying to find something in the North End, because that's where the service is going to be.
Ohhhhhhh. Okay, I'm starting to understand why the church is so expensive.
Done:
Ohhhhhhh. Okay, I'm starting to understand why the church is so expensive.
87: but their parishioner rate is $1250, and I know that the assistant who is warm and fuzzy wants to get it lower for us. Organist is still going to be at least $300 out if the total. And she's the one who does all the weddings. Off the street is $2500.
86: Wait, one if by land two if by sea and all that? Whoa.
Don't get married on a boat. Then everybody gets drunk and nobody can get away until the cruise is over.
91: yeah, and it will be pretty by candlelight. Going to another church as a non parishioner would still be like $1000 after you pay the organist's bench fee.
That will be pretty indeed. Is there parking? I can see also why you'd want a reception venue nearby, since if people can't park, it would be a pain to get to a reception venue in another town.
91: I was wondering, what with the tourists and all.
Best wishes, high five, chest bump, whatever to you, BG. Go with the weekday wedding if your non-retiree out-of-towners can handle the schedule. A good free photographer is no small thing, and then you can use the $500 bucks you were thinking of spending on a different photographer to buy booze instead. For the number of guests you're talking about, you can fill every emergency room in the Boston with alcohol poisoning cases if you buy shrewdly.
Also, 70 is a delightful autocorrect error.
That is quite a church. Actually $2500 for off the street seems low to me for that place.
Could you just do the reception at a bar in close walking distance near by? One option would be to get a room in the back of a bar, and pay for a bar tab up to a certain amount, or maybe for a certain very limited range of drinks.
I was wondering sort of the same thing, but Italian restaurant rather than bar; as if it were a big dinner party rather than a wedding. 50 seems right on the line where that might be possible.
97: Great idea. Plenty of good Italian joints in the neighborhood, with some likely to be able to accommodate on a weekday.
94: There are garages nearby, but they aren't cheap. $3 deal on Sundays near the Garden for people going to church. Usually $6/hour. I think that they can handle one car, like a limousine and something else, but I was just planning on getting dressed in the parish house.
The church was going to have a benefit at the new North Bennet Street school, and I know they did a wedding for someone with a connection, but they don't have a policy and didn't answer my e-mail. I may be able to get the parish hall of a church in Charlestown. Our administrative person is half-time there, half-time with us and is checking on the rules for me. That's .8 miles away which google says can be done in 17 minutes by foot.
Not to reveal it, but I'd say that's the most famous church building in the US. Certainly up there. What else? St. Patrick's Cathedral, *maybe* the "National" Cathedral and St. John the Divine (showing denominational bias here), I guess maybe the Crystal Cathedral (showing local bias here)?
Plenty of good Italian joints in the neighborhood
Are there? From wandering around as a tourist, it's hard to tell how many of them are actually good and how many are just coasting on the history of the area, like in North Beach.
As in North Beach, you can be pleasantly surprised.
101: I think that a lot of them are just coasting. I went to a post-Memorial service event room buffet type thing, and the food was pretty meh to bad.
Most of them definitely don't look like much, it's true.
You could fly me out to research, BG.
I guess that Joel Osteen church in Texas that used to host the Rockets may now be up there with "most famous church buildings" as well. You could host your wedding for 45,000 there.
100: Famous because of American history. For architectural reasons, the big church in Copley Square is probably more famous. They only marry their parishioners, and they charge $1500 (maybe without an organist). They do print lovely bulletins on fancy paper. But if you don;t have a ton of people there, it just looks cavernous.
I agree with Blume in 62. Pro photographers just have more practice and skill and do produce better results. (Probably half of the high-end amateurs would do better if they would learn to take 10x as many pictures and then cull aggressively, which as an experienced amateur-photographer wedding guest, is definitely my best trick. Well, that and bounce flash.)
105: I need a new job first, JQ. I asked a friend who used to run the events at a private library in town and who now has 2 restaurants for catering recs, and she said, "You know that weddings are fantastically expensive." I sent her an e-mail and need to send her a FB message now.
29, 33, 42: The most recent thing I can find from Miss Manners is a bit more forgiving.
This is not because the courtship patterns have changed. Even if the lady proposes to the gentleman on bended knee, Miss Manners and other polite people should figure he is lucky to get her. Nor is it entirely because those who offer congratulations mean well but don't know the rule and it would be churlish to quibble. It is because today's brides hear far worse. Those who are repeatedly told "It's about time!" and asked "Are you pregnant?" are only too happy to accept kind thoughts, however they are phrased.
