Saturday, May 8, 2010

Amber's (Blog Award Winning) Story

Thank you to JEM (Aqua Bride)  for selecting me for "The Gorgeous Blogger Award!" That was a nice surprise. I've been following her blog for a while now for inspiration, and now her wedding is less than 3 months away.  Very exciting!



The rules:
  • Accept and thank the person who gave it to you
  • List 10 things about yourself
  • List 5 additional things you DON'T like
  • Then pick ten people to give this lovely award to
So this post will take a break from the typical wedding planning process.  Allow me to (further) introduce myself!
  1. I teach fourth grade.  I've been at this school for 4 years, and this is currently my most difficult year at this school.
  2. I have 2 cats who hate each other and fight all the time but I love them both.
  3. I live on a coastal city in Massachusetts and I love it here.
  4. My fiance's name is Adam, and he lives in England (more on that here).
  5. I bought my own home before I was 30, and I'm proud of that :)
  6. I was a lifeguard for years and taught swimming.  That's what made me decide I wanted to be a teacher.
  7. I can draw (I drew my avatar).
  8. I am obsessed with Glee.
  9. I'm half Portuguese and I look the part.
  10. I spend WAY too much time on the internet!
I don't like:
  1. Having my time wasted.  Like meetings where we are required to meet but there's nothing that needs to be said.  (And yet 3 days later, we find that we need to discuss something but there's no meeting scheduled then.  GAH!)
  2. Living 3,000 miles away from my fiance.
  3. Wine.  I wish I did, because people look so sophisticated drinking it, but there's very few I can even tolerate the taste of, never mind enjoy.
  4. Driving.
  5. Only being able to choose 10 bloggers for this award.
I'm awarding this to:
  1. Amour, Amour:  Great fashion inspiration, since I'm still looking for ideas on bridesmaid dresses (I want to give my maid of honor some choices) 
  2. Confessions of an Indecisive Bride:  Her fiance lives in England too! 
  3. Anne Ruthmann Anne was very kind to me, and pointed me in the direction of some day-of-wedding coordinators.  Her wedding photography is beautiful too.
  4. Cake Journal:  As you can guess, gorgeous cakes! 
  5. Globetrotting Bride: Great inspiration for all things wedding and travel.   
  6. With This Ring:  Pretty inspiration photos
  7. Burning River Bride:  Good common sense advice for wedding planning 
  8. Snippet and Ink:  More daily inspiration 
  9. Dog n Bird:  She was one of the first people to comment regularly on my blog.  I really appreciate the support she gave me when I was a new blogger. 
  10. Red (Her wedding is TODAY!  Wish her luck for a beautiful day!)
Thanks again, Aqua Bride.  It's really nice to know that people are not only reading my blog, but also enjoying it.  It's great to be part of a community of brides who share their ideas about all the little details that tend to bore family and friends who are NOT planning their weddings.  This way I can still indulge myself without the guilt!
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Macy's Wedding Gift Registry Event

Tonight mom and I went to Macy’s wedding gift registry event.  When they’d first called to tell me about it they called it, “date night,” so I wasn’t sure it was the sort of thing I could bring mom to. They mentioned dinner for “the two of you.” Which seemed odd because though they said on my answering machine to please RSVP so they’d have enough food, I couldn’t imagine eating dinner in Macy’s.  Well it turns out they gave us a gift certificate for food, and had munchies there. Very decent munchies though! Fruit kebabs, stuffed chicken breast with a plum sauce, little crackers with an apricot spread and blue cheese crumbles, cheese and crackers, and for dessert a raspberry crumb bar and a chocolate brownie that was more like fudge than brownie. Yum. The “mocktails” were lousy, but there was bottled water too, so all in all, totally worth the trip.

As for the actual gift registry…that didn’t go so smoothly. We were greeted and brought over to a computer desk where they took my name and contact info. As usual when they asked for Adam’s as well I just told them, “England. So for simplicity’s sake, you can just put the same as mine.” Haha. Then the woman showed me a printout and asked, “Could you just verify this is correct?”

I looked and said “This is not correct. That’s not my name.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s not my name.”

I said it jokingly.  But mom looked like she was going to wet herself, so the poor saleswoman seemed to be nervous and overwhelmed so I felt bad even though I said it lightheartedly. It wasn’t a big deal; I knew she just grabbed a different girl’s paper off the printer. But I just felt really laid back about the whole wedding gift registry thing. I don’t need gifts for my wedding; I have everything I need already so I’d almost prefer wedding guests just buy us thoughtful little trinkets than a cooling rack for baking. And Adam’s family probably won’t be using our registry since I don’t think there are Macys in England. I’m really only planning to tell people about my wedding registry if they ask about it. I was just there for the free food tonight!

Well, we went around with the scanning gun anyway, and at first it was a little agonizing to find anything I need/want, but eventually I got into the swing of things. We just about finished when the woman came over and said, “Stop! Hold on, let me check your scanner!” She looked and turned to a tall blond and said, “Yes, this is it, this is your scanner.” The blond looked at me and said, “So you’re going to need to start over.” Before I could say, “Huh?” the saleswoman said, “We will take care of it. You can come on back here with us,” and led the blond away. The other saleswoman started tinkering with the scanner and explained that everything I scanned was showing up on the blond’s registry! They were confirming it with her and saw things kept appearing. So they got me a new gun (a nice small one as opposed to the clunker that was hurting my back it was so huge) and said I could keep going.

Well, I was more than done at that point. I scanned one more gift item since I figured if I didn’t they’d think they upset me, which they didn’t, or else they’d get all nervous that my new items weren’t showing up on the registry, which I didn’t need either. And we head back to the desk.

They were all aflutter at this point, the saleswoman started saying something really loud and upset about the blond, to the point where the other hushed her. She was saying things like she didn’t know how I ended up with the wrong gun and didn’t know who gave it to me.

I know how I got the wrong gun.

And I have a feeling she knew too. First of all, she gave it to me; I doubt she’d have denied that. But when she gave me that paper at the beginning and I told her that was not my name, I wasn’t sure, but I thought she scanned the barcode on it, instead of on mine. That’s why my things went on the wrong girl’s wedding gift registry. I wasn’t certain she scanned the wrong one at the time or I’d have said something, but it would explain why that happened.

So I just smiled and said, “It’s fine, take your time, I’ll just have a seat and enjoy my brownie.” At which point all the salespeople laughed and relaxed, even asked me if I wanted a bottled water, and it was all fine. Just like when I registered at Pottery Barn I got the, “Is this ALL you wanted to register for!?” And I reminded them that I’ll have less than 25 guests, plus I own my own home so I have everything I need. At least at Macys they were a lot less judgmental/pushy because she said, “Oh that’s fine, I just wanted to make sure.”

Well, before I left, she asked another saleswoman to get her “a bag,” and told me she wanted to give me a little gift to make up for the mix up. Again, I just smiled and said that’s very nice of her and thanked her. What I got was a very nice looking red tote bag, as well as a beautiful pair of wine glasses!  So pair that with the free food and $50 gift card to a restaurant, and I’d say the Macys wedding gift registry event was a productive evening!

Readers, what is your relationship status?