The Band.

We found a band. A great band.

Since F does not really care about the particulars when it comes to music, I took the lead on finding the band. After a quick Google search I found a website dedicated to NY weddings, www.liweddings.com. The site features just about everything someone may need for planning a wedding.

There are 20+ bands that are featured on the site, and just about all of them have their own websites that feature video and audio samples. Bands that did not feature video clips were skipped over. Why? Well, I realized that some bands may sound good, but they look like they are not having any fun, or lack some chemistry. If they are not excited, what makes me think they will get my guests fired up? I narrowed the group down and emailed everyone. Every band I emailed got back to me, and for the most part they offered up pricing information, additional video clips, as well as press packages they sent me with a DVD my F and I could watch together.

On their sites many of the bands sounded awesome. Then their DVD arrived. What happened between their website and the fancy DVD that came in the mail? I guess seeing them on a big tv with good audio made it easier to see and hear their flaws. Oh well. The pack was quickly narrowed to two bands plus a band that a friend had seen a few times.

We made a few appointments to check out live showcases, and off we went. This past Monday we drove to New Rochelle and saw our first band, the one that a friend referred to us. They are usually a 9 piece, but only 7 of the members were there. The were great. The only drawback is that they are expensive. For less than half the price we can get a DJ, but we decided that we were going all the way.

We would love to have a 9 piece band, but are going with an 8 to save a little money. Plus the bandleader gave us a discount since we offered to pay a chunk of the tab in cash. I guess cash really is king.

F's parents are going to pick up some of the tab, and my parents are taking us the rest of the way there.

The band features a drummer, guitarist, bass player, keyboards, saxophone, 2 female and 1 male singer.

Place booked. Photographer hired (have I written about that?). Band should be booked officially once we get the contract. Let's hope the rest of this comes together with such ease.

Comments!

Thanks to my friend for posting a link to my blog on her blog. I have since received a few visitors and even a few comments. One comment that really made me think asked if I may become a "groomzilla". Yikes. Let me assure you of a few things...

I won't be involved in the selection of the wedding dress, the bridesmaids dresses, the flowers, and the color theme. I expect to be asked for my opinion about the invitations, and the gift bags that will be created for all of our guests staying at the hotel at the reception hall. The gift bags will require my attention because I know that I will be needed to help pick up all the stuff that will fill them... The music will fall on my shoulders, and the photographer seems to want to have us both involved (btw, my F found and pretty much hired a photographer).

Is it wrong that I am participating? My F's parents are picking up most of the tab, but we are dipping a bit too, and I'll admit it, I am a control freak, but not a hysterical control freak.

I guess the true test will be watching closely at how the next 11 months of planning goes.

Jazz hands.

This afternoon a blogger friend of mine sent me a handful of links to blogs that are being written by people in the same situation as me. Most are from the perspective of the bride, although there were two written by guys.

After just a few clicks I realized that people add pictures, links, charts, and other great eye candy to their blogs. Please forgive me in advance because I probably won't be jazzing up my site with such things. Trust me, part of me would like to, but I haven't gotten there just yet. Perhaps with time I will get more comfortable with this and add a little flair, so check back often!

Kudos to those of you out there that have great looking blogs.

And in case you are interested, here is a link to my friend's blog.

Hotel gift bags.

This afternoon my fiance, now to be referred to as "F", and I returned from a weekend away with a solid group of her college friends. Fun times, but I am glad to be home.

During the near four hour car ride we were bound to spend at least some time talking about the wedding. It took about an hour to start. The topic was the gift bag that we are go create for the out of towners staying at the hotel. We both have traveled for weddings, and not every time, but most times there is a bag of goodies waiting for you upon checking in. It is usually packed with bottles of water, cookies and chips, and almost always Advil (thank goodness for the open bar).

At the tea party hosted earlier in the week by our banquet hall there was a person there that owns a company that creates and distributes these bags for you. F was all about it until she learned how much it costs - 25-35 per gift bag. With a projected 45 hotel rooms being booked for the weekend, we won't be hiring her. I suggested hiring F's younger sister for the job, and F thinks she would be happy to help out. She is very creative, and I think she would enjoy being part of the process.

Well, a few minutes into talking about it we found ourselves disagreeing about how many drinks should go in each bag. 2? 4? What if people are staying for more than one night? If two nights than do we double to stash? We were actually going back and forth about it. Another minute later we realized it was a crazy thing to debate over.

Is this the stuff we are going to spend time debating about? How many bottles of water go in a gift bag?

I have mentioned this before, but we needed to remind ourselves that it is just a party. I do blame myself for this debate as I broke a rule I mentioned earlier - only fighting the battles that really matter. Drink count is hardly worth debating over.

Don't worry, the gift bags for the travelers will be fine.

a thought

Is planning a wedding supposed to be a nightmare?

