The fine print

I recently experienced something wedding related that I thought would be a good story to help future wedding-planners (or people in general).

If you know me, you know that I like to do a lot of research in regards to things. While I'm really not comfortable with the wedding timelines that I see floating around the internet and in wedding magazines, I did use google to see when it was a good idea to book a block of hotel rooms. I'm sure some of you are thinking "That's SO early!" but to be honest, I was worried that our date would be some big event that I wasn't aware of (it's Austin, not impossible) and when I called a couple months from now I'd have issues. I was also afraid that other weddings would book up rooms, etc, etc. Long story short, I called several hotels.

Only one actually ended up corresponding with me (how hard IS it to return a phone call?) and the lady in charge of things (who was/is wonderful) eventually e-mailed me a contract that included the price of our rooms as well as some other information.

For those that don't know (I didn't either until I researched), there are two types of room blocks. I'm paraphrasing here:

• open block - where guests have until a certain date to book the rooms at the rate that you've been quoted

• closed block - where all rooms that aren't booked by your guests by your wedding date are paid for by you, the bride/groom.

Obviously we chose the open block. 

So when I received our contract via e-mail, I was surprised to find that it stated the opposite. Curious, I e-mailed the Sales Coordinator (hotel lady's job title) and made sure that what I was reading (the language they use in these things!) was how I had defined it. She quickly, and very apologetically, responded back to me to say that SHE had made a mistake and written me into the wrong contract. Attached was the appropriate one. 

Guys - in case you're missing the message - READ YOUR CONTRACTS! Even though the e-mail correspondence between the SC and I had stated otherwise, I could have been liable to pay for the rooms that were not used!

I'm assuming that this was an actual mistake made and not someone attempting to take advantage of me - but that's not to say that it's impossible! While not everyone is out to get you, the same can be said otherwise - you can't always trust people in a business. 

This may seem like common sense to some readers, but not everyone thinks to read what they sign. Whether wedding related or not, you should really always read through anything that bears your signature.

So there you have it. Whether I will actually have any real advice or guidance to give to other couples planning their wedding is still unseen, but hopefully this will shine a little light for someone who may not have thought about it before. 

Morning, Monday!

This Morning, Monday is not nearly as exciting as the last.

Currently I'm reading: nothing! I finished Pride and Prejudice last Wednesday and LOVED it! I was half-way through when I posted on Monday and managed to breeze through the other half in two days. Like I said last week, I want to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower - but that requires purchasing another book.* So, I will just have to read something else that I own. Don't worry, I have several to choose from!

I'm listening to: Of Monsters and Men. I know I linked a video of one of their songs last week, but it just so happens that they're coming out with their album tomorrow! And because NPR is awesome, they've been streaming their new album for all to listen! So, if you'd like to try to out go here!

And tonight I will be watching: The Awakening of Spring. The school where Freddy teaches is doing this as their One Act  and they are performing it for the school tonight. They are actually very well known for their One Act Plays so I expect it to be amazing! And as someone who is in LOVE with Spring Awakening the musical, I'm super excited about seeing the play.

Hope you all have a fantastic week!


*I told myself I was not allowed to buy another book until I'd read all the ones that I already own. We'll see how long that stays true...

Morning, Monday!

In order to help me write in this more, I thought I'd try to write something that could should become a regular, weekly post, thing.

Morning, Monday! will include my current listens/read/thoughts for the week. So, here we go:

Currently Listening to:


Florence and the Machine - I'm really enjoying her latest album and although it's quite difficult to choose, here's one of my favorites - No Light, No Light:

For the record, never seen her video for this before... a tad creepy.

M83 -  I can thank my brother for this one. How the kid has better taste in music than me, I'm not sure. Here's Wait:

I'm not really a GG fan, I just didn't want to post a live version.

Of Monsters and Men - I can't take credit for finding this one either. In talking about Mumford and Sons, my cousin Whitney told me that she thought I'd like this band too. The week of Christmas this just happened to be one of iTunes free songs. Little Talks: 

Currently Reading: 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is currently book number 5 of the year (still hoping to hit at least 20)!! How in the world it took me this long to finally read this book, I have no freakin' clue. I'm about half-way through and LOVING it, though. I'm thinking #6 will be The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but we shall see. 