What do you all think of the photographer who would do it for free? She wouldn't give me the names of any students/cheaper people. She got a lot of good reviews, but mostly I just found so may of the others immediately offputting, and said that if someone is willing to do this as her pro bono job, I like her.
110: Somebody did say to me and Tim, "It took you long enough."
Plenty of good Italian joints in the neighborhood
Another problem is that all the ones I'd recommend have nowhere near a 50-person capacity.
113 is a very good point. That's why you need research!
111: I think that link might undermine the googleproofing in 39, no? Also the second picture in the "weddings by ni/co/le" portfolio on the gallery page is awesome. I assume the offer to do the wedding includes enormous van der graaf generators and a giant birdcage?
why is she doing it for free? Is she just waving an appearance fee and then charging more for prints?
Picture number 21 of 34 is really something.
114: Yes. She has a program where she does it for free for somebody who can't afford it who has a good story. We've been through a shitload of crap, so I wrote a little summary about everything I did for my parents and how I wanted a day that I didn't have to worry about. And she said she would love to.
I've already revealed myself as the don't care about photos guy, but I will take the unpopular, potentially trolling, and easily reject-able position of thinking that the photog doesn't look that great and isn't worth waiting for. Are you really going to appreciate those artfully taken shots much more than some basic straightforward photographic records to prove in 50 years that the event happened and that you were all wearing the styles and haircuts of 2014 (actually, 2004 because it's Boston [JOKE])?
I get a usb of the digital photos which is fine. There are a lot of more normal ones in addition to the over-the-top ones.
Glenn Tipton
I have gone from not knowing any members of Judas Priest to knowing the names of three. I wonder what essential knowledge I've forgotten to make room for the new.
I can get prints later.
She probably wants to photograph a wedding at that location too.
some basic straightforward photographic records
Except that to get even a bare bones professional photographer is going to blow BG's budget out of the water.
the photog doesn't look that great and isn't worth waiting for
Neighbor, please. If you're going to troll, you're going to have to put more effort into it than that. The photog is good, and yes, she'd probably love to have some shots from a candlelit wedding at that place in her portfolio. You could spend a lot of time checking out a lot worse work from a lot of other photographers you'd have to pay for.
122 - I'm trying to keep the personas distinct (jovial, family-oriented drunkard, police-issues-obsessed argumentative zealot, maybe KK Downing will be the diet and exercise guy, we might throw in some bassists and drummers for other random issues, Robert Halford as the Voltron-like megalomaniacal force who unites the personas into a powerful super-robot fighting libertarianism). But the personas are hard to manage and on the other thread Ripper Owens is already merging into Tipton.
Famous because of American history. For architectural reasons, the big church in Copley Square is probably more famous.
Indeed, that's the one I initially assumed BG meant.
Put me on Team Photographs. Because I got married in the Dark Ages, we put disposable cameras on tables at the reception* and invited people to take pictures. We got some fun ones, but we look at our real album 10X more often than that one.
More important, who the hell wants their guests taking cell phone pictures during the ceremony? Aren't they supposed to be, you know, focusing on the vows and the eternal love and all that crap? Or, failing that, idly gawking up at the rafters?
By contrast, the photog is paid to ignore the vows except insofar as they're photogenic, and is expert at taking great pictures without drawing attention to herself (or holding up a phablet the blocks the view of the pew behind her).
Now, do you need a pro at the reception? I can't see why you would (well, BG made reference to scarcity of shots of her at parties, but I'm pretty sure lots of people take shots of brides). Depending on the nature of the reception, there might be some benefit (among other things, if the lighting is challenging, the cell phone shots may suck), but it's not necessary, because the formal pics you want are easily taken before/during/after the ceremony, and because a reception is a party, and participants take the best party photos (in terms of capturing moments and spirit, not technically).
I do agree with Glenn's liquor point, but given the specifics of this event, that goes out the window.
PS - Save $$ on wine by giving an acquaintance (that is, no one you'd invite to the wedding, but not a stranger) $50 to dispense wine from boxes without drawing attention to the fact that that's where it's coming from. Although it sounds like the liquor rules are too weird for that to work easily.
*for those not up on TFA, wedding was a tiny event at a B&B along the Delaware in NJ, "reception" was a big party in a park pavilion in Pgh. No cookies, alas.
