Wedding Planning Down to the Wire

Ok, be forewarned, this is going to be a marathon post. Likely longer then any of the other posts thus far. I'm going to try to summarize the entire week leading up to the wedding with the exception of Friday & Saturday.

Our trip begins on Saturday with a rude ass, dark & early AM wakeup @ 5:00. What were we thinking? Angel was up before I was as she was already showered when she woke me up. I take the opportunity to shower because we're already completely packed and our ride shouldn't arrive until 5:30. Well, as soon as I step out from my shower, there are headlights in our driveway. Ernie is at least 15 minutes early. It's ok, all I have to do is get dressed, close & lock all of our windows, load the car & we're rolling.

Well, between bullshitting & what not, we don't leave until ten to six. I can't remember our flight time but, by the time we got to the airport and check in, we've got about an hour to kill. Not a big deal. We walk outside, have a smoke and decide to venture thru security. We get to the carrel point and it is a zoo. I was not expecting this number of people at the airport at this hour on a Saturday. Anyway, thankfully Hartsfield Jackson was designed to handle the throughput and we were thru there in a relatively short period of time.

Once thru security, we stop at a shop so I can grab a magazine and coffee for Angel. At this point, we also find a smoking room. I think ATL is one of the few airports that offer this luxury. By the time we finish up, board the plane. We just about walked right on the plane. And the ride to Pittsburgh was uneventful. Which is just the way we like it.

Of course, Mom, being ever impatient showed up at the curb to pick us up before we even got our luggage, we had to flag her around for another lap. There were no problems with our luggage, it came right out & we were rolling once Mom came around again. From the airport, Mom treated us to the traditional meal (breakfast this time) upon landing. Bob Evans was the choice of the day, as it is something different and something that we don't have here in ATL.

Mom took us to Angel's parents from there. We got to their house before they did, but it was not much. The day didn't really go the way Angel had planned. She had anticipated that we would work on wedding stuff. Well, we did a little, just not as much as she had expected. However, this worked out for the better. Anyway, we finally got to checkout some items that we purchased online and had shipped directly to Pittsburgh. This included, Napkins (though we received one from Mom), toasting glasses, knife, service knife, and cake topper. I was expecting that my gifts to the guys would be there by now, but to my distress, not so much. Anyway, there was much talking done but not much acting. At some point it was decided that Sunday would be our planning day to include the placement of guests.

Around 2 I started making phone calls to determine the feasibility of a group Munchkin night. On a planned basis, this is hard to pull of, this short of notice would almost make it impossible. Well, to our surprise, everyone that I talked to was going to make it. Beagle, Ray, Dave, Josh, Lisa, and ourselves. What a crew. And to top everything off, Angel's parents offered to let us use their dining room to play. I don't think they understood what they signed up for. More on this later.

Angel had her final fitting for her dress today, so I had time on my hands. Dana came over, and we ventured to the mall at about 3:30. I had to find something for Camren & I wanted to find an engraving machine. First stop, Remember When. I asked what I thought was a simple question, but I got a cryptic answer.

Q: Do you still offer embroidery services?
A: No. Only on items we sell.

Well, damn it, which one is it? So, as I stew on the answer, Dana and I walk around to check everything out. I'm hoping something will jump out at me and say, "Pick me!" We looked at almost everything in the store twice and we both managed to miss the one thing I was looking for both times (not that I knew at the time for what I was looking). So, I happened to stop to look at a off-wall display, again, and Dana points out this stuff sack. It was by Jansport, but it appeared flimsy and not very durable, though it was cute. Anyway, right above it, we found mini backpacks with embroidered names. A-ha! We have a winner. Fortunately, the display model had a nice color scheme because we later discovered that the bag color and accent embroidery was not selectable. We were stuck with what was there. Ok, so we have a winner, but can I get it in time? They say it is a 7-10 day turnaround. This is Saturday prior and I need it before Friday. That isn't going to work. Well, they have an expedite service that was very reasonably priced. So, that it is. Mission #1 accomplished.

