Florists (the other major thing we did in Ohio)

Hi,
Ugh I am still sick which is why you are all getting the news a month late (I told Steve if I am struck done by the H1N1, or whatever I've got, that I fully expect him to find someone else and execute on all of these wedding plans)

While we were in Ohio we visited a bunch of florists. If you are reading this and thinking "gosh that sounds like overkill because all florists are the same" keep reading and then visit twice as many for your wedding. It's true I wasn't sure how much could be accomplished by interviewing different florists, but when I found that a lot of them were using the same stock photos I was really nervous about commiting to anything without a store inspection first. So bright and early Monday morning Mom (who made the drive all by herself on Sunday- which sounds absolutely miserable to me and earns her major points), Patty (who by this time had put up with all of our cranky sleep deprived musings, my bridezilla-like thirst for organization, and a house full of people- cementing my impression that I am about to get the best in laws ever) and I headed off to our first florist.

The Flower Corner (Mogadore)- Off to a rousing start as this institution is neither on a corner, nor very into flowers. We pulled into their gravel lot and Mom was quick to point out the dusty plot of dirt next to their door with wilting flowers still in their black plastic tray. It was like a sad Kmart special. The shop itself was dirty, dusty and had a small collection of $30 brownish daisies. The man at the counter has no idea what we are doing here (at this point neither do I), but does eventually manage to produce a frightened dewy young woman who begins our consultation. The next 45 min pass- her asking me what I want, me insisiting I don't know anything about flowers, and Mom asking her questions she can't answer or gets wrong. This is a sad place and I pity the bride who ends up giving them money.

House of Plants (Akron)- Running late and greatly disheartened by out first encounter, House of Plants is a breath of fresh air. Located in a tiny strip mall, the entire front sidewalk is a riot of interesting plants and trees. Steve (the florist) was kind, energetic, and had great ideas. He kept rushing to another part of the store, picking out more things, and rushing back.

Some of his great ideas include:
*Using Lily grass to make the bouquets more interesting
* wrapping the boutinere stems in either silver ribbon or navy blue ribbon with silver wire

We had a tough time getting anywhere on the pieces for the ceremony. The entire wall we will be standing in front of is windows, so I'm for something that frames us, but doesn't look like a funeral arrangement.

Total Price: $843.48

We so enjoyed our time with Steve that their was no way we were going to make A Bed of Roses on time, which is fine because the woman on the phone was really hard to understand and seemed spacey. Patty called to tell them we weren't coming and we spent the extra time trying to eat lunch and showing Mom the reception sites. (We actually did sit down at Olive Garden before realizing we had to be at Baughman's in 30 min, so we hit the drive through at Swenson's and continued on)

Baughman's Florist and Greenhouse- So, apparently this family has been in business for generations. They were #1 on the Fox list and one of the appointment I was most looking forward to. By this point, Steve had finished golfing and joined us. The place has that generations upon generations feel ( a little like a gypsy caravan-complete with several large cats roaming the area). We were shown into a crowded back sitting room and the woman we met with kept asking the same questions over and over, slurring her speech and dashing off to get something. She then usually returned with nothing or with something completely different than she had gone out for. She was downstairs in another part of the shop when steve quietly asked "Do you think she's drunk?" I'm not sure if the place was bugged or if she just has really really good hearing, but she refrenced that comment for the rest of our visit. All in all the price was really reasonable, but I'm afraid that what we would end up with wouldn't be what we really wanted.

Greenhouse Florist- So, we knew going in that these guys would probably be pricey. The shop was gorgeous and interesting. We met with a very arty/funny young woman, who had great ideas and an interesting spin on wedding flowers. She's the one who suggested Blue Thistle, which we loved right away. Also, they ran out of small chairs and the table, so the two Moms got to sit on tall stools and lean over us. (Total Gargoyle moment, Mom was even making faces-classic and absolutely returned the fun to wedding planning)

Quick aside- how many freaking weddings have you been to where it seems like the bride steamrolled right over the groom? I mean it's supposed to be a celebration of the two becoming a family, but end up an orgy of pink , roses, and taffeta. Gak!

So, this gal totally got the part about it being interesting and adding to the abiance and not just being about me getting as many flowers as possible. (We got their quote about a week after we came back, ouch can't spend a quarter of the budget on the florist, so sorry wonderful gal with great ideas)

Finally, the next day (after our Stan Hywet visit) we saw the last florist of bunch.

Platinum Weddings and Events- Going into this one I was pretty excited. He was one of the few florists to not use stock photos on his site (novel concept displaying his own work), ranked #2 on the Fox list, and we had a wonderful pre-interview conversation. My major con going into this one is that he's a one man show (with the help of his wife), which makes me a little nervous about illness and accidents. I love that he's a special events florist only, so it's about style and he's not going to be distracted by a million tiny orders or his delivery schedule.