127: Yeah, I will kill any guest who takes a picture during the actual service.
126: There can be only one. Tiphalfowen!
Yeah, I will kill any guest who takes a picture during the actual service.
IMweddingE, people do tend to take pictures during the service. Are you going to issue a set of rules for the event?
130: We politely imposed a prohibition in the program, and guests complied without complaint!
I always like to take a selfie with the couple in the background. I turn off the flash and the clicky sound so I'm just quietly in the aisle for a second.
I should perhaps add that this was in the pre-iPhone era.
I'll support 120 insofar as seeing a bunch of those photos in a row makes my eyeballs start to rotate upwards. But of course no one wedding gets 15 self-consciously artsy pictures; there will be a few of them, posed or un-, and a bunch of lovely ones, and a bunch that are better than 99% of what your guests would take*.
And then there's 124/125, which are both correct. Unless you happen to know someone**, the floor for wedding photography is quite high, and while a person at that floor won't be as big an upgrade over crowdsourcing as NC, you'll still gain the benefits identified in 127.4-6, and at least a few really, really lovely pictures.
*one thing to bear in mind is that 1 pro photog will take as many shots as all your guests combined, all of which are better than most of what your guests can/will take, and then will sort through them herself, and then will do at least some minimum of photoshopping to improve them. IMO this is a situation where crowdsourcing gains you nothing (except, again, at the party) because they're not producing more volume, and they can't compete on talent.
**not so much that you're getting a big friend discount as that someone in your social circle is much less likely to be a $1000/wedding photog. Our wedding was shot by a FoaF who was and is a pro, and who gave us a good price because she liked us and figured she'd enjoy the wedding (and, indeed, she was one of 18 people at the dinner afterwards). I don't give friends a huge discount either, but I'm a lot more likely to give them advice off the clock.
Have you asked the minister whether he minds taking a shot or two? Really distinct POV, don't you think?
There's a sign at the door now saying that people should not take photos during services, to silence cell phones and that men should remove their hats.
There is one old couple who go during the summer who flout all the rules. For the longest time I thought that they were struggling financially because they stuffed food in their pockets, but it turns out that they go to Palm Beach in the winter and own a fairly new Mercedes. The car is all scraped up. They park --illegally--right in front of the church near a hydrant. She actually told the park service guy at the door to get her if the cops came. Someone had to show her how to turn off her iPhone, because it always went off at a particular point in the service and would just ring and ring.
120: Because it is Boston, I'd prefer it if everyone wore the style of the 30's, but you can't have everything.
Does the Alamo still count as a famous church building?
135: I think she requires dessert, so she has to go to the reception.
Just found out that the sister parish will let me have their hall for $300. That's a 15 minute walk. I'm still hoping that the North Bennet Street School will let us use theirs. It's an open space connecting two buildings, but $300 is cheap. I think that the secretary likes me, and I'd just be paying for the Sexton's time
136: She. The priest is a woman.
Count me as on team pro photographer.
At my sister's wedding the groom's father and brother brought video cameras, as well as a spare for me, on the theory that no man is going to be able to sit still through a whole wedding without some gadget to serve as pacifier. I recorded a bit of the ceremony but mostly just watched while the camera was on and vaguely pointed in the right direction.
Also I believe it is the best man's duty to step forward when all the guests are seated and the groom is about to make his appearance and threaten grievous bodily harm to anyone who disrupts the service with cell phone, camera, or any other means. As he finishes his brief speech all the groomsmen step forward, menacingly crack their knuckles, and then step back to their assigned positions. This is the cue for the groom to show up.
You could have a New Orleans style second line dance parade where everyone walks from the church to the parish hall of the other parish for the reception. Admittedly that's not super Bostonian or Episcopalian but it sure would be awesome. Do you know anyone with a Tuba?
143: When I graduated from college, the Seniors from one House were accompanied by bag pipes. We had a New Orleans style band walk us to the Yard.
140: It sounds like she mostly works for the chocolate. You should be probably solicit advice from the experts here on what chocolate to get her.
Do you have thoughts on different types of chocolate, peep?
I took better photos [certainly more to my taste, anyway] at my sister's wedding than the pro photographers did.* I expect that if you had a few friends with decent cameras taking shots, they'd probably get a few shots between them that would be better than the stuff a pro would take.
