Recap #6: Cheap and Green Decor

We wanted our wedding to have a smallish environmental footprint, so it was important to us that the minimal decor we used be reused and reusable.

For reused items, eBay was my very best friend. To orient our guests to the importance of the place was chose for the wedding, I ordered a bunch of vintage linen California postcard from the 1900-1940s.

We used these both as simple Save the Dates (printed the wedding information on 3x5 stickers, and pressed them on the back of the postcards), and as escort cards, strung on twine with clothespins, which were the first thing guests saw when they arrived at the wedding site.

Postcards were a fitting theme, as both of us love to send postcards from our travels. I found some vintage toy mailboxes on eBay which complemented the postcard theme on the guest book table.

The postcard theme was picked up on the dining tables, where postcards from places we'd traveled together were the markers for each table.

The dinner table decor was simple:


Local, seasonal dahlias in blue glass vases (re-purposed wine glasses from Crate and Barrel, which guests report they love using post-wedding),

Persimmons and pomegranates, local, seasonal fruits, which guests reported enjoying for days after the wedding, and sunflowers in reused vases from eBay.

We were able to borrow white lights from a classmate who got married at the same spot the previous year,


And scored a bunch of borrowed/ donated paper lanterns from two weddings we attended previously that summer. (These lanterns and some of the vases have now been handed off to a friend getting married in August. Yay, Wedding Co-op! Yay, reuse!)

At the origami table, guests made paper cranes for good luck.

 I think our budget for decor was maybe $200. We spent another $300 on cut flowers, which friends arranged in our vases.

With the beauty of the location, we didn't have to do much.
Images, except for a few, by the incomparable Kate Harrison.
#1, 11, 12 by Doc Water.
Heron by Srabani.

Wedding album hell

The wedding was lovely. The photographer was one of the sweetest and most talented people I ever met. Her images were so beautiful they hurt my eyes. I mean, gorgeous. Unexpectedly breath-taking.

So when I got the album proof today from an outside company - NOT my photographer, I must emphasize - I was expecting all kinds of loveliness. I couldn't wait to flip through Kate's images, beautifully-organized on well-designed pages... and - what fresh hell is this???!!??! The album proof was cluttered, disorganized, and out-of-order. Though I was pretty much the most chill bride ever - told my florist to work with any seasonal local flowers in the red-orange-yellow color-family, gave our baker carte blanche to create a tasty cake - I flipped through the proof pages saying no, No, NO!

I hadn't realized just how important Kate's aesthetic sensibility had been in creating a beautiful depiction of our wedding day - and how easily a sloppy layout could mar the beauty she depicted. I'm not saying that the wedding day has to be all about prettiness. It was about so many things: fun, family, love, natural beauty, peaceful moments, laughter, heartfelt words, us. But none of that showed through in the cluttered layout, with images overlapping others, and crowded six or more on a page. And I'm embarrassed to reveal how much the album would have cost, had we purchased it: more than the cake, which made 100 sweet-tooths very happy, and provided us with an entire layer to freeze for our first anniversary.

In this alterna-wedding-blogosphere, we examine and question wedding traditions, and poke holes in those that can no longer stand up to 21st-century scrutiny. But this wedding album proof threw me right into the midst of all the not-suited-for-us traditions we thought we had escaped.

The largest photos were a close-up of the two of us kissing - it honestly looked kind of creepy and overly-intimate - and of me hugging my dad. It's a lovely photo, but undercuts the story of the day, which is that I walked down the beach with both parents. The father gives away the bride, so that's what matters. That's what we enlarge, according to our WIC-approved formulas.

Because I know an online photo album company can't read my mind, I carefully put the photos in order to tell the story of the day, before submitting my order. They disregarded the order completely, showing dinner toasts at the after-dinner cake cutting, and people departing from the ceremony on the same page as people arriving at the ceremony. Argh!

