Thursday Thoughts

lilacck28 · March 2015

@bethsmiles ignore ignore ignore. hugs, supportive eyerolls, etc.

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lilacck28 Our date is October 30, so we still have oodles of time. I was just surprised to see that every timeline I saw said to book hotel blocks and register so far in advance. How far in advance did you register and set up your blocks? We're getting married in a suburb of a larger city, so I can't imagine hotels filling up that quickly. I guess it can't hurt to contact a few hotels nearby and ask.

@lmcooper86 2 months and 4 days!!!! Eek! It seems like yesterday you were announcing your engagement... where has time gone?

nycgal85 · March 2015

@bethsmiles - your mom sounds like my mom (they should talk!!). My mom is giving me guilt trips about my 89-year-old grandma and how she wants to see one of her granddaughters get married....mind you one of her granddaughters got married (and divorced) recently, and her "step-granddaughter" got married and is expecting a baby this spring. She also constantly gives me problems. When she visited in December she actually threw a fit when my BF asked permission to marry me, saying she had hoped he would actually propose while she was in town! He had wanted to and originally planned to, but life gets in the way.

Oh, and now my mom has just moved on to babies....it seems like she can't get enough baby references in a conversation now.

So I am sending you lots of hugs because I totally get the feeling!!!

KeptInStitches · March 2015

Friday showed up early and brought beer! This is the best.day.ever.

bethsmiles · March 2015

Thanks @lilacck28 and @nycgal85 - I have a tendency to let my mom really get under my skin. She's seriously been nagging us to get married for years now. Apparently BF and I graduating, getting jobs, and being on our own before getting married is just craziness! I'm not even sure why she pushes it so much, I seriously doubt she will be excited when it happens. Today I told her that BF got a job, instead of her just saying something positive I had to spend 5 minutes explaining why it was worth being excited about...ugh.

lavenderfields13 · March 2015

@eilis1228 I personally would call hotels now to get it out of the way. I did my hotel block super early because pretty much every guest would be OOT for the wedding. Do you have a lot of OOT guests?

We're giving guests info one only one hotel because we're paying for transportation from that hotel to the venue and back. Obviously they can stay where they'd like but I figured giving them one option would result in everyone staying at the same place and using our transportation. About 6 months before the wedding I wanted to change the hotel we'd use and they wouldn't allow us to block as many rooms as the original hotel and that made me worry that too many people would be split up. So I just stuck with the original hotel.

I guess it really depends on how many OOT guests you have.

[Deleted User] · March 2015

lavenderfields13 said:
@southernpeach89 @cutiger97 I think I misunderstood the passport thing and just freaked out thinking I wouldn't be able to go on my honeymoon in June. So mine expires in April 2015. I'm going to renew it this month. So say I get my new one in May 2015 and want to travel in June. That's fine, right? But it would be an issue if I wanted to travel to St Lucia this month when it expires next month?
I think I just freaked out over nothing!

@lavendarfields13 If you renew your passport before your honeymoon then you should be fine because the expiration date on it would be 10 years out and you shouldn't have any issue traveling abroad with that.

It would be an issue though if you wanted to travel to St. Lucia though this month and it expires next month. They wouldn't let you board the plane.

lavenderfields13 · March 2015

lavenderfields13 said:
@Southernpeach89 I finally figured out I'm an idiot and was thinking of it totally wrong lol.

lavenderfields13 said:
I'm surprised I haven't heard more stories like yours- that has got to happen a lot. I mean most people probably think that they're fine to travel if they have a valid passport.

lavenderfields13 said:
Did you use a travel agent for your HM or book it on your own? I think a travel agent should warn you and I think sites we're people can book on their own should have info about laws like those. I would have been hysterical at the airport.

lavenderfields13 said:

lavenderfields13 said:
*quotes boxes wtf

[Deleted User] · March 2015

@lavenderfields13 -Oh believe me, I was hysterical. It was awful. I was surprised that we had never heard about it either. We didn't use a travel agent, we booked our honeymoon through Sandals and we spoke with them numerous times on the phone throughout the process and we were never told about any of the passport laws. It wasn't even on any website that we searched through either.

I'm sure if we had used a travel agent, I would hope they would have warned us.

jenjen047 · March 2015

bethsmiles said:
@jenjen047 - I'm not a science person so I don't fully understand everything he talks about but I know the lab he works at now deals with gammaherpes virus and I think the new lab will as well. It's all in the area of immunology, virology, and cancer biology.

Ah OK, yeah....sounds over my head.

Well congrats to him!

lavenderfields13 said:

Ha me and FI do this too. He's gotten be some silly little stuffed animals- which end up turning into our cat's toys because she steals them. Each of their names has a story behind them. There's Conway the bear, Benny the Moose, Turtle Jay, etc. I'll come home and the moose will be in the living room floor when I left it on the bed. I'll ask the cat "why is Benny in the living room?". She never answers me.

Glad I'm not the only person that does that. I ask her tons of questions that she also never answers.....maybe I am crazy....

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lavenderfields13 A good chunk of our guest list is OOT, but I have no idea how many will actually come. I guess I'll start contacting hotels in the area to set up the free blocks. Our wedding is Halloween weekend, and even though that's not a big traveling holiday, local people may book rooms in case they want to go out and not worry about driving? I guess it really can't hurt to start looking into that now. Thanks for the tip!

jenjen047 · March 2015

@bethsmiles - UGH....moms. They mean well but really know how to get under our skin huh?