Meeting with Rob was amazing! He got our sense of humor, had Mom calm and laughing. He suggested things we hadn't thought of, argued the pros and cons of the flowers we were already thinking of. (quick note: He was also the only one to use a computer, I can't help it, it made me like him more).

Long story and an even longer post short: Rob came back with a very reasonable quote and we've signed the contract, put down a deposit and have ourselves a florist!

Ohio the Venues

(sorry this post is so late, it was a draft for a while and then I got super sick and didn't do any work on it)

Saturday we landed in Akron with little to no sleep, but earlier enough to keep all of our venue appointments.

First up Todaro's:
We pulled into the parking lot during a torrential downpour and there on the edge of the parking lot is the outdoor ceremony site.


The staff was really friendly and clearly had done about a million weddings. We toured room#3 (which would be our location) it was nice in that it has it's own access and bathrooms (the other two share a set). Although it doesn't have any windows, the walls are grooved and lit. The walls were a nice neutral color but there are also two sets of gold colums (yuck). We've heard from everyone how wonderful their food is, but our major issue is we can't figure out how to do a cocktail hour, ceremony, and reception in a row in this little room.


Next we were off to the Rosemont country club:

This location wasn't even on my original list. I wasn't very impressed by their website and had counted them out when a couple of months ago Patty attended an event there, set us some pictures, and suggested it might be worth seeing. I have to say she couldn't have been more right. The drive leading into the club is long enough to make it feel private and secluded. The club itself is breathtaking and pictures just don't do it justice. Huge windows, fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, a patio balcony overlooking the golf course. It's absolutely gorgeous, but we were concerned because we weren't sure if it would be too big or not and no one could really vouch for the food.


We rounded out the day with a visit to the favorite, Roses Run:

From the beginning I was pretty sure this was going to be the location. It's super close to Patty and Jim's, beautiful website with nice pictures, and a menu that I think we could work with. We arrived while they were setting up for a ghastly Barbie wedding. Pink as far as the eye could see! That poor groom. They even had matching neon pink plastic cups for the bar. I knew that in the main room their is a high ceiling area and a low ceiling area, but you don't get a sense for how jarring the room is or just how low that ceiling is until you are actually there. We met with Jill, who didn't remember anything she and I talked about (including the great deal we agreed to). Then we went upstairs to see the ceremony site which has no windows and they would charge us $500 to use. As we were leaving she was about to cancel the bride's dream outside cocktail hour because apparently their patio is a wind tunnel. Last, but certainly not least, we've heard that their food sucks.


On Tuesday we headed out to the final venue, Stan Hywet:

I ah apparently took no pictures of this final venue. Basically, we knew within seconds that it was both out of our price range and would be a heck of a lot more work than any of the other sites. They had crazy high site fees and no onsite cater. Steve said it seemed like something straight out of the Shining. I thought it was an interesting historic site and am glad I got to see it, but it was not very pretty for as much as they were charging.

Tuesday night we headed over to the Rosemont Country Club for dinner. They have amazing bread and one of the better salads I ever eaten in the midwest. The entrees were sort of hum hum and Patty's chicken was dry. I was getting that nervous "crap our food is going to suck even if the venue is beautiful" feeling when the chef came over to chat with us. We had a long talk and some exciting developments took place. First, the chef is new and comes to the Rosemont from the Bellagio steak house in Las Vegas. Second, he has a ton of vegetarian experience and was visibly excited to create a menu, rather than just walk us through the standard wedding banquet fare. He's going to work on it and email us menus in a couple of months. Last, but not least, he didn't flinch when we brought up the dry chicken, just apologized and explained that it sometimes happens with grilling and slicing, but that even if we have chicken at the wedding he wouldn't prepare it that way.

Okay so long post short, we are getting married and having a huge party at the Rosemont Country Club on 10-10-2010. Yay!!

Ohio Odyssey: Delta the worst airline ever

And we're back!

We got a quick and easy start Friday morning. I was up at 7am, checked in with Delta so we wouldn't have to wait in line, made everyone breakfast, double checked the luggage, and we were off. We hopped on BART and arrived a good half hour/45min early. That's when everything went wrong. I had already checked us in and paid for the bags, so all we had to do was drop the bags at curbside and make it through security. This is where the trouble started:

We made it curbside, but they refused to take the bags and we had to wait in the line. Which took a while and we finally get up there and this nasty little man tells us no we can't possibly get on the flight and apparently Delta has no more flights leaving from any airport for 200 miles. He charges us $50 a piece to put us on a red-eye to Atlanta and confirms us on a 5pm flight from there to Cleveland. Which equals a whopping 29 hours in an airport!