Well, there wasn't anything left to accomplish at the mall, so we head to Petsmart (Dana's idea). It just so happened that she was right. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Anyway, the machine wasn't stocked in the same fashion as the other one that I had seen. The other one had blanks that included the standard "dog tag" shape and size. This one, being a pet store, was more focused on domestic animal sized tags. Oooh. Rough situation. An engraved rectangle is associated with humans, hearts, dog bones, tear drops and the such, not so much. Anyway, I decide that the one I get Cammy would fit well on a zipper and get a Steelers designed dog bone for him. The one that I wanted to make for Angel was a large red heart. It was fitting anyway. So, since the dog tag idea was dead, what was I going to put on it now? (My intention was to put her full name, SSN, Wedding Date, and blood type on it, official looking.) So, I throw a couple of ideas around and came up with this design:

Angela Chubarov
September 29, 2007
Love always and forever

Of course, since I'm the type that seeks approval, I show it to the family once they return and then later to the guys. The family thought it was a "nice touch" and everyone else asked me if it was what they thought it was. Then, continued to tell me that it might not be a good idea. The symbolism, if taken the wrong way, could have very bad consequences. (i.e. I'm making her my pet & placing my tag on her)

Regardless, everyone appears onsite by the prescribed start time of 8:30. Into Munchkin we go. I'm not going to say too much about this. Jason did such a nice job. But needless to say, we were loud, obnoxious, and rowdy. We played this single game till close to 2 before it was abruptly aborted. A single game. We were shocked that it lasted that long. Furthermore, for as long and loud we played, we didn't bother Mom & Dad who were sleeping upstairs. Simply amazing. Regardless of the fact that we didn't have a winner, we still had fun and it was great to hang with everyone before the hectic business of the week begins.

Well, on Sunday, after being up till past 2, we technically didn't get to sleep in as we were only allotted sleep until 11. Well, it is going to be a busy day, better get started on the work. Much of the day was consumed by validation of the dinner selections, getting the name lists to match and then the incredibly long challenge of the creation of the seating chart. I didn't have any misconceptions around this daunting task. I knew that getting it done was going to be an interesting task.

At some point in the day, it was brought to my attention that Mom wanted a scaled replica of the room layout created for us to play with later. I didn't know what she had in mind, but I wasn't about to ask at this point. So, I drew it up. BTW, architect, I am not. Though, it was well planned as we eventually did use it. Honestly, I don't remember what Mom & Angel were doing, but I was keeping myself gainfully employed.

Once I completed the room layout, One of the first ideas that I had was that each RSVP would need to be classified (to provide reference to who they were and to establish seating priority). I established a scheme and started to implement it on paper. Of course, since I was using numbers to represent groups, Angel thought I was assigning people tables. Well, not yet. I keyed all of the information I had into the source spreadsheet and printed another set of guests. Then, before trying to seat anyone yet, we cycled thru the RSVP list at least three times until all of the numbers would line up. Once we got all of the names into the spreadsheet, it was time to get all of their meal selections entered. Now that everyone has been accounted for, we need to figure out where they are going to sit.

Angel takes said list and begins to organize the tables. Seating people and discussing this task is very difficult without a visual aid. We quickly learned this once Angel was done with the first draft of the seating. She had a picture in her head, but those of us that were not involved in the creation of the order couldn't easily make heads or tails of it.

Enter me & a pair of scissors. Take another copy of the spreadsheet and chop it into pieces. Thus we are left with 180+ slivers of paper with a height of ~ 1/8 of an inch. Reorganizing these names into Angel's & Bob's was a task, regardless of each sub group. This is turning out to be too much like work. The next decision was to determine the family organization. Should we go in table numeric order (left to right/front to back) intermingling the families or should we separate them similar to the church? Well, the enlarged diagram had a tape line down the middle that made a nice separation. Angel - left, Bob -right. It didn't separate the tables in the room evenly, but this was fine. I think my family & friends took up 7 1/2 of the 19 tables.