Wedding album lessons learned:

1) Don't pay for the full album before you see a proof or a plan (fortunately we paid only a "design fee," for what appears to be an algorithm-controlled design process: Father - enlarge. Bride - enlarge. Groom - shrink. People giving toasts - all on one page, even if there are 8 of them and they're so small you can't see them.)

2) Give *explicit* instructions. (I wrote back with a full page of design revisions. Let's see how they do.)

3) Compare offers. This faceless company offered 25% off, bringing the cost to way less than what our photographer would charge - but I'm surely her layouts are much better.

4) Consider doing it yourself (or together... or pawning off on your partner!). Petite Chablis and Accordians and Lace both did nice reviews of online wedding album software. I should have listened to them, before the WIC dug in its claws and started convincing me that I need a leather-bound, "professionally-produced", heavy-leafed photo album. How did this happen now, just when I was congratulating myself on having avoided the WIC throughout the wedding process?? (I might have to credit Mr. Barefoot here. In trying to guard my precious new-faculty-member time, he thought we should farm it out. Right motive, but little did he know that it would feed directly into the evil WIC.)

I suspect we'll head toward #4. It will be worth a few hours' time to have control over how the album turns out, and we can spend our savings on a weekend of skiing.

Any suggestions for high-quality online wedding album services?

Wedding trend: camping out

here, via FFFFOUND!

Is it just me and my low-impact, recycling-happy, granola-eating, mate-sipping friends, or is camping out for a wedding the new trend?

I've just returned from the third of five weddings this season (the final one being OURS!). We were encouraged to camp at two of the weddings, easily could've camped for the third and fourth, and are offering camping as an option for the fifth (ours).

I love getting outdoors, and camping and hiking have always been some of my preferred forms of recreation.... but I also think there's something slightly incongruous about camping out at a wedding.

On the plus side, camping is cheap and social and convenient. The most expensive campsite is a third or less the cost of a hotel room - an ever important consideration for a bunch of impoverished grad students. And this past weekend, the camping was free on Dr. Cowgirl's parents' land (no price is better than that!). With four weddings to travel to this summer, along with our own to plan, it would have been tough financially if we had not had low-cost accommodations options for some of them.

Camping is social: it's been great to hang out with the others in attendance without running from hotel to hotel. Sitting around late night campfires, drinking beer or roasting marshmallows, are some of my favorite memories ever. I think we're all trying to recreate those memories within our wedding weekends.

Camping on site is also safer and more convenient: since no driving is needed, everyone can party down without worrying about a designated driver. When the party's over - or when you've had enough - you just wander off to your tent and fall asleep. No need to wait until your partner or date is done partying, if they have more staying power than you do. This is a great option for parents: one parent can put the kid(s) to bed, while the other can easily drop in to check on them, or trade-off watching them.

This past weekend in the Tetons revealed one of the drawbacks of camping: you're at the mercy of the weather. Which was freezing! With torrential rain, wind, and pea-sized hail! While we knew it would be cold at night, no one expected the day time temperatures to get stuck in the mid-50s. We'd all brought cute little sundresses and pashminas, which sadly ended up buried under layers of fleece and down.

Which brings me to the other challenge of camping out at a wedding: getting ready. It's tricky to get dolled up in a tent. Mr. Barefoot wisely insisted on getting a hotel room for the night before the wedding, so that we could at least shower before the festivities. To escape the freezing, rainy weather, a couple of our friends ended up bunking with us, and we all elected to get a hotel room for the night of the wedding, rather than camp out in the cold. Had the weather been more cooperative, we would have been thrilled to wake up with the sun and a view of the river, but as it was, we were happy to have a roof over our heads.

The weddings I attended five or ten years ago were all about getting fancy in the city - elegant hotel rooms, cocktails at the bar, receptions in fancy ballrooms or country clubs. I like this new trend of more casual, rustic, low impact events -- and I definitely appreciate the inexpensive accommodations... all I need is the backcountry makeup mirror, and a battery-powered hairdryer.

Having you camped out at a wedding? What are your thoughts, pro or con?

