My theory about wedding service people: 50% are crazy and the rest fall in to predictable categories

I have developed a theory regarding people that provide wedding services. I suppose this theory might apply to other services, but I'll keep this post framed around my wedding experience. For those of you that are kind of slow, that really means I'll try to write something funny about my fiancée's reactions to her our wedding planning. I mostly tag along to witness the phenomena.

Here is the theory broken down in to its primary parts:

1. Weddings are typically crazy events.
2. The more exclusively someone works on weddings the more crazy they are likely to be.
3. The more generic the service is the more likely the person is to be normal.

Here is how I thought of this wonderful theory. Sheri and I just finished planning all of the things that modern society expects us to do about a year before the wedding. That includes picking a location, cake, decorations, flowers, photographer, and videographer. While picking these services we asked a few friends, Googled a few companies, and were comped tickets to a bridal show (Ack, I forgot to make fun of that...). After meeting up with all of the possible people I realized that almost half were completely off the deep end. Seriously, if I had a lifecam and recorded what we saw it could be edited to make for some great entertainment.

I'll primarily talk about the ones that we didn't decide to use. After the big day, I'll try to add in some notes on the services we paid for. Here are the general categories.

The really great

1. Hotel Location #2: Kingsley Radisson, chat with Dana Bellant
• The hotel seems both well-priced and incredibly nice
• Great communication and they were happy to let us look around
• E-mail actually is a fast way to chat. It also actually works for follow-up information.
  
• They let us book a block of rooms
• We ask about holding the presidential suite until my parents (4 states away) can come take a look in 3 months. No problem, it is booked right away while we figure out the details.
2. Cake Choice #1: Pronto! in Royal Oak, MI
• I have to declare that the fiancée's mother has a long consumer history with Pronto! and knows the owners. We probably had special treatment.
• The food is fantastic. I'd eat there often if I lived closer.
• The atmosphere is very colorful. Be warned if you are ultra-conservative, but it is a sense of style and flare I personally love to see.
  
• The cake sampling was lots of fun and really good. One of the owner's actually sat with us.
• Obviously they've made tons of wedding cakes and worked with lots of flower shops. We knew little about what we really wanted, but they listened well and gave us concise options to choose from. All advise also seemed to be really helpful...none of the crazy talk (see below postings).
  
• Awesome flower person recommendation. By far the best price and brilliant work. I will blog the place post wedding.
  

The great deal but get-what-you-pay-for communication (i.e. we know we aren't making much money off of you)

I'll save these listings for later. I'm not ashamed to admit that if something seems like a really great service for a great price, I'm willing to be treated like dirt. Especially if others highly recommend the service. Post wedding I too will gladly recommend, but I'll also fairly flag some frustrations that you the fiancée might experience.


The questionably crazy but good deal

I'll save these too for later. Again, saving money greatly influences my capacity to work with wedding focused people that seem to provide a pretty good deal. I'm looking forward to seeing if questionably crazy ends up as crazy or as a good deal during the wedding.


The Crazy (i.e. wedding are the primary business)

1. Photographer #2: Our first exposure to the bizarre.
   
• We show up at the business address, which also happens to be their living room.
• Oddly enough their living room is walled with crazy over-sized photographs. I fail to appreciate why those particular photos are worth showing off.
  
• They cleverly spin to state that it is good to really get to know who they work with, thus the living room. Sheri and Jayson's expectations: on the up.
• After a brief chat we're stuck with just the sales person. Said person dims the lights, closes the curtains, and has us sit through a 15 minute, techno-thumping, nonsensical prior work Power Point.
• If you know us, said sales person must have totally ignored what we said in the "know who they work with" segment. Sheri and Jayson's mood: fear. We're now locked in the dimly light room of the crazy....
• Said sales person subjects us to at least an hour of bad humor and awkward information sharing.
  
• We finally get the photo package info and reenact Jailbreak, Season 1.
• Conclusion: way to crazy and a little conceited, but most importantly the price isn't nearly cheap enough to overcome photographer #1's package.
2. Decorations and Flower Lady #1: if you can't laugh or smile, it creeps out customers.
   
• We show up to the business, and it is a real business. So far we're pretty excited.
• We get escorted to a house next to the business to chat. Kind of weird.
• Initial negotiation goes well, we're learning that there is a lot that we don't know.
• After an hour we notice some disturbing trends.
• "I want it to be just like you have always imagined" is her way of saying, "Quite Foo! Listen up. This is what I want you to buy"
• The person doesn't smile. Not in the I-like-Botox way either.
• The person never laughs...not even when my ignorance of wedding formalities presents itself.
• The person trash talks every other couple that they have worked with. I notice and joke about what she'll say when we leave. Not the most popular of my comments.
• Approaching hour two, we declare the experience a war of attrition. The enemy is entrenched deeply and we have no choice but to retreat.
• Conclusion: We learned some stuff, but didn't really feel treated well. A few days after we misinterpreted what "I'll send you the quote later tonight meant", I classified this one as crazy.
3. Free tickets to the wedding show: Crazy, crazy, crazy.
• Seriously, just don't do this.
• Guys, when she says "...but Jayson is a guy and was just trying to be funny. I think we should go." Refuse. Say that you love her and want her to be able to more easily lie about how great it was after she is let down.
  
• Realize tickets normally cost $10.
  

Well that is about all I can write for one sitting. There are a few more experiences to throw in to the theory's categories, but it seems most of the good ones will have to wait until after the big day. I hope you enjoyed the read.

December wedding update

After many different drafts of what we wanted our wedding to look like, we decided that we couldn’t get married without all of our family and friends we love present. Talking to my recently married friends, it seems as though everyone goes through this process. It starts with lofty, imaginative plans about a wedding on top of a mountain or on an exotic beach in bathing suits and bare feet. Then, reality hits and you realize how much work and money that will involve. After that, you try to re-envision your wedding in a place where everyone can make it. There were many formulations of our wedding in the past four or five months. When it finally came down to it, though, we realized we wanted everyone that we love and care about to be able to attend (if they can, of course).

As far as wedding planning goes, things have really slowed down. Most recently we met with Nicole at Westborne Market on Woodward to discuss flowers. She had some great, colorful ideas and we decided she would be a good match for our wedding vision. Since then, I’ve called/emailed her multiple times asking if I can modify this or that. Oh my, it’s 9 months out and I’m already an obsessive bride!

Even more importantly, my mom, my good friend, and I picked up my wedding dress the other day! It’s the most gorgeous thing I have ever worn by far. And, the best part about the whole adventure was that my mom saw it in a window months ago and said that it would be the perfect dress. It was! She has been an amazing help with all of this wedding planning – knowing that I have a somewhat full plate. It’s also just so much fun to be able to do this with her, especially since we have such similar taste. We even came home with the same wedding magazine the other day. It had a picture of a cake similar to the one we picked out (you’ll have to wait and see) so we were both excited about it.

That has been about the extent of wedding planning in the last month. For the time being, I am buckling down for my LAST ROUND OF LAW SCHOOL FINALS. Counting down the last 14 days here! Then it will be on to studying for the bar…

(That's for you, Wachler:)