Content

There is nothing that tops off an interesting day at work and a wonderful evening at Knit Night like coming home and playing in the garden. I spent a good 45 minutes on the phone today with a lovely person in Chicago who has an awesome idea for can-collecting… and it felt like I was actually able to make a difference. It’s now dark, and I’m curled up on the couch with two cats purring on my lap and Pete working on sewing behind me. In other words, it’s a good night. Happy, comfortable, and content — a good way to end the day.

I’ve been told that with just barely over 2 weeks until the wedding, I am a low-stress bride. To be honest, there are lots of little things that need to be organized, but I don’t feel like it is any challenge bigger than a press junket, a new job, or starting a business. There are so many fewer “unknowns” in the wedding than there is in the rest of life. In the end, we’ll get married, and that’s what is important. I just can’t wait for friends and family to start arriving in town. Then it will be food, friends, family, fun, and pure awesomeness.

On that lovely and exciting note, it’s time to curl up and dream until tomorrow. Sleep sweet!

Details

It’s all in the details. Any event, any project, any arrangement. It is all in the details.

Details have not always been my strong suit. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love all the little details, but I have a tendency to get distracted before it gets completely done. It’s days like that I like to blame the fact that I was born on a cusp – half Sagittarius (a fire sign) and half Scorpio (a water sign). Sure, the combination makes steam, which can be incredibly powerful, but only if you can keep it harnessed long enough.

While we’ve made a decision that the wedding is going to be as low-stress as possible, there are lots of little details that we’re having fun putting together. Pete’s hair, the corset I’m going to be wearing, the color of the tablecloths, the multiple sorbets I’m making for the rehearsal dinner. Luckily, the details are all proving fun to figure out instead of stressful.

The other facet of the wedding — all of the details of Wedding Cans — are proving all kinds of fun. Honestly, mostly fun. All of the media interviews, the scheduling, the pictures that need to be sent to twelve different places. Emails to return, requests to respond to, and stories to tell. Honestly, I love it. It’s a lot of details, but every detail is slightly different. I can’t get bored with it nearly as easily because so much of it is unique.

The Wedding Cans project has gone so far above and beyond everything that we ever expected. We thought, when we started the project, it might receive some local or regional news attention. Instead, the story absolutely took off. We’ve been covered by the Associated Press and NPR’s Morning Edition twice. ABC and NBC channels have both run our stories. We’ve been covered in every U.S. state, every Canadian province, and several international news sources. Near as we can figure, we’ve also been covered in South Africa, Ireland, England, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Columbia, and several other countries. In other words, it’s been insane. And insanely fun. And insanely wonderful.

The details are also the wonderful glue that brings together family. I have always been blessed with a close-knit family, but I truly feel like the details are what makes my friend-family in Spokane as close and loved as any of my blood family.

In short, the details can be frustrating. But the details are also a part of what makes life wonderful and worth living. It’s all in the details. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Castle Story

Ok, so, now that the news is out, I can officially tell the story… or at least semi-officially. Peter and I were VERY VERY excited to be having our wedding at the castle in Idaho. When we went to look at the place, we could just imagine the whole event there. So we chatted with the owner, settled on a price, and put a deposit in as soon as we could.

That’s when the problems started. We didn’t receive anything except a deposit receipt number – no contract, no policy sheet, nothing except an email basically saying “thanks.”

About 100 days before the wedding date, we wrote the owner of the castle, offering to pay off the full cost of the reservation at that point. The owner said no thanks, please stick to the policy of paying 50% 60 days before the reservation, and 50% 30 days before. He also included an invoice for the total cost of the reservation. This invoice, however, indicated that we owed him for a 4 night reservation, between July 30 and August 2. However, that’s only 3 nights. I asked him to double check this, and he acted like he was doing us a favor by correcting the reservation. The prices he wrote also had an event fee $200 more than discussed and $400 more than was on his policy sheet. I asked him for a contract, and heard nothing back.

Then, just two weeks later (90 days before the wedding), we got an email asking us why he hadn’t received our payment yet. I wrote back, confused, asking why he didn’t want us to stick to the 60/30 day policy, as he had just confirmed. His reaction was that “oh, well, for events, it’s our policy that payments need to be 90 and 60 days before the reservation.” To put it mildly, this was news to us. I asked for a contract, including the amount we owed him and exactly when it was due.

Instead, I got back an email… with prices different than what he first wrote us, what was on the contract, and what was on the policy sheet. At this point, I specifically asked for for an outlined contract with whichever policy sheet he was working off of. Once again, we got nothing back, except a note saying he “didn’t see a reason for a contract.”

At this point, after a week or more of serious stressing and worrying, we finally decided that it wasn’t worth dealing with the unknowns and the stress. So we canceled the reservation, with less than 90 days to the wedding date. We are trying to get a new venue lined up in the next week or so – so our guests have a chance to change their plans (hopefully they won’t have to change them much.) We’ll also need to send out “correction cards” or something of the like to everyone that we have already sent invitations to – and finish sending out the rest of the invites.

The good news is, this is hopefully the only drama that the wedding will encounter. The corset and dress are in progress, the ceremony is pretty much written, the food is (mostly, kind of) figured out, and we’ll be getting married. In the end, as long as we get married and as long as our friends and family have fun, it’s definitely successful.

Now, we just need to find a venue.