Save/ splurge

After seeing the firestorm around Ten Thousand Only's reluctance to reveal her final wedding costs, and sera's comment at broken*saucer: "I don't need or want your wedding total. I want how to make mine cost less, and still get what I want," I decided to share what I've learned about wedding budgets after six months of planning.

All the usual caveats apply: trained driver on a test course, do not mix with alcohol, your mileage may vary.

Talking about money is the last taboo, especially for WASPs (high or not), but I feel strongly about sharing information to help each other out and not go broke.

The initial budget
It's nearly impossible to jump into a new world - where you don't know the parameters, what's available, how things are done - and come up with a reasonable initial budget. Our very first budget was $12,000. That seemed like a huge pile of money when we'd never spent more than a couple hundred dollars for wine and snacks from Trader Joe's for a party. Surely, we could wine and dine 100 of our nearest and dearest for that much. (Especially when I've been in grad school for the past nine years - hardly the road financial security - and both of us have buckets of student loans that we'll be paying until we retire.)

We knew we wanted a Saturday evening party, as about 2/3 of our guests would be coming from out of town. We knew we wanted to be outdoors, in a place that had some special meaning to us. But the cold truth about where we live: it's EXPENSIVE! Especially if you want a venue where you can hang out all day, not just for a few hours in the evening. Fortunately, our parents offered to contribute just when we were getting that horrible sinking realization that our initial budget might cover food, wine and location, but not much else. Our revised budget is at the lower end of the "average" cost of a wedding where we live, via wedding cost estimator, but much much more than the initial budget.

Networking
Most of the best ideas for the wedding - from the venue to the photographer - have come through connections. We are not people with tons of crafty artisan friends. But we do have fairly large networks, and have been blessed with lots of good suggestions (and fortunately few of the kind that question our taste or sanity).

Figure out your Values
The best wedding advice I received was to think about three aspects of the wedding that were most important to me, and to focus time/ money on those.
For me those were:
location
food/ wine
dress*

For Mr. Barefoot they were:
location
food/ wine
cake

Ceremony would be up there, too, as a fourth - but the thing that is important to us about the ceremony is that it is simple and community-oriented, mainly in ways that don't cost money. It was important to us to get married outdoors in a place that had personal significance, so our options on places were immediately limited.

*not that I wanted to spend a ton of money - I most certainly didn't - but finding 'the right' dress that made me feel really special was important. My initial dress budget was $800. I hoped to find a sample sale dress, or one at Brides Against Breast Cancer (even considered driving Portland for the weekend, to go to a sale!). Neither of these panned out, and I ended up 50% over budget, but I'm thrilled with the dress that my sister-in-law and I both independently picked out online for me. (Now, if I could just get over to SF to try it on...)

Catering
Our venue has a designated caterer, so that decision was made for us. Fortunately, she is the amazing former chef at one of my favorite restaurants in SF. From the start, we were clear about the limitations of our budget, and she has worked with us. Serving mostly vegetarian food and having stationary, rather than passed, appetizers has saved us some money. And, much as it pains me, we'll probably do a buffet rather than family-style dinner. The venue requires that we bring our own wine and beer - purchased for half price at the BevMo 5 cent sale. (We need to stock up on champagne or cava at the one going on now.)

Bargaining
With all of our vendors, we've been clear on our budget, and asked what they could do within it. (It helps that Mr. Barefoot went to law school!) A few have not been interested in discussing the terms, so we have just moved on. Most have been willing to develop a package that meets our priorities and needs. Photography is one place that we went way over our initial budget of $1000. After looking at tons of photos on the web, I realized that I wanted an artistic photojournalist who could capture the spontaneous moments of the day, not just the formal portraits. We also wanted someone with lots of experience, on whom we could depend completely. Ok, no way we were going to get that for $1000. Our photographer came up with several a la carte proposals that would cover shooting time at the wedding, processing, and the digital files, but none of the add-ons that come with a package (engagement session, wedding album, etc.). These were still above our initial budget, but allowed us to spend our money on the aspects that are important to us.