But the documentary part is key. It's easy for me or someone else who likes taking photos to just pop off a few dozen shots during the day when the 'shot' is there or the opportunity arises, but the pro people are making sure that all the key moments and all the key people are captured, competently, and they are wrangling people, carrying backup gear, etc It's not an easy job.
* my sister loved some of the stuff they did.
147: I don't have any friends who do photography. We've got 10-15 of Tim's family, 5 of my family, 10 or so family friends, and maybe 10-12 friends. I could easily do more...but for the money.
I think if having a good document of the wedding is important, go pro. Those who've made the point that candid shots by friends at the reception are a good supplement to pro shots from the service etc are, I think, on to something, too.
We had photographs taken by a friend who was a hobbyist as a present (she had equipment and so on), and I wouldn't recommend it -- we ended up horribly offending my mother because she was underrepresented in the posed family pictures. Which she arguably was, and probably wouldn't have been if someone with some experience had been running things. (As a result, seventeen years later, we still haven't had prints made. The negative and contact sheets are kicking around somewhere. Me, avoidant? Nah.)
FSIL does this, but even if I wanted her, I think she'll be worn out with an 18-month old and a newborn at home.
Tangentially, apparently in Canada there's this thing where people trash the dress by jumping in a lake. Is that done here?
This is not going to be actually useful to you, Bostoniangirl, but I'm having a fit of reminisce.
Our photos were taken by two relatives, but (a) we had 160 people there, so the odds were good (b) one is a retired art & headshot photographer and another a serious amateur wildlife photographer, so we had the `everybody's faces' covered one way and `catch the moment!' the other (c) we both kind of loathe most wedding photographs (d) we both wholeheartedly loathe that part of weddings where the Important People vanish to be photographed and everyone else sits around awkwardly or gets unpleasantly drunk. So we started at noon, were married by 12:30 (maybe 12:15), and everyone had been served lunch before 1pm... but so many people had expected the wait that they'd eaten beforehand and were poleaxed by all the extra food.
Also, we spent terrifying amounts of money, mostly on music and catering. But the music was wonderful and the food covered much of the next two days of about 80 of those people having a family reunion.
Also I got the second migraine of my life at the beginning of the reception and missed the `fun' parts. (The first migraine of my life was the day after a tightly-scheduled instrument run with tech specialists at my CA field site, after which I had to pull my site markers, two days before I had to move out of CA and three weeks before the wedding. And I baked 17 pies the day before the wedding, which usually isn't too hard for me but is tricky when people keep turning up and you need to floury-hug them and be Sweet.)
I guess the *useful* part of that is that if there's anything people need to know -- come hungry, or, wear shoes you can walk four city blocks in, whatever -- tell them. Stopping before `wear white linen and learn two lines of Rilke', or whatever this years' mania is.
trash the dress by jumping in a lake
That does make more sense than expensively cleaning and storing it to be never used again. City fountains, sometimes, very photogenic.
I've worn mine twice in the last year -- but I had a Vienna-style waltz ball and a Bal Blanc public park dance to take advantage of. I'm about to try dying it navy-to-white, which will either ruin it or get me a few more uses.
TWEE OVERLOAD: the first date the Dwarf Lord and I went on was a backpacking trip to Yellowbanks beach, which is smooth and shelving, and we waltzed in the surf. I could retire the dress there, I guess.
Is that your sister in law's site you just linked to? Ummm.
FSIL yeah. That's her hobby.
Ummm, what?
I baked 17 pies the day before the wedding
I am truly awed.
153: Your granddaughter might want it or you can sell it.
17 pies the day before a wedding is impressive.
Clew, your stories are always the opposite of twee. You're genuinely doing things you enjoy and not particularly caring what anyone else thinks about that. Please tell us more, and also about linen sheets. (I'm sort of obsessed with linen at the moment, although I miscut both linen projects I'm working on am instead actively using silk right now.)
155: I wouldn't think you'd want the trackbacks to lead her here if she notices a bunch of people coming to her site from here.
If a dress was itself inherited, then it's reasonable to expect another generation to want it, but I don't think modern-construction dresses are as likely as old ones to be reusable -- there's so much glue and interfacing that you can't reconstruct them to the degree that used to be possible. You're right, I wouldn't trash real tailoring or handmade lace or really good cloth, though. (Mine isn't real tailoring, I bought it used and am happy I did, but I don't think it had a *third* center-stage moment in it.)
