the almost elopement

When the wedding insanity starts to set in (starts is perhaps not the right word...), or works itself to a pitch, I often ask myself, or Ari if he's handy, why we didn't elope.  Weddings are exciting and fun and a labor of love, don't get me wrong, but they're not without their share of tears, fights and anxiety.  My fantasy for a good long while was a flight for this weekend (whichever weekend it happened to be), and a trip to San Francisco City Hall (which is beyond amazingly gorgeous).

In the end, we both knew that what we really wanted was a wedding with our friends and family.  But hey, if you can narrow down your nearest and dearest to 30, and would rather trade the big city for sandy beaches, you might be in luck.  Pacific Weddings Magazine is giving away a wedding in Maui.

You give them a photo of you and your fiancé and tell them how you met, fell in love and got engaged in 300 words or less, and they might give you

• Wedding and reception at Timba in Lahaina, Maui
• Honeymoon stay at the Hyatt Regency Maui
• Wedding and ceremony for 30 people
• Reception including floral décor, dinner and drinks for thirty guests
• Photography coverage of wedding and reception
• Oceanview room for bride and groom for three days
• Sunset sail for two aboard Trilogy Excursions

Sounds pretty damn good to me.  And since the whole thing is paid for, the head count comes with a concrete cutoff and you're already at your honeymoon, I'd say the only thing you have to worry about is what to wear.  Have a pina colada for me.

Shame on you, J. Crew.

Since getting engaged I have had the good fortune to make some incredible internet friends.  (Shout out to Adriana who's getting married in two days!)  One of my new, lovely friends, has had a really bad experience that I wanted to share with you.  Like many other brides looking for something simple, elegant and not outrageously priced, she found her wedding dress at J. Crew.  She paid in full when she ordered it (plus, a dress for her shower, two pairs of wedding shoes and her five bridesmaids bought there as well). When it came in, she went to pick it up, a sales person told her they store it for free and suggested she leave it.  My friend lives in a small apartment and agreed.  When a bridesmaid cleaned out a closet and had room for her dress she went to pick it up and was given the same advice.

About a month before her wedding she went to pick up her dress, and get this, they had lost it!  Her wedding dress!  That they told her to leave there!  In her words:

"They sent it back to the factory. They called it unclaimed property. They said they didn’t know they had to get in touch with me. They didn’t have my phone number. It wasn’t their fault. They offered me a $25 gift card for my troubles.

I threw an epic tantrum in the middle of the store. A bridesmaid came down and held my hand. The staff promised me the dress would be in the next day by noon.

I take the next day off work. [My fiance] takes the day off work. We sit in the J. Crew and wait. And wait. Noon passes: NO DRESS.

The dress finally arrives about 2:30 in the afternoon. I got a discount on the dress (not yet applied to my debit card yet); my bridesmaids got a discount on their dresses and I got a $50 gift card. The kicker? When the new dress arrived I would have to PURCHASE THIS NEW DRESS and they WOULD REFUND THE EARLIER DRESS. The first dress got sent back and they never even bothered to see if someone might be out SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS."

 That was last week.  This week, rather than refunding her (because they charged her again when the replacement came in), they charged her card AGAIN.  She ended up paying THREE TIMES for her dress and is currently in the process of reporting them to her bank, Consumerist and the BBB.

I've got to say, I had kinda been a J. Crew fan.  If their stuff if your style, it really works.  But this kind of customer service?  They're opening up their first dedicated bridal salon in Manhattan next week and I'm just worried for all the people who could fall victim to their lack of coordination and apparently terrible accounting and customer service.  It all makes me very glass I picked out and took home my dress all in one go.

Please exercise caution if you're considering or planning to order your wedding gown (or anything else, for that matter) from J. Crew.

The Marital Cash Cow

Getting married is expensive.  Arguably more so than throwing an identical party, with all the same amenities, just without the word "wedding."  This is a huge part of why it took us so long to find a venue that would work for us.  The places that worked pricewise didn't work aesthetically, and the places that could host a wedding we'd love, charged out the yin yang, over a word.  (A venue we loved initially, whose most expensive menu item is $17, quoted us a minimum of $275 a head for food and open bar, without guaranteeing us the entire space.  Admittedly, it is New York, but my head nearly spun around Linda Blair style when I heard that number.  Needless to say, we went elsewhere.)

I wasn't planning to write this entry.  I had plan to write a totally gushy entry about how much I really like Jenny Yoo's new Bridal Alternative collection, and while not all of them are my style, one in particular really caught my eye.  But here's the caveat:  Jenny Yoo primarily makes bridesmaid dresses and all of the dresses in their bridal alternative line are simply white versions of bridesmaid dresses.  Fine.  Peachy.  So I took a look at the dress I was eying (Felicity) in the bridesmaid line and it was Linda Blair all over again.

 This one is $375.                   This one is $800.

Really?  Come on.  You're not even trying to hide it.  At least with venues or photographers, they have to deal with "bridezillas" (a term I abhor, and will rant about another day, I'm sure), but no.  You have to let people try dresses on, but you have to do that with bridesmaids anyhow, and there is certainly no way that white chiffon just happens to cost $425 more than maroon.  So congrats, Jenny, I was really looking forward to trying on your gowns, but now I'm just pissed.