The budget crisis
Last week, we had a budget pow-wow. We reined in a few areas that were ballooning, and added a bunch of non-obvious, but necessary, costs that we'd overlooked:

• babysitters (most of our friends have toddlers);
• day of coordinator (after seeing all the work Mr. Barefoot put into my graduation party [a casual picnic affair] we knew we needed someone to handle the day of details);
• rings (ok, totally obvious, but more costly than initially presumed)
• rentals (chairs and tables for the cocktail hour)
• rehearsal dinner/ welcome party
• curtain to segregate the bathroom into male/ female sides (our site is a former military building - apparently there weren't any women around back then...)
• tax and gratuities

Where we've saved

• Music: DJ ($100 under budget for four hours of music); Mr. Barefoot's grad school friends will jam during part of the cocktail article; my uncle will help us compile a CD to use during dinner
  
• Flowers: cut budget in half, bought vases at the Dollar Store & cribbed some from a friend's wedding, asked florist to work within budget, just read that Whole Foods does flowers - may get boutonnieres (or follow this DIY) there; will probably get extra filler flowers from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or one of the local flower markets (on target)
• Save the Dates: handmade/ reused vintage postcards (maybe $30?)
• My shoes: half-price at Nordstrom!
• Wine/ beer: half-price at BevMo (a couple hundred over budget, because we don't want anyone to go home thirsty...)
• Favors: none, other than the fruit and flower centerpieces that guests will be encouraged to take home
• Decor: scored reusable paper lanterns and vases at friend's wedding, will use seasonal fruit, and white lights that we already own. Still in the market for some inexpensive votives...
• Invitations: local print shop does letterpress for the cost of flat printing (on target)
• Cake: on target
• Transportation: our own cars, lots of folks will stay on site

Where we've splurged

• Photography (2-3 times original budget, seems totally worth it)
• Dress (1.5 times original budget, ditto)
• Venue (not included in original budget, but significant cost)

Getting ahead of the curve
If, like TTO and a.mountain.bride, you begin your wedding planning blog before you are actually engaged, you can get ahead of the curve. I've learned so much from other blogs. Those clever girls can build relationships with vendors before they actually have to write deposit checks. TTO has mentioned that the generosity of vendors who found her through her blog helped with their wedding budget... I'm eager to hear more. Blogging helped us get a free engagement photo session, with the sparkling Rosaura Sandoval,who gave away a few free sessions to so that she could build her portfolio, I was the lucky recipient of a free plan-your-ceremony book, given away by a blogging bride.

To sum up, the main budget lessons I've learned are:

• Start a blog
• Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize, and network
• Let the rest go

Ya know, that's also pretty good advice for life.

Wed Head

Do you ever get this?

If my day starts with wedding-related stuff (today it was cake tasting - yum!), it is ridiculously hard to switch back to the serious, theoretical pre-professor I'm supposed to be. (Not quite a prof, but I play one on TV ;-) ).


Rather than focusing on that chapter I'm supposed to finish, visions of sugar plums, and tinted icing, and raspberry filling, and sugar silkscreened postcards are dancing through my head. Along with rings, and a dress-fitting, and the invitation design, and flowers, and centerpieces... oh, and the ceremony! Right now (four months out), there seems to be a lot to do, with all of it demanding attention.

I've got a bad case of wed head.

That said, I think we've found our baker, the lovely Edith Meyer. We met her at her 1921 Craftsman house that sits in the middle of a gorgeous fruit and vegetable garden, and sampled a delectable array of cakes and icings.

She works with locally-sourced organic ingredients, organic fair-trade chocolate, and free-range organic eggs. (The fair-trade chocolate is a huge bonus because much of the world's supply of chocolate comes from West Africa, where the production of chocolate often depends on child slavery. Ah, yes, briefly coming back to my pedantic profession. I learned the hard facts about chocolate only last summer, from a colleague. These little facts can help us become more conscious consumers...)

