2016 and beyond wedding moms and dads (Part 1)

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
961

@teriwtt Even before I got to the last paragraph I was thinking about whether you looked at vrbo/homeaway and airbnb for home rentals in the area of the wedding? B&Bs? A quick glance shows that there appears to be a lot of options. In addition to your own rental, families/groups of friends could rent out bigger places and there are small places for couples. The place you found sounds super!

If it was me, I’d probably give the race organizer a call to double check on routes/timing and how it might affect your own logistics. I’d just tell them the situation and ask them to explain there set-up, route, etc.

962

In my large extended family, first cousins of the parents have not been invited to weddings but the aunts and uncles of the parents have been, along with someone to drive them as they get into their 80s and do not drive far or at night. The other cousins are not invited and I think everyone understands.

I still recall my coworker who asked when his invitation to my wedding would be coming and I had to explain there just wasn’t room for everyone. I have not been invited to weddings of friends kids because the kids wanted a smallish weddings and did not include friends of their parents they were not close to.

You and your daughter just need to come up with a standard response (size limit, desire for small wedding, no kids) and stick to it.

The Santa Inez venue sounds amazing. The 2 night stay is tough on guests, but if they are coming from far away 2 nights in Santa Barbara will be needed in any case. Nice of her to provide transportation.

963

@doschicos - H and I did our own research on the ride’s website, but when I reached out to the VRBO rental agent, I asked him about the logistics. He was the one who told me the race starts early, and roads are never completely closed down, and that it’s basically over between 11AM-noon. The route for us to get to the venue from our VRBO doesn’t even go anywhere near the race route. And yes, in the email we sent out to invitees, we did suggest checking out VRBO, airbnb and HomeAway. The only problem with staying at those is they wouldn’t have transportation to/from their rental to the venue so people would need to have DDs. I guess we could look into whether Uber is available in the area and suggest that for people, too. D did tell me yesterday that one of the rooms in the one local block she got has already been reserved. So someone has heeded our warning.

However, I need to keep in mind that it’s not only the guests we need to warn, but other vendors so they pad enough time to get to the venue, such as photographer, hair/makeup stylist, etc. - the people who need to be there earlier.

964

@teriwtt the wedding sound beautiful and good for you all tackling these road blocks (literally!) now. Good idea to contact the bike race people - now before things are too intense for them rather than later!

There was some unscheduled road construction right by the church where my son was getting married this summer. Anyone using GPS to get to the church was going to get stuck. The day before the wedding we all took a moment to text anyone from out of town we knew was coming and offered up alternative routes. This helped everyone get to the church “on time” so things started on time. Point being, you may consider making note somehow (on a little seperate card insert in the invite or something) about this big event and any way that it may affect the travel or timing of your event.

965

@teriwtt - if you have any questions about area I am familiar with the SY valley and Santa Barbara.
My friend had a similar situation where her S was planning a Santa Barbara wedding and they were from out of town. Thankfully she told me the date before they signed the contract.It was a weekend in August that is the biggest event in town of the year. They were able to book the wedding a week later.

966

Forgot to add- yes to Uber in SY valley. My MIL has also taken Uber from valley into SB on a few occasions.
Also if anyone has an RV there is a RV park in Buelton that is suppose to be nice. And for younger guests Santa Maria will have less expensive accommodations but again would need DD.

967

Thanks for the info on the RV park. D’s fiance’s dad and step mom have a lovely one and I suppose will be driving it down and inviting some of their family to stay in it along with the house they will be renting also. Interestingly, one of the regulations in our rental contract is that we cannot allow any RVs to stay on the property, so I’m assuming their rental house will have the same regulations and they will need to park it somewhere else.

Thanks for the Uber information!

968

I completely forgot to add a very interesting side story to D’s wedding, very apropos to CC. When she was a senior i high school looking at colleges, I happened to connect with another CC mom whose daughter was at the school D was heavily considering (Muhlenberg College). As this mother and I exchanged messages, we realized our daughters were SO much alike and we really hoped they’d become friends if D ended up there. Well, D did end up there, and although the two girls were in the same program, they just never really fell into the same social circles, and never gave the friendship a chance to develop. Fast forward three years, and the other girl graduates and moves back to the west coast where she is from. Year following, D graduates and moves home to work and save money so she can also move to the west coast. I’d had the opportunity at one Parent’s Weekend to meet the parents of this other girl, and she was just lovely. I sort of mourned the fact that our daughters never really connected.

