June 24, 2007

20 Days: Insomniac Bride

So my plan is to blog every day from now until the wedding. I'd like to blog on the morning of the wedding too, but I won't really have access to a computer, I don't think.

This morning I woke up extremely early thinking about flowers. I'm one of those people whose stress shows up in the form of insomnia. I think it's been about a month now that I've been worried and concerned about flowers - actually, I've been worried about my florists' ability to produce what I want. Take, for instance, the bouquet that is the inspiration for mine:



Basically I just want the wildflower look, so we changed around some of the flowers in the above bouquet in favor of flowers in our color scheme or flowers that will last longer. The florists made me a sample bouquet. They did tell me that it wouldn't be exactly like I wanted, but still I wasn't prepared for what I did receive, which I almost immediately dubbed "the offending bouquet":





If I wasn't already stressed out enough due to our communication issues, the offending bouquet made me close to being frantic. So I told my coordinator about it, and she said she would handle it. Almost immediately, the whole issue left my mind.

Until yesterday. Roy and I, our coordinator, and the florists all met at our venue to talk decorations. We got it all figured out, and when we were leaving, we mentioned our plans (made ahead of time, mind you) to go to a flower wholesaler so we could all get a visual of what I want and expect. One of the florists had no clue about the trip to the wholesaler. I had no idea why she didn't know because my coordinator is the one who set the whole thing up. I spoke with my coordinator, and we figured out that she had told one of them about the trip, but that the information was not passed on to the other one. Talk about communication issues!

Once we reached the flower wholesaler, I told my florists that I needed another sample bouquet, and they were visibly annoyed with me. I thought telling them this had been handled already, thereby saving me from confrontation, which I hate with a passion even though I know it's necessary sometimes. I actually felt bad for being "high maintenance," but the fact of the matter is, the offending bouquet is called that for a reason. In situations like these, my stupid Catholic guilt and doormat tendencies set in, and I often feel bad or guilty for asking for something that I rightfully deserve. It's definitely a handicap.

So this is where my insomnia came from, this little instance of confrontation with my florists, who were annoyed with me for asking them to do their job, and my feeling bad for it because of my stupid guilt complex. I was able to get back to bed after awhile though. And once again, when I woke up, I had another shock come to me from the world of flowers: an invoice for $710.00 through email from the offending florists, who didn't bother to tell me that the place they buy organza from charges $8.00/yard. They had estimated that I would need 75 yards for the decorations we had decided. That adds up to $606.00 just for fabric. I was shocked at the thought of adding that huge amount to our already huge amount owed to other various vendors, not to mention appalled (but certainly not surprised) at their decision to not communicate the high price of organza to me.

Long story short: If we weren't 3 weeks from the wedding, these ladies, sweet as they are, would be so fired. Their inability to communicate well (or at all) might be funny to me if it didn't affect me.

My coordinator assures me that everything will be fine. She's getting me the organza for $2.50/yard, which saves us a ton of money. And I really can't believe that I devoted an entire blog to flowers, because I know the day after the wedding that the flowers will not matter anymore. Unfortunately, they matter now. Hence, the blabbering blog about day 20.

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