ok I’m only 6 months in. I’m still terrible. I can say a few things with confidence though:
1. I will stop filming these after I wash up for bed and look like crap
2. I think I’m better than I was at 4 months (here)
3. And I know for damn well sure I’m better than I was a 2 months (here)
hopefully by the end of the year I’ll actually start to sound like I play the fiddle :)
#1: Vendors (musicians, florists, venues etc) who do not put their prices on their website. You have set prices right? When you make me expend the effort to contact you for prices I 99% of the time get a cut/paste response with a fixed price. Just put it out there, what are you afraid of? Making someones life easier?
This has been an unpleasent experience. Planning a wedding. You think you know what you want and you bring your mom along and she definitely knows what she wants and you can tell she hates what you like so you start to lose yourself and look at venue after venue until finally you step back and say, “hey mom, it’s my wedding, I like that very first venue we looked at” and you decide to book it and you think back on all that time you wasted trying to find a venue that would make you and her happy and you think, “what do I do with all this knowledge I’ve gleaned?” And I think the best I can hope for is to put it all out here on the internet and maybe, just maybe, it will save somebody some time.
Here are a list of venues I visited and got estimates for, for a 150 person wedding (brunch or dinner we don’t care - on a Sunday)
Weisman Gallery (dinner only):
Room Rental - $2600
Ceremony Fee - $350
Chairs - $525 (chairs in included for ceremony or reception but not both so you have to rent one set)
Tables - Included
Security - $100 (something like this)
Insurance - $150 (something like this)
Parking - $6/car = $450
Total for space only: $4175
(I think this is the most beautiful space to get married in the Twin Cities. I don’t think you can really do a wedding here for under 25k. There were rumors on the internet that you could bring your own liquor - if this was once the case it is no longer. Our lowest official estimate with food and bar (no dessert) came to $16,006 - there is still band, photographer, dress, cake, centerpieces, decorations, invitations, etc etc etc to consider)
Walker Art Center (brunch or dinner):
Room Rental - $1500
Ceremony Space - $1200
(We skipped cocktail hour in this scenario but that space rental was $1200)
Chairs/Tables - Included
Parking - $5/car = $375
Total for space only: $3075
(We didn’t get an estimate beyond this I liked the space, stunning view, but I wasn’t in love with the space - also, there’s lots of construction there at the moment)
Mill City Museum (dinner only):
Space Rental - $2200
Catering Fee - $790.75 (this was specific to our estimate)
Ceremony Chair Rental Fee - $525
Ceremony Fee - $350
Total for space only: $3865.75
(Our official estimate with food and bar and dessert but no apps came to $16,610 - here is another venue I don’t think you could do for under 25k with all of the other wedding expenses to consider)
Varsity Theater/Loring Ceremony (dinner only if you want to do the ceremony too):
Space Rental - $500
Ceremony Fee - $1500
Parking - $8/car = $600
Meter Hooding - $56
Chairs/Tables - Included
Total for space only: $2656
(Our official estimate with food, bar, apps came in just under $12,000 - If this space was more my style we may have done it here. The ceremony site is among the best in the city (below) - who knows, still may happen here…)
Dayblock (brunch or dinner):
Space Rental - $2500
Tables/Chairs - Included
Ceremony Fee (must be off site we’re too big) - $550
Total for space only: $3050
(We love this space. It is a total DIY wedding space but I think we both want to try to make it work. This is our front runner)
Campus Club (brunch or dinner):
Space Rental - $1000
Additional Items (tablecloths, napkins, dance floor, cake service fee, A/V, ceremony fee + tax) - $1112.20
Total for space only: $2112.20
(our total estimate was $12,569 - their space has a stunning view of downtown and floor to ceiling windows. I just didn’t like the style and I didn’t like that the balcony overlooked Northrop Mall - I’ve already done my time at the U of M - my bf LOVED this space)
Hells Kitchen (dinner only):
Space Rental - none
Tables/Chairs - Included
Total - $9,999.52 - this included dinner, hosted beer/wine and a cupcake bar - I loved this space, Eric was on the fence, it’s a little out there but that’s what I love about it. Both parties involved need to like the space though, don’t they? Also - we’d need to find a separate ceremony venue as there was no space to do it there. So, Hell’s Kitchen… next marriage! j/k
The Heartland (dinner only):
Space Rental - none
Tables/Chairs - Included
Total - This space came in around $13,000* for food, hosted bar, no dessert
* This space with dinner and bar does not include apps. The cheapest app you can get starts at $20/person - that’s steep! We liked heartland enough to overlook this but they contacted us and said no music dancing would be allowed due to permit issues so we had to throw them out (I’m not sure if that’s temporary or permanent).
Other places we looked:
Calhoun beach club - I liked it, my mom thought it looked ‘tired’
Urban Eatery - this would be an awesome reception space but we were too big
Lurcat - This would be a lovely place for a wedding ceremony/reception - beautiful. It was a little too expensive for us though I think you could make it affordable with a heavy apps type of reception.
Solar Arts Building - Big open warehouse space, too big and I suspect expensive (they mentioned a nearby site and said their price would be comparable) for what you get (nothing but a big empty room).
Studio 514 - Another big open warehouse, we loved the idea of this place, they never showed up for our meeting so we had a coffee at ‘corner coffee’ and were on our way. I suspect we would have loved it.
The Landmark Center - This space was really beautiful and what great history! We couldn’t do a brunch here so we threw it out. Price was ok though I want to say $2225 for a friday night tables/chairs included etc.
Places I didn’t look at but I think would have been cool if we were less that 150 people:
Sweeney’s Saloon - Sweeney’s you say? I say, hell yeah, look at their sweet, light, airy upstairs room - I love this room for a wedding of about 80 people.