Maybe I am just naive, but it is simply a party with a little pomp involved.

Some music. A little food. Friends and family.

I'm glad my fiance has kept it cool so far, but considering that we are 11 months I am sure that we will have our moments.

I forgot to mention

On Sunday we met with a photographer that a friend of my fiance's recommended. Fortunately she has a studio in NJ, so it made it easy to meet her. She seems like she is on top of her game. She had albums from other weddings she has photographed, so assuming it really was her stuff, she is very good. Her prices are fair, and I liked her.

However, my fiance pretty much decided that she was the one based on a few phone calls she had with her. The photographer asked all the right questions, said all the right things, and pretty much closed the deal before we even pulled into the driveway.

I'm learning something... If my girl wants it, and I don't strongly disagree with her, she can have it. I plan on saving my energy for battles worth fighting, like when it comes time to pick the music.

Let me make this clear, I'm kind of enjoying the process. I don't want to get bogged down in the tedium, but am happy to work on the big things like picking a band and getting together information on the local hotels and finding a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. The invites, save the dates, address gathering, color stuff, etc... is all up to her.

Tea Party & Lobster Night

Earlier in the week my fiance was invited by the in-house wedding planner at our reception hall (yes, they provide a free wedding planner, but more on that later). They invited her to a "tea" with several other women that are also getting married there. She wanted to go, and for some reason I agreed to drive her out there. The place is about an hour drive from NYC, so considering that my fiance doesn't drive to work, and taking a train there and back would take forever, I took the bait and drove her.

Fortunately for me there is a restaurant on-site, so I grabbed a bite with my fiance's dad. It was lobster night, so how could I say no?

I know that I mentioned it is an hour drive from NYC, so with us living in NJ, it is more like a 90 minute drive. Add NYC traffic to the equation and you get total chaos, or lots and lots of traffic. It took me two and a half hours from the time I left our place in NJ until we pulled into the parking lot at the place. Oh well, at least it was lobster night.

Her dad is a good guy, and a Yankee fan, so we always have lots to talk about. Her mom decided to join her for the "tea", so I knew that they would make the most of it.

Dinner was great. The Yanks played a great game, and my fiance's dad had his Iphone out, so we had constant updates. Throughout our meal I received text messages from my fiance with gripes about the event - for example, there is hardly any food here, and none of it is good.

Finally my fiance and her mom wrapped it up at the "tea", and joined us afterwards. Apparently the "tea" is more of a weddings for dummies than anything else. Vendors are there to sell you their stuff, and they cover every tedious detail of wedding planning. My fiance was loaded down with brochures, flyers, samples, and even some chocolates.

It was basically a waste of time. Maybe if we lived closer we would benefit from their services, but we hardly have the time to make the trip out there to meet with them. We are trying to keep it simple, so we will skip all the BS they suggest like hiring a full time makeup person to follow my fiance around on the day of the wedding. And doing 3-5 hair tests before the wedding. Or much of the other stuff they suggested/were selling.

Good service, but thankfully my girl is rational, resourceful, and not a bridezilla, or not yet at least.

Thanks to her dad for dinner.

It was my first time driving her out for a "tea", and it will be my last.

BTW, no tea was served.

We got the place, now we need some music.

My fiance and I were engaged a little over a month ago, and a lot has happened since then.

First, you deserve some background on us, our plans, and the people helping us make it happen.

I am from NJ, and she is from NY. We currently live in NJ together. We had been dating for a little over 18 months when we got engaged. She decided that she wanted to get married close to home, and I am ok with that.

Fortunately for us her parents are very excited about the wedding, so they have been helping out. To save us the trouble of driving out there to scout out places, they spent some time weeding through many of the banquet and reception halls for us. They narrowed the pack, and we made a trip out on a Sunday to see their top two. The choice was pretty clear, and we picked one.

I'd like to tell you the name of the place, but in the interest of keeping this anonymous, I am not going to list the name of the venue or our names. I may list the vendors we are using, but I may hold off on doing that until after we get married. I haven't gotten that far yet with deciding how it would be best to handle that. If you think you know who I am, please don't post my name. Email me and I will gladly get back to you, so thanks in advance for not outing me.

Picking the place was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was actually a no brainer. It is close to my fiance's home, it is competitively priced, and the people that work there seem great. When visiting with other halls, I thought that they would all put their best foot forward, but I learned that this isn't always the case. One place smelled bad, and the woman giving us the tour seemed disinterested. It probably didn't help that I told her that I was having a really hard time getting past the bad smell. Oh well.

Since then we have checked out music options, learned about photographers, and did some light research regarding hotels and invitations.

A great resource for us has been friends that have also been married in and around NY. We like recommendations, and I am pretty confident that at least one of them will come into play, but more on that later.

I am going to quit typing for now, but promise to return later in the week with updates, questions, and my take on the whole process.