Oh, Thorn, what went wrong with the linen? Maybe you can do some stylish band insertions to rescue the cuts? I find it easy to work with (assuming one presses everything at the beginning) and am intimidated by silk, so. But the only difficulty about linen sheets is affording the linen. It's very absorbent, which makes it pleasant to sleep on, naturally washes white, and gets very soft with age. I have some Czech military surplus ones which are just the size of the top of our mattress, so when our current sheets wear out in the middle am going to piece the linen in.
The other thing about waltzing on a remote beach is that PNW upbringings included a lot of `Logs in the surf can kill!', which added a frisson.
If I wrote this much on my goddamn papers my life would be better. I'll check back in this evening, y'all. Peace out.
I don't think modern-construction dresses are as likely as old ones to be reusable -- there's so much glue and interfacing that you can't reconstruct them to the degree that used to be possible.
Last week I was flipping through TV channels in a hotel and watched a couple minutes of reality TV show in which the contestant (for lack of a better word) had to decide between getting a brand new wedding dress or having her mother's wedding dress (which has been sewn by her mother's mother) tailored and re-styled by a designer selected by the show.
It managed to tap into surprisingly (or not) deep emotions for a reality TV show.
There was a moment when they all get to see the re-worked dress and the mother is clearly feeling both excitement at how good it looks, and a deep desire for her daughter to chose her dress, and also a bit of shock at how much it had been modified and that, in some ways, her original dress no longer existed.
161: Stupid rookie mistakes. I thought I was being so careful folding along the vertical pattern line, but I messed up and ended with half the bodice cut on a bias and I need to take in that part of the bodice and it just won't work, especially since I cut down the middle only to find it's not the middle. But it was very cheap, all my projects are cheap, and so if I can't buy more I'll just find a pattern and cut smaller pieces to make something for one of the girls.
The silk feels silky when it's on but is the crunchy rather than floaty kind of silk and is woven with a scaly sort of pattern, so it's easy to sew. It's an orangey sand-tan that's not a great color for me plus I saw someone online say that below-bust gathers are not a good look, which made me want to try them. That person may have been right and I probably shouldn't be cutting my own pattern based on one for knits and just adapting all over the place while I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but it fits pretty well and feels great and should be easy to finish now that it's all basted together. The linen was supposed to be my start in not-stupid-and-counterproductive projects, which it might still be. We'll see.
Ummm, what?
Did she know about your online alter-ego, because she does now.
Eww, my "fixes" turned the underbust gathers into the most hideous thing ever. Off to rip out the gathers and redo it as some sort of diagonal seam. Fun!
On the chocolate question (world-historical!) there was a big section in the Globe G section this week about various local chocolate makers. Having lived a sheltered life, I only recognized Tazo, but a lot of them sounded really nice: lots of dark chocolate, sometimes with coffee or peppers, etc.
Another vote for a very good professional photographer here. My ex and I married on a shoestring as we were both penniless students, and a friend suggested that her niece, who was just starting out as a professional photographer, could do it for us for a nominal fee. She took perhaps three decent photos throughout the entire day, and it was the one thing that was disappointing about the wedding. Everything else was cheap but fun - for the dress I bought a few meters of Thai silk and a simple long dress pattern, and got it made up by a little clothing alteration shop in Alameda (I was studying in Berkeley) for less than $100. It looked gorgeous.
Albany, not Alameda. It was all too long ago.
165. I don't think she does. can I redact that?
I'm totally in the hire-a-pro camp. Get and check references, look at their portfolio. Create a list of must-have people and groupings shots. Tell all the Uncle Joes with their new cameras/phones to have fun but to let the pro do their thing and not get in the way.
You should have a half- or quarter-scale dressmaker's dummy, Thorn, if you're going to be doing design by draping (old skool! Vionnet your bad self!).
I think it should now be possible to get scanned in a booth and have a box of laser cut cross-sections arrive in the mail, to stack onto PVC pipe, so that we can all have truly accurate dummies that *no-one else ever sees*. And there's a sort of vaporware website suggesting someone means to try it, but not much more.
I'm not actually draping in a formal sense, though Vionnet all the way!!!!!, just sewing things together and trying them on and making adjustments. I thought I was getting somewhere with my little madras top until I turned it into a moebius strip when I tried to install a zipper, so this could still all fall apart. But I'm learning!
Have you asked the minister whether he minds taking a shot or two? Really distinct POV, don't you think?
He could wear Google Glass? It's really unobtrusive.
Or all the guests could. Panopticon wedding.