So D moves out to LA and starts to get settled. Somehow she and the other girl finally start connecting since networking in their field is so important. Before you know it, they are taking classes together and D gets the other young woman a job working for the company D works for, and occasionally they are sent out on jobs together. Over the next 3-4 yeas, I make several trips out to LA and the other girl’s mom and I, along with our daughters have lunch, etc. Their friendship continues to evolve and grow deeper as they spend more time together. And now this young lady will be one of D’s attendants at her wedding and her parents are invited! The mom has made an offer to get D into a member’s only retail store in OC with her where they can maybe find some decorations for the wedding, etc., so we will be going to that store in October when I am there.

Of course, the other mom and I laugh when we think about how we tried to get the girls together when they were in college, but they wouldn’t. And now… well, we are just both thrilled that they finally did, but don’t dare say to them, “I told you so!”

969

[QUOTE=""]

but other vendors so they pad enough time to get to the venue, such as photographer, hair/makeup stylist, etc

[/QUOTE]

I highly recommend a day-of coordinator. My daughter is very, very happy to have that person on board – and that’s exactly the sort of thing a good coordinator takes care of.

970

@terriwit I so enjoyed your lovely story about your daughter and another CC mom’s daughter and now they work together and will be in your daughter’s wedding ! Wow just wow-'as you know my daughter was at muhlenberg, too, and I appreciate how this small east coast school brought everyone together !And, now they are on west coast - amazing !
Congrats on your d’s wedding in March, and that rental home sounds amazing

971

@SouthJerseyChessMom - so a sort of creepy story about the two girls; several times a year they get out away from LA and go hiking on a day trip in some pretty rural areas. On one of their second or third hikes, they were out in the middle of nowhere, and ran across a random Muhlenberg sweatshirt lying in the middle of the trail! They really were sort of creeped out; I mean, it’s a school with 2500 students! Very small world.

972

@calmom - the venue they are having it at is a ranch, where on weekends, all they do is weddings. The owners make themselves fully available the day of the event as coordinators. D and her fiancé will be staying on the property the night before and night of the wedding, so it makes things very convenient. And honestly, we gave them the money, and have them if they spend less, they can keep the difference; if they spend more, they have to come up with the difference, so she has to make these decisions.

973

@teriwtt ok that is a creepy story- people on east coast usually don’t know about muhlenberg ( except savvy CC ers) so two alums hiking in california finding a 'berg sweatshirt - wow

974

How common is it for hotels to charge you for a block of rooms if you don’t meet the minimum? DS just told me that they have to fill X number of rooms at the hotel, or he will actually be on the hook for paying for them himself!!! I am horrified, since I think it is possible they will not fill with the 2 night minimum. Is this common practice? Any way out of it?

975

Is the contract already signed? That seems unusual. I’ve never booked a block of hotel rooms for a wedding or social event but have done so various times for sports teams and never faced a situation where we had to guarantee a minimum number of rooms. Typically, the block rate was just good until a certain date several weeks before the event.

976

With room blocks, I always thought that there was a deadline for guests to book those rooms, and after that deadline any unbooked rooms would be released from the block back to the hotel. I haven’t heard of having to pay for unbooked rooms.

977

^@shellfell, for my son’s wedding we had several different arrangements at different area hotels. (Guests had different needs and priorities.) At one, in order to “hold” a block of five rooms, I was told that by a certain date (I think several weeks before the wedding) I would have to officially “release” the remaining rooms OR would be on the hook for them. This was because the arrangement there was that in order to hold the rooms I had to reserve them in my name (and with my credit card), and guests would have the reservation transferred to them if they wanted the room. (All this was communicated to the family members who might be choosing this option. Guests would let me know as they took one of those rooms, each with a different confirmation number.)
For that hotel, we ended up with one remaining room, which we decided to hold on to as a backup, and was eventually taken by a family member anyway.
Worked out fine, I just had a note on my calendar several days before the “locked in” date, to check the status and release any we did not want.

For other places, including those hotels we used for my D’s wedding (in another area) it was as you say, a number of rooms were set aside for the event room block and if not taken by the deadline (a month before the wedding, I think), were automatically released by the hotel.

Things were more complicated for S’s wedding because there were numerous events that popular weekend, and also guest groups had different agendas re locations and room situations.

978

@anxiousmom - that’s what my daughter is running into. They can set aside a block of ten rooms, but for anything more, she would incur charges for anything over ten that is not used by wedding guests. Not only that, but her room blocks must be for two nights… Friday and Saturday. I guess the way to get around that is to get two room blocks at two different hotels so you have 20 rooms total without any financial risk to your son.

979

D selected only hotels whose terms were as @shellfell describes, but in investigating room blocks, there were some that wanted guaranteed minimums.