Hope you all have great week!! 

A little dinner conversation

A: So you know that McDonald's by the highway?

F: Uh huh...

A: Well on Monday I noticed it was blocked off where no one could drive up. And on the marquee, they wrote "sorry, we closed"

F: That's awful!

A: I know, right? Not "sorry we're closed" but "we closed"!! And then on Thursday I noticed that it wasn't just blocked off but they were tearing it down. There was a bulldozer and everything!

F: Well then technically, Ashley, they wrote it right.

A: ...Huh?

F: They were saying that they closed the restaurant, "sorry we closed" ??

A: Oh, wow... I guess you're right.

Up ahead... (plus a little rant)

Tomorrow marks our second trip to Austin for wedding related things. This time around we're meeting with a couple photographers to see how they mesh with us. We'll meet with two this weekend and hopefully that will be all it takes (we do have others as back ups if necessary). We LOVE both of their pictures and I'm really looking forward to meeting with them, but I'm also nervous. Sometimes I have to actually TRY to be sociable with new people because if I just wing it I'll most likely end up listening MUCH more than talking - that's just my initial personality. Now, once you get to know me I never shut up ;)

Hopefully this weekend will be successful and I can fill you all in once we've picked one! Even though this trip is short (we're there for less than 24 hours) I'm excited because we're crashing with my brother! Even though I saw him in December it was not enough. He was in town for maybe 36 hours because he had to work. We were supposed to have plans over spring break (next week) but he's working some more, so this will just have to do!

I decided to take a couple days during spring break when my mom is out of school so that I can try on dresses so I'll be traveling up to Dallas to do that for two days. I was originally dreading the whole process, mainly because of negative body image issues and the fact that I've watched too many episodes of Say Yes to the Dress. Yesterday though, I talked it out with my bff (and matron of honor) and she made me feel so much better about the whole thing. She's already been there, done that, so she had way more information for me than I was aware of and now I'm much more relaxed about the whole thing! And if it's not successful and I find nothing, then it'll just be nice to know what actually looks good on me. I have all these ideas of what I want/don't want but I won't really know very much until I actually go through the process of trying them. 

So yea.. hopefully the next few days will be very successful! If you want to end the post on a happy note, feel free to leave now. Otherwise, proceed ahead with my little rant :)

Now, onto another wedding related topic. I know that it is unavoidable dealing with people talking about money with regards to weddings. But recently I managed to feel guilty for spending money. Freddy and I haven't made it completely known, but most people are aware that we're paying for the wedding mostly by ourselves. Because of that we're definitely going for a lower budget than the average wedding. I have no issues with it, neither does he, because in reality that's not really our style anyway. But here's what happened:

Feeling guilty for spending "too much" money

During lunch one day, Freddy was talking with his colleagues (all men) about our future trip to meet with photographers. One of the guys (who eloped in Vegas) very kindly asked how much we were planning to spend on said photographer. Freddy spoke honestly, and was met with some exclamations. Of course, that isn't unexpected. What came later was what bothered me. Because I teach privately after school, I showed up the following afternoon to teach. Pete* the youngest of the group, before even saying hello to me, immediately shouts out "__ thousand dollars for a photographer, Ashley! Seriously?" To which I immediately felt the need to defend myself! First of all, in my opinion, how much we spend on anything is nobody else's business. Second, our budget for a photographer is quite less than average. And you know, I actually really care about our pictures! I want to have physical proof of our wedding that we can show our children and so on, pictures we can be proud to display in our home. But seriously, um, rude much? I understand that the guy is 22 and doesn't really know what weddings cost. But to call me out (in front of students no less) was completely unprofessional and embarrassing! Suffice it to say that Freddy was asked nicely to no longer discuss our wedding budget with his coworkers. 

I guess what surprised me the most about the whole thing was that in our wedding process, I am expecting the gasps because we are spending so little. I wasn't ready for the gasps because our "little" is more than someone else thinks is necessary. I'm trying to let it go... hopefully putting it down here will help the process a little. 

*name changed to protect the... innocent?

A trip to the past... sort of

So today I thought I'd take a break from talking about wedding stuff!