Well, needless to say, once this round of seating, politicking, and organization completed, we were not about to loose this information. Each column of tables got a line of scotch tape & they were not going to move from their last assignment. We're done. Well, not really. Now we need to enter this information back into the computer so we can print the place cards with table assignment and meal choice. Sounds easier then it was. The place cards did not come with a template or one that could be downloaded. I had to create the template. It is the good thing my dad taught me well when it comes to printing. However, with the version of Excel we were using, I couldn't make multiple modifications to a single cell (Multiple font sizes & positions (left, center, right). The next problem that was encountered after a single page design was set, I couldn't format paint column heights. Each card had 3 cells (back of card, Name & Table, bottom margin & food choice marker - right justified) and required me to cycle thru the spreadsheet 3 times multi-selecting every third column to adjust column heights. Tedious process. Then, to be able to paste the information into the template, I had to insert 2 blank rows in between each record from the source sheet. The last required task was to insert the Alt+Enter between the name and table declaration and move the meal selection from the record and place it into the next row. What a bunch of manual work. If I had thought of it, I should have written a macro to do it for me. However, this would have likely taken just as long as the manual effort did.

By the time the information was entered into the print ready template, Mom & Dad went to bed. We should have done the same, but we didn't. We printed every one of the names that we could. We ran out of paper before finishing. Well, no paper, no work. No more work, time for bed. We'll work on the last of the details of this later.

As with every subsequent day this week, we're up early. 7:00 at the latest. We've got to take Mom & Dad to work, otherwise, we won't have transportation. That's not an option, so we labor to awake this early. After dropping the rents at work, mission #1 is get our marriage license downtown. I'm sure everyone knows how things can be at the city/county building. This can be quick or take all day. Well, to our surprise, it didn't take us but an hour to complete the task from departure of the vehicle to return. Not bad at all.

Since this is one of the few tasks that we had over planned for, what do we do now? Let's stop to see my dad & borrow their camera. To date, we don't have the layout to our programs completed. On of the things we wanted to do was have a photo of the church on the cover. Well, we don't have any print ready artwork, so we need to go create some. We have a rushed visit with my dad and we're off again. Heading to Office Max, but stopping at house first to get a copy of the paper we need. On the way to the house, we stop at the church. We were passing it anyway. So we spend a few minutes getting some shots from around the church. 18 in all, once I was done. However, there was a situation of note that occurred while I was doing this. The last picture, i was really getting into the spirit of photography. I started talking to the church.

"Oh yeah, just like that. Make love to the camera, yeah, yeah, just like that..."

Apparently I was talking just loud enough. Angel heard me doing it. She just started rolling. I guess it was really funny. Although, I guess there must have been a reason to have started finding that enthusiasm with photography. It was a very nice shot, however, we later located a stylized ink pen drawing of the church from the exact same perspective. Coincidence, not sure. Sure was odd though.

From the church to a quick stop at the house and off to Office Max. Well, wouldn't you believe that they didn't have what we wanted and furthermore didn't have anything that I would have considered using in the first place. Unfortunately, this means another trip to Pat Catan's. What a shame, we just came from that side of town. We take the trip from Scott to Stowe and are left with very little time before having to pick the rents up from work. What do we do now? Do we head to house and get the rest of the cards printed?, do we go to Dad's and create a quick 15 minute mock up? Do we say screw both and just head to Robinson? Decisions, decisions. We go to my dad's and create the mock up. I literally only had 15 minutes to do something with him barking objections over my shoulder. Which part of mock-up did he miss? Anyway, some symbolance of page one and 2 are created, punched, & tied. Just enough to get they layout idea across to the parents. We're off again.

From my dad's, we head to pick up the rents. From picking up the rents, we head to our meeting with the Bradley House. The meeting went well, however, once again, we had issues with numbers. They were not lining up. Eventually we get everything straight and re-review the final plans and arrangements. Everything is set and things appear to be going well with them. By the way, working with the Bradley House was wonderful (from my perspective). They were absolutely professional and personal, which you don't usually get both. All of the arrangements with them were clear and concise with just enough personality to make things unique to us.

