March 2011 Archive

Happy Wednesday everyone and welcome to another installment of The Expert Files! I am super stoked about today’s feature from adorable bride-to-be and business owner, Amanda Reapsummer. A one stop-shop for Northern California brides seeking vintage-inspired wedding decor, her biz One True Love Vintage Rentals has dozens and dozens of inventory items ready to satisfy your vintage-loving heart. Amanda’s love for old found items combined with her event planning background and her dwindling wedding budget is what really kick started her journey into collecting vintage treasures. After endless trips scouring flea market she figured why not rent out her collection of vintage treasures to save others from the headache of having to find pieces themselves. With that OTL was born and I have to say I adore her thinking! I sure could have used OTL during my wedding planning as a bride-to-be. That darling yellow ladder has left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Read on my sweets!

I think I may be speaking from experience, but planning a wedding can certainly bring out the best and worst in people. Get ready for this rather shattering revelation too people; planning your big day can make you wanna kick someones butt all the way out of your bridal party brigade. For the sake of making this post too complicated to follow, below I’ve referenced bridesmaids as opposed to groomsmen, however I want to make it clear that I think making adjustments to your wedding day team is often a necessary and totally acceptable thing to do when you’re it comes to the utmost happiness on your wedding day (without going all bridezilla on everyone, of course). Here are a few of my painless tips for carefully asking someone to step down from their bridal duties and obligations. P.S. I am seriously loving these oversized bouquets and this photo snapped by Dave Getzschman of Ben Chrisman Photography.

{Soul Search} Try to pin point the reason you’re removing the person (or wanting to remove them) in the first place. If it’s your childhood best friend who couldn’t make it to your sixth dress fitting because she was studying for her bar exam and you swear you wont ever.forgive.her.no.matter.what. then perhaps you need to reassess your feelings and take a step back to see how sensitive – and ridiculous – you’re being. Sure, it’s your wedding day and your feelings matter, but everyone else has a life of their own too. On the other hand, if the person in question is someone you’ve included in your party simply because you felt pressured or obligated to do so and now that the wedding is close you’re realizing your mistake, then it’s probably a safe choice to proceed with getting her the heck out. Make sure your reasoning behind your actions is somewhat justified so that come six months after the wedding you don’t feel foolish or regretful but instead confident and satisfied with your well-thought out decision. A classy bride to be in always in style.

{Compromise} Sometimes completely revoking someone of their bridal duties, may be a recipe for disaster and thus you’re forced to really get creative and make the best of the situation. Be willing to make a compromise with whoever it is that is not accepting of your decision to remove said person, whether it be said person herself, said person’s brother, said person’s mother (who could very well be your own Mom too), or the other members of your bridal party. There are numerous clever ways to include people in your wedding celebration without officially calling them a bridesmaid or having them walk down the aisle before you too, from ceremony readings, usher duties, a toast or speech and the list goes on. You may even get lucky and lift a huge weight off said person’s shoulders by suggesting an alternative role. The good news? All this compromising is stellar practice for your approaching marriage. Score.

{Trust Your Gut} I cannot stress this little three word statement enough. It something does not feel right at any point throughout your engagement, chances are, it’s not. The same holds true for your wedding party. If deep down inside your soon-to-be-married heart you feel as if your high school bestie really isn’t meant to be your maid of honour but instead your new work supervisor who you haven’t even know for a year better fits the job, then act on instinct. Just because your third cousin asked you to be a part of her big day doesn’t mean in any way that your suppose to return the favour. If you’d rather have your best guy friend stand up beside you or instead you’d like to forgo the entire bridal party all together and fly solo with your groom, well these are all completely reasonable possibilities. No one except you, knows what you want and understands what will make you feel only positive and fulfilled feelings on your day as a bride. Close your eyes and picture yourself on your wedding day surrounded by only those who support you, love you and respect you as a person and a friend. And the people that come to mind are the ones that’ll make the cut.

How about you? Did anyone have the tough task of removing a specific someone from your wedding party?

I’m not the first to say it but running and maintaining a blog that works hand in hand with your business is one giant commitment. I know I know what you’re thinking, “But Rhi, you should only blog because it’s fun and what you love to do and it’s strictly for the sake of personal fulfillment!” and let me scream it from the rooftops friends, I do love what I do and yes, blogging is certainly all about those above mentioned perks. It’s just that when you are incredibly passionate about what you do and you have goals in mind and things your serious about accomplishing it can be a tinsey bit difficult to draw a line between work, blogging and life. Here are a few things I’ve started doing so I can add structure to my schedule and draw that fine line between work, blogging and my life as Rhi.

{Set Hours} One of the benefits of working from home is being able to roll out of bed and walk 15 feet to your desk. No work day commute, no need to get dolled up for the office; it’s not a bad set up. Yet on some days I find it is incredibly easy to roll out of bed, slump on the couch, turn on TLC’s hoarders marathon, and realize that come 6:00 pm I haven’t even brushed my teeth. Um gross. Setting a work schedule regardless of where I work from, not only provides structure and meaning to my day, but gives me a deadline to get things dome. I try to be on my computer by 9:00 am and pending my work flow logged off by 5:00 pm. I will then check twitter, email and so forth again before bed in case something pressing has happened. By giving myself a normal work day schedule I hope to make room for other activities in my life; like a shower. Too much information? Maybe. But it happens.