Since Christmas break, my friends Holly, Kandice and I have been trying to make plans to get together for a weekend. We originally settled on the middle of February, but I needed to reschedule, so after several facebook messages back and forth we settled on last weekend! Friday afternoon I made my way up to Nacogdoches, home to good ol' SFA where I spent my time as a college undergrad. Holly is currently there finishing her masters degree, so we decided to meet there. Driving in was definitely an experience. Because I moved away for grad school (yay Albuquerque!) I have been away from most parts of Texas for a while. I realized this December that it had been more than 3 years since I'd been back. Being there brought back a lot of memories. Truly in the "out of sight, out of mind" concept, I don't think about a lot of things that were associated with SFA because I'm not there anymore. Besides, who wants to be reminded of the stupid shit you decided to do that one time when you were 19? (haha for example)

Since I got in a little earlier than the rest, I was able to spend the first few hours catching up with Holly which, of course, was awesome. I pathetically told her how excited I was about this weekend because I had literally not had any "girl time" in for what felt like forever. Like I said, I've been away from most parts of Texas for almost three years!

I don't know how I managed to not take any pictures of us girls (there were five of us total), but here's a few pictures to highlight the weekend. Please excuse the iphone pictures. I actually have no excuse, I had my camera with me the whole time!

We had froyo twice! It was at two different places, so not too excessive. I'm such a dull yogurt getter, by the way. I always get original tart, and I always try one or two other fruity ones. I also always get fruit, almonds and granola. But you know, I'm never disappointed with my results.

Tart was good, the pink (strawberry) was WAY too sweet :(

Friday night after yogurt we headed back to Holly's where we watched Bridesmaids and a few of us drank a couple beers. Holly and I split a choose-your-own six pack, and I picked this to try along with two others I knew I liked.

Good hoppy flavor, but the aftertaste made it just okay. I think it'd be better on draft. 

It wasn't all girl time, though. On Saturday, after some arm-twisting, Kandice and I convinced one of my very best guy friends to come down and see us! Here's me and Jerry:

The whole thing turned out to be exactly what I needed.

When I got back I felt great. Better than I had in a while. I told Freddy on Monday that the trip had been good for me and he replied "I was hoping that it would." Because he knows me, and he knows how important having friends, and being a friend is to my life. I also told him how great it was to be around girls that support one another. I feel like some girls feel the need to bring each other down so that they can feel better about themselves. I know not all girls are this way, but I also know that a lot can be. Thankfully, I somehow always manage to be friends with the girls who hate girls that are like that. I know it may sound silly, but I left that Sunday feeling uplifted somehow.

Gotta love good friends.

Wedding Stuff

Well it looks like I have been all kinds of neglectful with the blog lately. I'll skip my lame excuses and jump on into an actual post :)

Before Freddy and I were "officially" engaged, we talked a lot about wedding ideas/plans. Although we've only been engaged for 2 months minus 6 days, there are several things we've known about our wedding for a while, like the location.

Freddy and I come from pretty much opposite sides of the state, and since Texas is far larger than it needs to be, that's a little far (8 hours actually). I'm not sure who mentioned the idea, but we both felt that making one side of the family travel so far wasn't really fair to the them. So, we decided to pick somewhere centrally located, making both families travel about the same distance. Of course, it didn't hurt that one of our favorite places just happened to be half-way: Austin. Freddy and I have both been in love with Austin for years and lately, it reminds us so much of our last home, Albuquerque, that it just feels THAT much more awesome to be there.

Because I'm me, once we settled on a location, I spent hours researching venue options. I was surprised by how many wedding venues actually exist in general, but also by the steep price these places charge.* Once we were actually engaged, I pulled up my handy word document**, and we narrowed down our favorites. Since we  knew we wanted to get married before the year was up we knew that we had to get busy booking a venue as soon as possible. Last weekend just happened to be that time!

We e-mailed and called several places, turned down one, never heard from another, and booked three appointments and one open house for last weekend.

Turns out, we only needed to see two and ended up picking the very first place we saw. I'm incredibly excited about our choice and can't wait to get married on December 1, 2012!!!

More details will come, but for now if'd you like you can check out Cedar Bend here!

*Venue/wedding prices are for another blog post

** I'm a HUGE dork, guys!