Dinner time. Interestingly enough, being the second and last meeting with the four of us at the Bradley House, we go to Hoss's for dinner. I didn't realize it until we got there, this is the same place we ate when we had our first meeting with them. In route to dinner, Angel & I were discussing taking her parents out to dinner. Well, with the way the rest of the week was planned, it appeared (and as it did turn out, was) our only opportunity to do so, so we seized it. As usual, dinner was good. After the ride home, that about wraps up this day.

Well, Tuesday starts the same as Monday, take the rents to work. From there, it is off to my dad's house. Since I had a good picture of what I wanted to do with the rest of the layout, I estimated that we should be done by lunch or so. I couldn't have been more wrong. By the time that 4:00 rolled around, Angel had to leave without me to get her rents. While I was working on the program, she was putting the finishing touches on the favors and place cards. This included putting the stickers over the meal choice letters, folding them, putting them in alphabetical order and putting the cards in the bells. As for me, there were just so many things not going right on this day. The layout was easy, it came down to the final touches that kicked my ass. I wanted a specific border around the pages, this required two attempts because I closed Photoshop without saving changes by accident. Then once I got the border straight, I wanted some filler artwork, scroll work or some such. However, trying to obtain these things is easier said then done. Then, once all of the components are compiled, print time. I screwed up my margins. Now, I had to rearrange everything because the 1/2 inch top margin wasn't present. Then the left margin wouldn't print. How much more could go wrong. Thankfully, not too much this day. By the time that Angel got back to my dad's, everything was locked down in a fashion that I could live with & was saved to my thumbdrive. I was ready to leave as soon as Angel got to the house. Angel glanced over the program, pointed out a typo. That was corrected and off to Kinkos we went.

So, initial thought was to have all of the paper the same weight, card stock. However, card stock does not fold nicely so a score line would be required to encourage it to fold. Well, Kinkos could not score the paper overnight. Well, waiting until Thursday to receive the programs was not an option. Therefore, we changed from all card stock to cover & rear card stock, regular paper stock in between. This did not remove the need for the score, just much less of it. That didn't change their minds either, but I was going to do the score myself with my dad's letter press. A machine I'd seen used many times but have yet to operate. Such an imposing device this is. Anyway, we get our proofs from Kinkos, sign off and off to Mom's for dinner.

We have a nice dinner with my Mom. In addition to dinner, I clean her computer & get a hair cut. By the time we leave here, we're much ready for bed again.

Wednesday begins the same as the rest. Off to take Dad to work early. Mom had the rest of the week off as of today. Since Dad works in Coraopolis and this was the last time we were going to need to take him to work, it was as good of a time then any to stop at the Armory. Finally got to introduce the guys to Angel & vice versa. I still have a tough time calling Mr. Hines sir. For pity's sake, we were both specialists at the same time at one time. We have a chat about OCS and WOCS, his family, our plans for the wedding. The standard fare of catch up talk. While we were there, also ran into SMG Haught and Mr. Flint, which which we had a quick chat with each of them. It was nice to see those guys again. It had been quite a while.