{Set Priorities} I love commenting on other blogs, I love watching television, I love taking naps and I love doing other leisurely things that are carefree, fun and enjoyable. But if I did these things all day every day whenever I wanted, it’s highly unlikely that there’d be any content on Hey Gorg leading to no job; and it’s highly unlikely I’d have a happy husband or supportive friends. Set priorities. Commenting, tweeting to and about others, linking to other sites, getting out of the house, going to a yoga class, calling home to family, sending friends a card in the mail, snuggling up on the couch to watch a movie. All of these things are equally important and crucial to a well rounded life. The key is setting priorities and making sure these things are done at the appropriate time. Just like I urge you above, to set hours, within those hours set priorities that provide you with personal and professional fulfillment, satisfaction and success.

{PreBlog} This sounds a little nutty but I’d say a good half of the content on Hey Gorg is preblogged; meaning it’s written days, if not weeks, before it goes live. If I get an idea for a post, or a submission that I absolutely love, I start formatting the post when I have a bit of free time so that when a day comes where I’m stumped for content all need to do is hit “publish.” Since I’m dedicated to blogging at least once a day and on some occasions twice, preblogging has made my life a little less stressful and frantic for me. For blogs where spur of the moment content is what you’re all about then preblogging doesn’t make sense. For a blog like yours truly it absolutely does.

{You’re Not Perfect} This one is a toughie for me. I thrive on the notion of perfection and bless my heart, have been medically diagnosed with a mild form of OCD. While it benefits things like my event styling work (and my closest and underwear drawer), in the grand scheme of things I am easily let down, frustrated and frazzled when things aren’t up to my standards. At the end of the day which these days unfortunately is midnight and beyond, I too often measure my success on the comments I’ve scored, the tweets I’ve tweeted and the amount of e-mails I’ve successfully responded to and archived neatly in the appropriate folder. Once you’re able to say “That’s enough for the day” or “Or well the feedback for today’s post wasn’t what I expected” and you are able to move forward and embrace a new day, you can allow yourself to grow, learn and experience positive thoughts as opposed to thoughts of not meeting your potential. And remember, if someone comes across as being a master at doing it all, chances are they are missing something in their life whether it be personal time, a social agenda, a gym routine, an orderly home; or they can afford to pay for an assistant. No one is perfect.

What are your thoughts on Balancing Blogging and Life?

I’m sure someone out there is going to tsk tsk or frown upon what I’m about to share, but our wedding, the one you all saw here, cost us $27,000 give or take a few thousand. Twenty-seven thousand big ones, my friends, $10,000 of which was generously given to us by my parents and $5,000 which was given to us by Andrews. The rest was funded by us. While we never really had a budget set from the get go we simply decided along the way if select items were necessary, important or doable for us. If we couldn’t make something work within reason then we moved on and learned to live without that specific something, done and done, end of story. And in the end we made $27,000 work for us. How do ya like them apples, blogettes? It’s not a number I am ashamed of and it’s not a number I am proud of but instead is merely a number that represents what we spent on everything that made our wedding what it was. For those inquisitive readers out there who are a little nosy (I’m nosy too, it’s cool) fifteen thousand went towards our venue, ceremony, food, alcohol, cocktail hour, and linens costs. The rest, including our honeymoon fell within the $12,000 remaining. If anyone is interested in any specific breakdowns of how much I spent on decor, DIY projects, photography, my dress or whatever, then send me an e-mail. I have no problem disclosing the totals on everything else. 

The point of my post today, is I wanted to generate a discussion on what the average wedding budget really is and what it truly means (not that I believe one specific average wedding budget exists because it doesn’t). There are so many magic numbers that float around out there as being industry standards for quality product and services and while it’s my job as a wedding stylist and coordinator to be aware of these prices so I can educate my clients I can’t help be feel like there’s a huge gray area when it comes to the cost of throwing a wedding. Some penny-pinching couples (I adore you guys, you amaze me with your frugalness and attention to detail) think $5,000 is an appropriate average wedding budget. Some couples think $100,000 is a fair amount to fork over for their big day. Maybe that’s just a number they’ve picked off the top of their head, maybe it’s what they can afford or what they’ve been given by their parents or maybe it’s the ‘average cost’ among their social circle and community. And some couples, perhaps in smaller cities may think $15,000 or $40,000 or whatever the number is is more along the lines of an average cost. And much like how unique each and every wedding is, the budget for each and every wedding is completely rare in it’s own form.

I saw this once on A Practical Wedding and thought it was a fitting idea for today’s Pep Talk so I am encouraging everyone, married or not, to leave an anonymous comment below with the cold hard facts of how much you spent or plan to spend on your wedding day. You can leave one total or a combination of totals that culminated to your grand total but please be respectful of others and refrain from bragging about how you saved money/had money to work with/spent almost less than half of the commentor above you. I for one, always had a greenish-hued cloud of dolla bills hanging over my head during my 2.5 years of engaged bliss and know that hearing from others would have made me feel a bit better about my choice to spend or not spend x amount of money in one direction or another. Money is a touchy subject and people are often quick to judge others based on their spending and saving decisions so I can only hope the post will allow you and I to have a new outlook an what that pain in the ass of an average wedding budget really is and what it really means, big budget or not. The whole wedding cost discussion is a little taboo and I want to change that because wedding costs are as real as the pretty pink roses in your bouquet. Ready, set, go! Above photo by Amanda Wilcher Photography.