980

Well, I suppose I’ll lay out my d’s “alternative wedding” a bit. A pictures’s worth a thousand words, so forgive a few links! D and her fiance were high school sweet hearts and have been together almost 6 years (friends for 2 years before that). So we know her fiance very well and couldn’t be happier that he’s officially joining our family. Luckily they’re local so we won’t have some of the headaches others have encountered! They are both total geeks (an “adorkable” couple!) They’re both into D&D, SF&F in its many forms, ren faire, that kind of thing. D is a dancer (hopefully will get into PT school as dancers don’t make too much!) and belly dance is her passion…

…Just a brief interruption due to the fact that there are many misconceptions in American society about belly dance. Mainstream belly dance has no relation to stripping, exotic dancing or any “adults-only” form of dance. Hollywood and the popular media don’t do much to clear this up. I’ve been to many many belly dance performances (not just with D in them) and all have been family friendly and there have almost always been kids in the audience. If anyone has questions around this, I’d be glad to answer, but in the mean-time…

So the wedding “theme” (I use that word loosely :smiley: ) is sort of a combination of belly dance, ren faire, and elves. If you aren’t hurrying over to the “tacky wedding things” thread, you may be asking yourself, “what exactly does a belly dance/ren faire/elvish wedding look like?” Well, we’re working on that.

Most people who’ve seen belly dancers at restaurants or as entertainment at events have probably seen cabaret style belly dance – kind of the I Dream of Jeannie sheer pastel look with fairly traditional Middle-eastern music. D’s style is tribal fusion which covers a big range, but this video is pretty typical of dance and costume style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUJaJDZV95w

D is having her bridal costume custom-made and has been going on fabric-shopping expeditions with the designer. It’s going to be expensive, but the big plus is that she’ll wear it many times beyond the wedding. I don’t know too much about how it will look and am anxious to find out more. For the ceremony (but not the reception) she will wear a Ghawazee coat over the belly dance costume, something like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1d/1f/ca/1d1fca0a80e31d6229d21383e81423b3.jpg

The bridesmaids will wear leather tops (kind of like a halter top) and 25-yard skirts like this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dc/88/0e/dc880e8c0af005126585f1bbb92bb6f3.jpg

And I think she decided on elf ear jewelry as her gift to the attendants, which would be like this:
http://img.costumemodels.com/1/220/elf-ear-jewelry.jpg

There will also be tons of accessories – various belts, scarves, flowers, feathers, jewelry – because tribal fusion dancers really love accessories. Luckily D has a lot of belly dance friends, so most of the bridesmaid costuming will be borrowed. I think she said they’ll end up paying about $40 each to get some matching items. I don’t know too much about the groom and groomsmen, but I think it will be something ren-faire-ish or like a D&D adventurer. You know, just regular stuff…

That’s the end of the illustrated portion of this post!

We found the perfect venue pretty quickly. It’s on the property of a quaint little mountain roadside cafe near Estes Park (in the Rocky Mtns). The wedding will be outdoors in a beautiful meadow. We looked at places with truly stunning views, but they were much more expensive and we all agreed that this place actually suits them better as far as the overall tone. There is one woman who handles all the details of the venue and we are using their “in-house” caterer as well. She will be as close as we have to a professional wedding planner. I love the fact that we have the venue all day (I think from 8am to 11pm), as they only schedule one wedding per day. It also includes a rehearsal time earlier in the week. The reception will be in a big tent right behind the cafe.

My 18yo D will be maid of honor and 16yo S one of the groomsmen. D and groom will have 4 attendants each and one of D’s is a “bride’s man.” S is also going to be the emcee/DJ (venue provides a sound system luckily) and it is right up his alley. H’s father (a real minister!) will be officiating, just as he did for H and me. D and her fiance don’t want a standard ceremony (surprisingly enough, right?), so D and FIL have been working together on those details.

The reception will have a ton of dancing, both planned and just general dancing. D has a whole google doc with the various dance pieces laid out. She wants to do a mother-daughter dance in addition to the traditional father-daughter dance. So we’ll be doing a VERY SIMPLE (she promises…) belly dance duet. There will also be a mother-son dance for her fiance. And lots more dancing. I’m having so much fun building up potential wedding reception music lists on Amazon Prime and youtube! There are some outdoor games and a firepit behind the tent for even more fun times.

Right now our biggest issue is the guest list. I appreciate the helpful comments about dealing with people who assume they’re invited and also the discussion about who “must” be invited. We are having some issues on both H’s side and mine with the guest list. I’m sure I’ll be ranting and asking advice here often about these and many other issues. For now, I love hearing all the wedding talk!

@teriwtt, wow, kind of a suspenseful story there – what a great coincidence that your niece knew about the bike race. I’m glad you’ve got your own accommodations all set. Cool story about how things worked out with your D and her “cc friend!”