Back to sugarplums... Edith's cakes are not only socially-responsible, they're downright gorgeous, with a clean, modern aesthetic.



She copied the design on the bride's gown for this one.

Though we've steered away from the Alice in Wonderland theme idea (despite the fact that it would incorporate croquet and make a great play on my name) this cake captures the ideas that we discussed with her the best.

Edith's blog

We walked in thinking that we would get a simple white cake decorated with flowers. After going to a cake tasting yesterday where every additional design element added twenty-five cents per serving to the cake cost, we were in the mode of thinking conservatively in order to stay within our budget. However, Edith's pricing system is different, and she encouraged us to think outside of the (round) box. She worked hard to brainstorm with us to figure out what sorts of themes and ideas would represent us well.

When I mentioned the postcards that we used as Save The Dates and will probably use for table assignments, her eyes lit up. So the cake may incorporate design elements from the invitations that reflect our love of the outdoors, and pick up on the postcard theme to represent our love of travel. Woo-hoo!

I feel so fortunate to have met so many wonderfully skilled and creative people during the wedding planning process!

Cowgirl (type)Style

You all remember Dr. Cowgirl, whose inimitable style sparked a thousand clicks (well, at least a couple dozen), right?

Well, she's designing her own Western-inflected wedding invitations, with assistance from our favorite print shop, for her August shindig in Idaho. I can hardly wait!

She felt that the invite was not quite right, so I offered to seek out some Western style fonts to spice up her invitation.

Since she might not be the only one designing her own invite, or working on a Western theme, I offer the fruits of my labors here. These are some of the best cowgirl-style fonts I found, all freely-downloadable, except for the last one.

Tanglewood (#24)

Playbill

A bunch of Western fonts here

Mesquite

Old Towne

Nashville



Available here for $50 (along with a bunch of other western style fonts).

Notes from the field: ceremony in a redwood grove

As you may recall from a week ago, I was privileged to attend an amazingly fun wedding in the Santa Cruz mountains, completed with bocce, Buddhist prayer flags, and a bonfire. I'm back with some pictures... clearly, I won't be competing with the pros anytime soon, but these give you a feeling for the loveliness of the site.

The ceremony took place in a redwood grove - such a perfectly peaceful setting. I'm a little envious. We considered holding our ceremony at a redwood grove, but the designated sites at Muir Woods, where we hiked the day we got engaged, accommodate only 30 people. (But - wow! - what a glorious site!)

In any case, the redwood grove at Pema Ose Ling was lovely, decorated with flowers and colorful paper lanterns.


A harpist provided the processional and recessional.

An effervescent minister, who clearly knew the couple very well, led the ceremony. Two of my favorite moments were the passing of the rings throughout the assembled friends and family, so that each person in attendance could bless them, and the Blessing in Seven Parts, offered by the parents of the bride and groom.

And the bubbles! Perfectly ethereal!



(and, PS - Data Monkey and Mountain Man: I'm definitely looking forward to your annual vow renewal/ wedding redux parties!!! That was too much fun to do just once!)

Where are the men?

A friend - not currently a bride2B - who knows of the existence of my blog, asked last week:

Where are all the groom blogs?

Damn good question, when you think about it, since the internet tends to be dominated by men.

Often prescient, my friend was ahead of the curve again.

On Sunday, the NYT revealed the existence of a few groom blogs. It's funny, really, when there's a huge diverse blogosphere of wedding blogs written by women, that the Times chooses to focus on the few blogs written by men. An example, I think, of how an activity gets greater social-cultural recognition once men start doing it (see: grocery shopping, cooking, gardening).

My prediction: once male bloggers and marketers realize how much of the wedding planning industry has moved online, and how much more guys are getting involved in planning their weddings, there will be a gold rush. Stake out your territory now, ladies.