Theodore Wirth Swiss Chalet - It’d be nice and really affordable for a smaller wedding.
There are two things you should do. Watch this criminally touching video - but take it from me and don’t do it at work.
Cancer has taken the life of yet another innocent. Thankfully he was surrounded by more love and support than most people could dream of. I’m proud of this hometown boy and the way that he lived and the way that he died. RIP.
I cannot believe this old Polaroid camera Eric inherited. Now we just need 100 peel apart pack film and a 3v battery. Who needs instagram when you’ve got the real thing! 😊 #old #vintage #polaroid #camera
I should probably listen to this every morning before work and again before I leave work every single day.
“The Microwave is the Ayn Rand of Kitchen Appliances”
(referring to the fact that the microwave is designed to cook single serving meals… it has an ‘every man for itself’ angle - not conducive to a family meal)
“Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.” What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves”
(this one is just great isn’t it?!)
In reference to dealing with America’s obesity problem, “eat whatever you want as long as you prepare it yourself.”
(he said this but I believe he was quoting someone else)
Do you have one of those songs that you’ve been listening to for years. Really, I’m talking 10 years. And over this time the lyrics slowly seep into your brain… a witty line here, a witty line there. And then one day you are listening to it, REALLY listening to it and you hear what the song is saying and you’re like, ‘holy shit! these lyrics are brilliant!’ I had that this morning. In the past there were a few lines I always really liked:
“Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred”
“Majority rule, don’t work in mental institutions. Sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions”
But now, seeing the big picture, I can say I love every fucking word of this song. In a pissed off kind of way :)
The Idiots Are Taking Over
It’s not the right time to be sober
Now the idiots have taken over
Spreading like a social cancer, is there an answer?
Mensa membership conceding
Tell me why and how are all the stupid people breeding
Watson, it’s really elementary
The industrial revolution
Has flipped the bitch on evolution
The benevolent and wise are being thwarted, ostracized, what a bummer
The world keeps getting dumber
Insensitivity is standard and faith is being fancied over reason
Darwin’s rolling over in his coffin
The fittest are surviving much less often
Now everything seems to be reversing, and it’s worsening
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool
Now angry mob mentality’s no longer the exception, it’s the rule
And I’m starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston
Stranded on a primate planet
Apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground
With generals and the armies that obeyed them
Followers following fables
Philosophies that enable them to rule without regard
There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated
Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred
Majority rule, don’t work in mental institutions
Sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions
What are we left with?
A nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
Who feel it’s their duty to populate the homeland
Pass on traditions
How to get ahead religions
And prosperity via simpleton culture
The idiots are taking over
still working away on the fiddle - nearly 5 months in. Getting better, still pretty terrible a lot of mistakes in this one but I didn’t want to make my accompaniment do multiple takes.
My teacher said to expect to be terrible for 2 year so I’m pretty much on course :)
I don’t know that I’ve ever spent Friday night at the gym before, it’s not the same gym as it is in the daytime. It’s sparse and quiet and a different crowd all together. I was walking around the track to warm up listening to an audio book I’ve tried to get into three times now but just can’t so my mind started drifting. I was watching the teenage Somalian boys play basketball and I kept imagining a gunman running into they gym below and opening fire. And what would I do? Could I be a hero against automatic weapons armed with nothing by my iphone? Heh what a joke. There’s no where to hide on the track only a chain-link barrier for ‘safety’. I was thinking I would lay flat on the track as far away from the barrier as I could - there was no way a shot could be fired from below at an angle that would hit me. I would try to army crawl down to one of the exits and pray it wasn’t an exit someone would be running up. That was my plan. I wasn’t happy with it, I hate that ‘luck’ element. After a mile I decide I’m creeped out by the track and go hop on a treadmill for a jog. The story of the Boston Marathon Bomber is on every TV in the machine area. They caught him while I was at the gym, people were cheering, the whole thing felt strange. I start jogging and looking around and see that I’m not 10 feet from a garbage can. My mind drifts back to that dark place. I know there’s not a bomb in that trash can but what if there was a bomb in that trash can? What would happen? I’m pretty close. Is 10 feet close enough for me to blow up with it? For some reason I think no, it’s not. What would happen? Would the heat from the explosion melt my skin? Would plastic from the trash can fly at me and melt into my scalp? I’m thinking these thoughts and fighting an intense urge to get off this treadmill and get away from that garbage can. It’s so stupid but I can’t stop my mind from going there. Between the school massacre earlier this year and the marathon tragedy this week the shooting in Bryn Mawr late last year that movie theater shooting… it’s been a scary time in the world. Every time one of these events occurred I’ve been at work, at my desk, streaming it all day long. How many hours of obsessing over these killings can one take before it starts to creep into your psyche and you start to formulate escape plans from gunmen when you’re working out at the gym? Will I stop doing this once the most recent event starts to fade into the past? Or are these events starting to change me? These thoughts I was having tonight, that I’ve been having for a while now, are new to me. Thoughts of self-preservation and heroism and fear and planning never occurred to me in the past. Why would they have? Something inside me knows that the Boston bombing wasn’t the end of this streak of violence we will have more tragedy’s like this and if they’re effecting and changing me then they must be effecting the country as a whole. I can’t help but feel like the safe world I grew up in where my parents didn’t lock the door and let me run around with my friends all night is gone. It gives me a real sense of sadness. It has me worried and I’m not going to lie to you, there’s a high likelihood I will not be signing up for the treadmill next to the garbage can again.
I really don’t enjoy wedding planning. I’ve been trying to avoid it for the most part and then last night, while I’m asleep I have an honest to goodness nightmare about it. It went something like this (in bullets):
and… I could go on but it’s getting fuzzy.
It was awful