While checking our luggage in for the red-eye we get a women who moves us to a noon flight (yay for 24hours rather than 29) and prints us tickets that say we are on standby for the 9:30am flight. We then spend the entire day hanging out in the airport, board our plane, get the only row of seats that doesn't recline and make our way to Atlanta.

Picture hot sticky Atlanta at 5 am, we are slumping from concourse to concourse in search of breakfast when we notice there is a 7:37am flight to Akron. Why would we not have been put on this one? This is particularly annoying because we asked the nasty little Delta man if there was any flight flying into any airport within 200 miles of Akron.

While Steve and Kaylea try to grab a nap on awkwardly spaced airport chairs I start canvassing the gates in the hope that someone will help us. Finally a woman at the 3rd gate directs me to a bank of help phones. After 10min of ringing and being on hold a very nice woman finally picks up. I explain the entire situation to her and she checks our tickets. Um so although I am holding in my hand sheets of paper that say we are on standby for the 9:30am flight, we are not! Oh yes she can see where we were added to the list, but she can also see where someone has removed us from the list.

I am horrified and on the verge of a mental snap when she agrees that we were badly treated in SFO and books us on the Akron flight, but the flight has decided to board and push back early so we have to hurry. I sprint the length of concourse C, rouse my groggy party, hustle everyone to the gate at the other end of the concourse where boarding has already started.

At the gate, another nasty little man tells us that he sees us booked on the flight, but the tickets have not been reissued so there is nothing he can do and that I need to talk to the woman on the service phone. So, sweat flying I sprint the concourse back to the length of phones and after another 10min on hold, am connected to a much less helpful women. She doesn't really want to talk to me and her silence is punctuated only by sighs and keyboard clicks. A small cluster of Delta employees is standing by the gate next to the phone bank gesturing and laughing while one guy makes exaggerated running motions. I continue to watch the minutes tick by until after 15more min she tells me there is nothing she can do and hangs up.

I sprint back to the gate (now deserted except for Steve, Kaylea and a handful of standbys). I try again to reason with the man at the gate and he finally relents and prints the passes. We are in the last row and before take off are treated to a fight between two of the flight attendants. We are finally airborne and although the passenger in front of me is belligerent and drunk before we take off, they serve him 4 beers during and hour and a half flight.

I was sort of under the impression before this flight that Delta was a real airline, but if you want to make to somewhere with your sanity and bank account intact (I returned home to find out they had charged the same baggage fee to my card 4 times) do not fly Delta!!!

I am not losing my mind, ha!

Hi,
So I've been running like crazy to finish up at 24 Hour Fitness, set up and use the new Bodybugg, get ready to start Google, and schedule all of the appointments for our trip to Ohio.

Today I thought the gourd had finally cracked. I kept seeing the same flower bouquet pictures over and over. Frantically checking website addresses to figure out how I had mis-keyed and ended up on the same website over and over, I finally realized the florists of the Akron-Stow area are all using the same stock photos on their websites. Ugh! I'm so disgusted. Well the meetings are set, but I need to put new ink in the printer so I can catalog and make note of some of this crap.

Wedding First Aid

Hey Everyone,
All hilarious, but if you are only going to watch one make sure it's the 3rd one.

Ohio Itinerary

Hey,
We are booked to head on out to Ohio and try (please let this work) to select a venue. To keep everything straight I am building the itinerary out here on the blog. That way you can all laugh at out ambitious schedule

Friday: July 10
All day Travel- arriving in Cleveland at 11pm
(spending the night at Patty and Jim's)

Saturday: July 11
12pm-Todaro's
2pm-Rosemont Country Club
4pm-Rose's Run

Sunday: July 12

Monday: July 13
9am- The Flower Corner (Mogadore)
10am- House of Plants (Akron)
11am- A Bed of Roses (Cuyahoga Falls)
1pm-Baughman's Florist and Greenhouse
3:30pm- Greenhouse Florist (Hudson)
1pm-Baughman's Florist and Greenhouse (Stow)

Tuesday: July 14
10am-Stan Hywet Hall
1pm- Platinum Weddings and Events (Hartville)

Wednesday: July 15
All day Travel- leaving Ohio at 6:45 am

Things we have to decide
1. Are we going to meet with photographers?
2. Are we going to meet with DJ's?

Will alter this post in blue as I get more details, but let's hear it...what am I forgetting? (Read what else can I pack into this weekend without losing my mind)

Check out this invitation

Okay so invitations suck big time. You want them to be nice, but not too fussy and no one is going to keep them, but they set the tone for the event and are freaking expensive.

I love what this couple did, totally not our style and they have we too much time on their hands but still neat!