Notes from the field: bocce, a bonfire, and Buddhist prayer flags

I'm just back from the lead off to a marathon season of weddings, that culminates with ours in October. I dunno what's in the air this year (new administration? end of the decade? milestone birthdays? graduations?), but no fewer than eight couples in our extended social circle are getting married this year, and we're going to a handful of them. (We had to skip the Dutch/ Indian wedding in the Netherlands in early June because of plane fares. The rest are, fortunately, more local.)

I want to capture some of the highlights of this weekend's wedding before I forget. Pictures coming soon...

• The setting: This is one of the most important things to us, and clearly was to my friends - let's call them Data Monkey and Mountain Man - as well. They chose a spectacular Buddhist retreat center in the Santa Cruz mountains for a weekend-long celebration. Redwood trees, a firepit, hiking trails, a pond, Buddhist prayer flags, rolling lawns - just spectacular! Perhaps the spiritual Buddhist vibe of the place contributed to a serene, peaceful feeling. Plus, we were blessed with sunny, warm weather this weekend, making the setting all the more spectacular.

• The festivities: Friends and family who arrived on Friday were treated to a Moroccan dinner, lawn games, a couple kegs, and a bonfire. When we showed up midday on Saturday, Mountain Man was organizing a croquet game. The game went on until 3:00. The ceremony started promptly at 3:30!
  

• The lodging: Camping and cabins on-site meant that everyone could hang out and get to know each other, change from casual clothes to fancy ones easily, and enjoy the setting. Plus, no worries about driving at the end of a late night. For our wedding, we've got on-site hostel accommodations for about a quarter of our guests. I wish there were a way to lodge everyone nearby, because it really added to the communal feel of the event.

• The vibe: When we showed up, two hours before the ceremony, Data Monkey, the bride, was driving around the site, attending to some last minute details in jeans and a t-shirt, looking completely at ease and happy. I wish I had a photo of her when we first met up - she was so joyful and peaceful. I've got to seer this image into my memory - this is how I want to be on my wedding day. (However, past performance is a likely predictor of future results. I need to work on the grounding and focus in the next five months.)

• The flowers: Data Monkey bought $100 of California-grown flowers at Trader Joe's the morning of the wedding! Friends and family helped her put them in vases that she had borrowed from another recently married friend. The flowers were gorgeous - so fresh, vibrant and seasonal. Data Monkey had planned to order flowers from California Organics, but they were unable to deliver because of the Mother's Day holiday. TJ's flowers were a great choice!

• The decor: Tons of colored paper lanterns lent a festive air, along with the bright flowers and votive holders filled with brightly colored candies (Skittles and M&Ms - a huge hit!). Small potted plants - rosemary and succulents - decorated each dinner table. The couple encouraged guests to take home the flowers and potted plants. They offered us the paper lanterns and a bunch of small vases to use at our wedding. One more item off the wedding To Do list!
  

• The favors: This is the endless debate on the bridal blogs. This couple had favors that were useful. Because there were no servers at the buffet dinner, the couple put corkscrews at each place-setting, and bottles of both red and white wine on the table. That meant the guests could help themselves to the wine, and have a memento of the wedding. And, being huge readers, they created bookmarks with 101 recommended books! So cute!
  

• The dress: Wow! A lace-up corset top creates an incredibly flattering shape. Just wow.

More on the ceremony, the dancing, and the honeymoon coming soon...

A day at the beach

To go with the beach flags...

From here, via Gangsta Bride

Beach blankets and pillows!

I love it... so cozy and relaxed.

To cement your vows...

Concrete rings.

From designboom.

Thanks, Jen Elisebeth!

I am so excited to have WON something!!!

Jen Elisebeth generously offered up this book, which she had used to plan her wedding, and I was the lucky winner! Ya-hoooo!

The book arrived in the mail last week - I'm a bit late posting on this, what with Passover, and Easter, and Tax Day all following in quick succession - but I definitely want to say a BIG THANK YOU to Jen Elisebeth for passing on this great resource and sharing the love.

