Monday, February 1, 2010

Hitting a Wall

This has been one of the low points in planning. I was on a role with the cake and the photographer, but I have hit a road block with flowers. Even reading those first two sentences makes me nauseous to know that  I care so much about something so silly. I hate to sound like my life is in shambles because of something so petty, but it is more about the treatment that you get when going through the wedding process.
Unfortunately, anything with the word "wedding" tied to it makes it much more expensive. I saw this with the dresses, experienced it a little with the photography situation, but now especially with the flowers.
So, I had started by getting a quote from a local store. Not my favorite people to deal with, but they are close and do good work. Well, even with their "special rate" a bridal bouquet, 4 bridesmaid's and 3 corsages came out to be around $450! Yikes! They also tell me that in a week(ending this last Saturday) the deal won't be as great, as a way to get me to commit to the contract. I tell a co-worker about this and she suggests a woman that we both know. This woman runs her own company from home and besides flowers, they do invitations and day-of consulting. We set up an appointment for this last Saturday, so that I could see if she would do better than the original quote I had.
Our meeting was lovely and we spent about an hour  talking about colors and themes and different types of blooms and blah blah blah blah. This is a feeling that I have gotten a lot from wedding vendors. A sense of security and that your wedding is important and that they really want to make it special. Oh, how the deceitfulness grows!
Half way through our conversation I put the numbers on the table. I let her know who I was working with and the price they were offering me. I told her that I would like to work with her, but I need the price to be matched, or lower. She looks at me as if the prices from the other florist I had quoted were ridiculous and say "of course we can!"
I go home with a sense of relief that I am finally dealing with a wedding vendor that doesn't suck! I leave the other quote behind because she had promised me that her quote would at least match it, with an additional corsage included.
Fast forward to today, I get the quote and it is $20 more than the first one! Was she not listening? It was amazing to me. The even more astounding thing is that she had an optional delivery fee of $75! This woman lives less than a mile from the venue! I was beside myself.
There is nothing that irks me more than to have a decent conversation with a person, then to feel like it was all for that sense of security to lure me into paying more. However, I guess that is how sales in the wedding world work.
I hate it.
I think that is why I never wanted to do the whole dress shopping champagne thing, just inflated prices sold over a measly bottle of cheap sparkling wine.
And I digress....

I can see how the bridezillas form, going both ways. There is one way of giving in to all of the vendors, thus ignoring your budget and feeding off of that false sense of importance, actually believing that you are, in fact, queen of the world.




 On the other end, you become so cynical and budget conscious of the whole situation that it becomes overbearing and you just want to elope and never speak the word wedding again!

Ugh, done. I'm going to bed and hopefully will wake up with a little more enthusiasm.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, Heather. SO annoying. Sorry this is proving so difficult. I wish I could come up with a more thrifty and fun and stress-free solution! Until I do, here's this for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gimiDBAK2wA Miss you guys!

    ReplyDelete