From the Armory (which Angel had to push me out of), we headed to my dad's house. It was just about time to pick up our printed programs. Sat & chatted with Dad for a bit to kill some time, but most of the time was spent in getting the score line setup and getting practice with the letter press (look at that machine, <-). It was quite the feat to get behind this machine. I had many a time watch my parents use this machine for their printing business and always get so stressed out about it. However, when they were doing it, they would be running it at a much higher speed then what I was doing and they were doing numbering. These number machines would work on the impact of the press and increment each time. If you were to miss feed or miss putting the paper in, you have to stop and reset the numbers. It is a pain to do, especially on a deadline. Thankfully, I was neither numbering or on a hard and fast deadline. I had the luxury to take my time. So, once I get the machine setup, ready to press some paper, & have some practice under my belt, it still isn't time to get the job from Kinkos. Kill some time behind the tube. Anxiety starts to get the best of me. We leave 15 minutes early to pick up the job. The reaction of the lady behind the counter was priceless. When we left the night before, one of the completed models was left with them for reference. This included the ribbon and hole punch. She opened the box and saw this and everything else was not punched and not tied, she about panicked. She asked me to review the contents and was relieved to know that it was what I was expecting. Also, please note, that a similar program of smaller size purchased online would have cost a minimum of double what we paid for ours. It is worth the manual labor if you can design your own work and just pay for the printing. We get the job back to the house and get to business. First thing discovered is that they collated all of the pages (not to mention, we paid for that). This meant that we uncollated the job so we could score only the cover. Once that was completed, the alignment that I had set earlier was too high and the entire page was not being scored. Back to junk paper and manual operation of the press to get the line straight and in the right place. It sounds like a simple task, but doing it is a completely different story. Once the alignments are completed, time to do the real work. Turn on the machine. Well, we encountered two problems along the way. The first one was that the paper was sticking to the press and wouldn't set right before having to pull my hand away. Baby powder solved this issue. However, once that one was resolved, I started having issues getting the unscored sheets from the stack. Some tacky stuff that paper-pushers and bank tellers use to separate paper did the job for that issue. Now I'm rolling along and Angel is watching (I think in amazement at this violent and dangerous piece of machinery and me working in harmony). At one point I feed a single sheet twice. I guess she didn't see my mistake. I put a score 1/4 inch from where it belonged. Should I have not run it again, the only score on the page would have been thru the punched holes. Not too long after this all begins to flow nicely, I'm done. Ok, time to re-collate the programs with their covers. This became a three man task. Angel collating, me punching, Cammy putting separator pages between the punched programs for another transportation for the finishing touches. Well, for how simple this sounded, we even had an issue with this. One of the cutters in the hole punch was getting hung up on the lid/leaver. We swapped the cutters around and same result. Oil fixes this problem. Lubricate the system and it doesn't take my full body weight to get it to punch. We get the box filled and it is time to move on again. Once back to Angel's parents house it is time to finish the works. Mom is here cutting ribbon with Angel & I tying bows on the programs. I was a good system until about 3:30 when I left. I was taking their van to get an oil change. The light had been on all week. Since we were running everywhere and anywhere with it, we felt it would be nice to get it done for them. It was something little we wanted to do. Well, this was a quicker proposition then I had anticipated. Driving from Scott to Robinson Town Center to Coraopolis, I was there by 4:20. I thought Dad was done with work at 4:30, which is why I left so early, just to learn while I'm sitting there, he works till 5. Oh well, at least I wasn't late. Once I get Dad home, I learn that Mom & Angel finished the programs and the rest of our plans for the night were a go. That night we hung out with Brandon. This was the first time that I had an opportunity to meet him. Nice friend. Well met. We went to a Cambodian restaurant on the South Side that neither of us had ever been to. We didn't know what to expect, but it was certainly good stuff. I could see us going there again if we were still there. From dinner, we returned to his place and played catchup/get to know you. Thursday was an interesting day. We picked up our license since it was ready and from there went to see a Pirate game. It wasn't the greatest day for a game, but we tried to fair it anyway. We got to the field and it was sprinkling already. Well, the game made it to the bottom of the 7th before they had to take a rain delay. At this point it was 3:30 and we called it a game. The Pirates were so far behind, 2 more at bats wasn't going to get them any closer to winning. While we were there, we hit the Primanties, a must on our trip. We were going to get one of their sandwiches one way or another while we were out on this day. So, we got one while we were at the field. Also, Mom was obsessed with getting a picture op with the parrot. So, once she got his attention, she dragged us over so she could have her picture. Well, the parrot did for us what we would have loved to do. He silly stringed her (almost with a full can). It was a site to see. I wish we would have gotten a shot of that. After the game, back to her parent's house. Time to go our own ways for the rest of the night. As you can see, we were both on vacation for a week, but it was no vacation. Our days were jam packed from the time we landed until the time we took off.