Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

This weekend, The Gryphon and I took care of some wedding tasks. First, we tracked down replies for the last of our guests.

Now that we knew how many to expect, we determined how many tables we'd need and order the LED lights we're using instead of candles.

We're getting three for each table: teal, red and amber. Once they arrive, we'll take a couple to IKEA and decide exactly which holders to buy.

Then we ordered a customized guest book from the Guestbook Store. This is a little different than your standard guest book, which just has lines for people to sign in. Our guest books will include questions for people to answer, such as advice they would give us. It will be a more interesting keepsake, I believe.

We decided what sort of cover we wanted, what we wanted the title page to read, chose a font and page style, selected the number of pages we needed and how many special add-ons we wanted, such as a page for us to write our own reflections on the day.

Another item we ordered was an alternative to rice. Since we'll be inside, we didn't want anything that would be tossed, since it would end up on the floor. We'd been to a wedding last year, though, where they gave everyone little bells on ribbons, and we liked that idea.

In a wedding magazine, I found Halo Heaven, which makes wedding wands, which are wands topped with little bells and streamers in a whatever color you choose. People will wave them as we recess at the end of the ceremony. It will be a fun keepsake for them, too.

Then we took care of a very important task: deciding where to put our guests. The first table was easy, because it was the family table, and that was filled quickly. At The Gryphon's suggestion, I cut out circles to indicate the different tables and then printed out the guest list, cutting the names apart so they could be moved around to the different tables.

In some cases, it was fairly obvious who should sit together, but there were always questions like what to do with the person who doesn't really know anybody. Or what about this person, who might want to sit with old friends at a table that's already full. We moved them around until we were both happy with it.

Closer to the wedding, we'll look at the floor plan and decide where to put each table.

This took longer than you might imagine, but we got it all done. Then we went out to eat at an Indian buffet called the Indian Pavilion. Afterwards, I dropped The Gryphon off for his weekly meeting of PAGE (Philadelphia Area Gaming Enthusiasts) then drove home and worked on putting together the image presentation for our wedding reception. It will be projected onto a screen as part of the atmosphere.

On Monday, I called the hotel to confirm how many people were at a table. Now, the person we're currently dealing with is not the woman who originally was helping us, who happens to be on maternity leave. I don't know if I confused this new person by referring to the floor plan, but she said she couldn't find it anywhere and couldn't answer my question.

I'm beginning to wonder if the original event coordinator is coming back, which is frustrating. We were doing some unusual things, and this new person seems wet behind the ears. She's nice, and she usually gets back to me within a certain amount of time, possibly after talking to other hotel employees. So it's not that I don't get answers, but it's frustrating not to be able to speak to someone knowledgeable when there are so many moving details.

After I had that first frustrating exchange, I was feeling fairly sick to my stomach, and I told The Gryphon over instant message. He wrote back that everything would be fine and assured me if there were any snags, he'd help me deal with them.

The hotel staffer did eventually get back to me that day with an answer, and we promised to fax her our copy of the floor plan.

I guess it could be a lot worse. My sister, for example, had been planning the arrangement of her ceremony around a birch tree, which was cut down with no prior notice just weeks before the wedding! She was frustrated, to say the least.

Fortunately, most things are going fairly well for us. The Gryphon took care of another wedding related task this week, stopping at Chocolates by Mueller to order our favors. He checked in with me about the boxes the chocolate will go in, and he put a downpayment down to begin the process.

When I see how helpful he is when it comes to handling wedding tasks, I have confidence we'll make it work!

More on Alyce's wedding planning:

Musings on Alyce's Wedding

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

September 2007 Index

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):