flower power Just got back from a weekend in Baltimore to visit with Joe's sister and her family. We brought Cooper along, and she did remarkably well, despite the fact that the return car trip took seven hours rather than the predicted three and a half, due to a traffic pileup on I-95, some poor tactics on our part to bypass the clot by taking local roads, and the general crappiness of the state of New Jersey. Damn you, Jersey! So did I tell you before that we've so far been stood up by two wedding florists? The first guy didn't even remember to show up to our consultation appointment. In fact, he didn't even remember to open shop that day, opting instead to take a weekend off to go to the Hamptons. Uh, thanks, guy. The second guy met with us for an initial consultation, but forgot to meet us at our wedding site on the day that we had scheduled to look over the place and do some specific planning. What, do these people dislike money? Because we were going to pay them. In U.S. dollars and everything. So today, we had a meeting with our third florist, who also happens to be the house florist for our reception site. We did not have high hopes that his estimates would be within our budget, since first, the title "house florist" implies a certain degree or expense mark-up, and second, his office was in the Plaza Hotel, but actually, our meeting actually didn't turn out to be that bad. His estimate was somewhat more that of the other florist that we had been considering (hereby referred to as "El Cheapo Florist"), but our first florists were ultimately completely unreliable, we were willing to pay the extra expense for the assurance that this new guy might actually show up on the wedding day. I think that we may have initially underestimated the budget for flowers, though, having originally first discussed things with El Cheapo Florist. His motto was, "I may not be well-known, or do a lot of weddings, but I am very inexpensive." Which, you know, sounded good at the time, but whatever. Bygones. Working with a slightly more legitimate florist now, however (as opposed to a glorified floral warehouse foreman), we really should have factored that into our budget assessment. I think we scared him, though he did a good job of keeping his poker face. FLORIST ("I'm a designer") So what is your budget anyway? MICHELLE Well, we'd like all the centerpieces, bouquets, lights, and whatnot for [initial budget estimate] FLORIST (Long pause) MICHELLE Um...heh heh. Yes, so we expanded our flower budget. I know they say you should pick a budget and stick to it, but given that we pulled our initial number completely out of the air, and that money is not quite so tight that we can't afford to concede a little here or there. And it all still is very reasonable. It's not like we want floor to ceiling arrangements and fireworks and swans or anything. xo Michelle |
Tuesday . December 17 . 2002 . 11:55pm |
flower power Just got back from a weekend in Baltimore to visit with Joe's sister and her family. We brought Cooper along, and she did remarkably well, despite the fact that the return car trip took seven hours rather than the predicted three and a half, due to a traffic pileup on I-95, some poor tactics on our part to bypass the clot by taking local roads, and the general crappiness of the state of New Jersey. Damn you, Jersey! So did I tell you before that we've so far been stood up by two wedding florists? The first guy didn't even remember to show up to our consultation appointment. In fact, he didn't even remember to open shop that day, opting instead to take a weekend off to go to the Hamptons. Uh, thanks, guy. The second guy met with us for an initial consultation, but forgot to meet us at our wedding site on the day that we had scheduled to look over the place and do some specific planning. What, do these people dislike money? Because we were going to pay them. In U.S. dollars and everything. So today, we had a meeting with our third florist, who also happens to be the house florist for our reception site. We did not have high hopes that his estimates would be within our budget, since first, the title "house florist" implies a certain degree or expense mark-up, and second, his office was in the Plaza Hotel, but actually, our meeting actually didn't turn out to be that bad. His estimate was somewhat more that of the other florist that we had been considering (hereby referred to as "El Cheapo Florist"), but our first florists were ultimately completely unreliable, we were willing to pay the extra expense for the assurance that this new guy might actually show up on the wedding day. I think that we may have initially underestimated the budget for flowers, though, having originally first discussed things with El Cheapo Florist. His motto was, "I may not be well-known, or do a lot of weddings, but I am very inexpensive." Which, you know, sounded good at the time, but whatever. Bygones. Working with a slightly more legitimate florist now, however (as opposed to a glorified floral warehouse foreman), we really should have factored that into our budget assessment. I think we scared him, though he did a good job of keeping his poker face. FLORIST ("I'm a designer") So what is your budget anyway? MICHELLE Well, we'd like all the centerpieces, bouquets, lights, and whatnot for [initial budget estimate] FLORIST (Long pause) MICHELLE Um...heh heh. Yes, so we expanded our flower budget. I know they say you should pick a budget and stick to it, but given that we pulled our initial number completely out of the air, and that money is not quite so tight that we can't afford to concede a little here or there. And it all still is very reasonable. It's not like we want floor to ceiling arrangements and fireworks and swans or anything. xo Michelle |