Swazzle · March 2015

bethsmiles said:
I don't feel like starting a whole thread for this annoyance so I'm just putting it here. My mom just sent me this text "So is there going to be a wedding this summer because if there is your dad and I need to change some plans" cue major eye roll from me. Apparently a good family friend's daughter announced her wedding date (very excited for her!) so my mom now needs to annoy me about BF and I getting engaged.

Please don't take this the wrong way but maybe she was asking you because you've said (at least to us) that you were getting married each of the last 3-4 summers?

bethsmiles · March 2015

Swazzle said:

bethsmiles said:
I don't feel like starting a whole thread for this annoyance so I'm just putting it here. My mom just sent me this text "So is there going to be a wedding this summer because if there is your dad and I need to change some plans" cue major eye roll from me. Apparently a good family friend's daughter announced her wedding date (very excited for her!) so my mom now needs to annoy me about BF and I getting engaged.
Please don't take this the wrong way but maybe she was asking you because you've said (at least to us) that you were getting married each of the last 3-4 summers?

Could be that except that I've literally never said that to anyone other than on this board.

ETA: And I realize I've said this summer like a million times because this is the one place where I feel like I can get excited about it without having to go through whole explanations or annoying nagging about when it's going to happen if those plans change. And I never, ever tell my mom our plans because she's incapable of understanding that plans change because life happens and things don't turn out as expected.

lmcooper86 · March 2015

@eilis1228 - I ask myself the same question frequently...lol

As for hotels...full disclosure...I only blocked ours a few weeks ago. I know, I know, majorly dropped the ball. I kept meaning to do them back in the summer, and then I got busy with other stuff and we felt like we had all the time in the world, and then we were finishing our invitations order and realized I had no information on hotel blocks. We got lucky and got blocks at both of the hotels we wanted to use, BUT if there had been something going on in town or a wedding at one of those hotels, we could've been screwed. Just do them now. Then you don't have to think about them again, AND if people ask in advance of getting their invites you'll be able to tell them.

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lmcooper86 LOL I could totally see that happening to me. I guess I should stop procrastinating and do it. Thanks for the advice! I'm glad everything worked out for you with the blocks.

ETA: So one of the hotels is already sold out for our wedding date. WTF.

ETA x2: Another hotel had available, and I've already set up the courtesy block. Crisis averted!

lilacck28 · March 2015

@eilis1228 I'm glad you found a hotel!

We got engaged in April 2014.... and I think we started making a registry in August or September 2014? We "finalized" it around November, before we sent out Save the Dates. And I think we did our hotel block in December-January?

We're getting married at the end of May 2015. So, something like 9- 6 months out for registry, and 6 months out for hotel. But we had quite a back and forth with our hotel (my mom negotiated to get breakfast included, and then there was a change in management when we were more sure about the number of rooms we needed and were ready to sign, and so we had to find the old emails and hash that out again.)

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lilacck28 I guess there's really no hard and fast rules for when to book certain things when planning a wedding. We just got a save the date in the mail for a wedding that's two weeks before ours, so clearly everyone follows their own timelines lol. I appreciate you providing so much detail on your timelines though-- that really helped a lot. I feel a lot better about where I planning-wise. For the registry, I think FI and I will start researching everything soon and probably register within the next month. I think the majority of the things we'd put on our registry are year-round staples, so I don't foresee an issue with anything going out of stock. Also, that's AWESOME that you guys negotiated the block to include breakfast. Wow! Was it a courtesy block, or did you guys have to financially guarantee the rooms would be booked?

lilacck28 · March 2015

@eilis1228 No problem! I clearly like to share/ write a lot

I'm glad it's been helpful for people, as opposed to just boring!

It was a courtesy block at a Hilton Garden Inn. There was no way I was putting money down, or allowing my parents to!

As for the negotiation-- that was all my mom! She negotiated contracts as a lawyer for most of her career so...

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lilacck28 Good to know that sort of thing can be done with a courtesy block. I'll keep that in mind! I'm currently working with a Marriott Courtyard on setting up a courtesy block, so we'll see what, if anything, they'd be willing to provide. Holiday Inn was the first block I set up, so breakfast is already included in the price. Hopefully Marriott will be as easy to work with...

lilacck28 · March 2015

@eilis1228 I think it's really nice you're setting up multiple blocks! We just set up one fairly large one (I think it was 30 or 40 rooms?) at the Hilton, and then listed other hotels in the area on our website.

eilis1228 · March 2015

@lilacck28 I may end up doing just the one with Holiday Inn and increasing the block to 20 rooms if Marriott won't come down on the price. I was just hoping to give everyone a few options. I genuinely have no idea how many people will use the blocks, but hopefully they're well received. I'm tempted to look into the Hilton Garden Inn near the Marriott since you had such great luck with Hilton. It's 8 miles/~15 minutes from the venue though, so it may be too far away.

lilacck28 · March 2015

@eilis1228 I don't think that's too far! My venue is 9.6 miles away from the Hilton, 15 minute drive. Most of the hotels in the area were about that distance; there were a few hotels that were closer, but their reviews weren't great.

I am doing a brunch wedding though, so people won't need to drive around at night. I figured, better to do a block at a nicer hotel that is 5 minutes further away than to do a block at a place that could potentially skeeve people out!

ps- I say go for it with the Hilton! But, I think they're franchises, so I'm not sure my luck will carry over for you. I hope it does!

ashleybunny8 · March 2015

@bethsmiles oy. sorry you have to deal with that from your mom! a couple who met and started dating the same time as me and BF eloped in August just spilled the beans about it last week- now everyone wants to know when BF's gonna pop the question. UGH! It's not a race!

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