As I told her in an email, we're just about to ask a couple friends to officiate. Actually, we've been meaning to do this for weeks, and it keeps getting postponed. I think it's a little anxiety-provoking, really. It's asking a lot of someone. I'm sure that having a book to guide us through the process of planning our ceremony will make the friends/ officiants much more comfortable. Hopefully, we'll get them squared away soon.

Jen Elisebeth offered the book with the caveat that who ever won it would have to host their own giveaway after they were finished with it. So if you're still reading in six months, stay tuned for a great giveaway! :)

Audacious wedding planning

That's what Meg, at A Practical Wedding, does.

That's what Sara, at 2000 Dollar Wedding, did.

And Jamie, at a Desert Fete, did.

And East Side Bride.

And lots of other amazing folks that I don't know about, but definitely would like to...

And apparently, that is the secret to success in blogging and in life.

Now it might seem over-reaching (audacious, even!) to compare planning a wedding to overcoming racism or running a country, but I contend it's equally important, in its own quotidian way.

In the way that New Year's Day sets the tone for the year ahead, the wedding establishes the tone of our lives together. The reception is the couple's first act of hospitality for their community together - the community that has supported them to this point, and will continue to support them.

So when we're setting that tone, shouldn't we do audacious things, things that "can't" be done... like

• serving vegetarian food,
• or having a wedding brunch,
• or a pinata,
• or a wedding hike,
• or a wearing a non-white wedding dress,
• or pants,
• or... the sky's the limit!

What's audacious about your wedding?

(In my case, it's #1, and hopefully #3 & #4, as well as getting married on the beach!)

Another way to gain perspective

Meg at a Practical Wedding is have been providing genius savvy and sane advice for maintaining pure vision in the face of the Wedding Industrial Complex.

I found another antidote the other night.

I stumbled on this show, Platinum Weddings. Ever curious about how the other half lives (make that the other 1%), I watched. And realized that I really have no interest in five-foot-tall floral arrangements with blooms flown in from Brazil and Australia, or a wedding on a golf course, or acres of ivory draping on the walls.

Nope. Just not me. phew.

Does your life have an Emcee?

Maybe your life is more grand and organized than mine.

Maybe your butler announces your arrival at home.

Maybe you are proceeded wherever you go by a man with a microphone announcing "And now, let's welcome Lacey as she sits down prepare a report!"

But for me, such drama seems a little over-the-top.

So why would I want an emcee announcing my every move at the wedding???

I want my wedding to be a fancy, wow-she-cleans-up-really-well verison of my regular life, which decidedly does not include a butler or an announcer.

As you might have guessed, we are in the considering-musical-options stage. Our first idea was to have a friend's band play - how fun! how local! how keeping-it-in-the-family! We didn't know if we could afford them, but the point turned out to be moot: they'll be touring the East Coast in Oct. (So be on the look out for Poor Man's Whiskey if you're out east, or anywhere else, for that matter. We recently saw them at the Great American Music Hall in SF, and they were a BLAST!)

Ok, on to DJ options. Mr. Barefoot did some web research, consulted Here Comes the Guide, and presented a list for my consideration. I found several of them too cheezy to consider further - what is all this talk of emcees stage-managing every moment of the event? One wanted us to fill out a minute-by-minute chart of where the guests would be and what they'd be doing, so that the DJ could "keep them moving" on to the next part of the event.

I know that day-of schedules are the sort of thing that bridal mags and The Knot et al advise you to do, but we're much more ah... organic (some would say chronologically-challenged) than that. I don't prepare a minute-by-minute schedule for a cocktail or dinner party, so why would I make one for my wedding? (Maybe I should. If I'm over-looking something on this account, I'd be grateful if you'd advise me.)

Refusing companies that required detailed schedules, or gave any indication that they might play the dreaded Chicken Dance, or even hinted that they might announce a garter removal or bouquet toss, narrowed down our options considerably: to 2.

If anyone out there has a good line on a non-cheezy DJ or a cool affordable band in the Bay Area, do be so kind as to let me know.