Let There Be Cake

Okay, I'm a hypocrite. At least I can admit that though. If you've been a blog follower of mine for a while now, you'll know what I'm talking about.

That's right, we are having a wedding cake. HOWEVER, it's only a cake for us to cut into. All this being said, let me get defensive for a moment. We are on a very tight budget. We literally had to turn pennies into dimes. I say literally because for the last year and a half in my basement I've been working on a machine that turns pennies into dimes. See the big stores only have pens that check if a $100 bill is fake, but they don't have pens that check our dimes! Of COURSE we get odd looks from our vendors when we pay for everything in dimes, and yes, a couple of them have called us out that the dimes are a weird coppery silver color and don't have a real shape to them, and YES I may have drawn Roosevelt's face with crayon on top of Lincoln, but results are results. We're getting married in 9 days and it's all thanks to my penny pincher (which is a trademarked name).

Oh my god, what am I typing? Wedding stress has gotten the best of me. Oh, right, cakes. Okay so yes, we're on a budget and the main reason Rebecca and I weren't big on cake is because there's usually a big budgetary concern that comes with having a cake. Not only is the cake expensive, and rightfully so for some of these awesome works of art, but also, sometimes the wedding venue slams you with fees such as cake cutting fees, bringing in cake from outside vendor fees, etc etc.

That being said Rebecca and I definitely wanted some sort of desert to feed one another. A macaroon is a favorite of hers, so that would work, a tartlet, anything. It just didn't matter. But, at our last meeting with our venue, as we were working out our wedding menu the issue of cake came up. They asked us if we wanted a cake, just something small to cut into. We said no, that we'd rather have other desserts. Then they said a magical word that changed everything, "free". That leveled the playing field. I realize that there won't be enough cake to go round. Not everyone is going to get a slice. But you know what?.... fine! I'm okay with that. We've got plenty of other incredible desserts that will be on that table, and people will be happy. Rebecca and I aren't deny ourselves to partake in one of the most typical wedding traditions there is. I wouldn't have been devastated or even saddened if we didn't get cake, but I can admit that it's really nice that we'll get to cut a cake and feed it to one another. Of course it won't be as grand and artistic as if we went to a genuine wedding cake artist (Fantasy Frostings) but it will be perfect for us.

What an excuse!

As of our RSVP by date (June 20th) we were missing answers from about 30% of our guest list. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I've only planned one wedding before so I'm a little new to this. Maybe it's because our wedding is a destination wedding to about 50% of our guest list and some are still on the fence about trekking out here? At any rate I started emailing a few people who I knew I most likely wasn't going to hear from unless I emailed them. I had a pretty good feeling about each person I emailed, but it's always good to get something in writing so we can start to finish this wedding planning! (I know it's TOTALLY unrealistic, but it'd be great to just be done with everything so we can relax for a few weeks before the wedding... does that ever happen?)

So I emailed one of my friends, and the answer I got back as to why he hadn't yet RSVP-ed was not a complete surprise (based on everything I know about him), but was probably the most appalling/great excuse I've heard. There's definitely a group of guys that I'm worried about putting near an open bar, but at the end of the day it's going to spell fun. Here's his excuse:

"I was drunk at my house and Stacie goes "fill this out now and send it" and then I was like fine and then made a bunch of rude, crass and unfunny jokes all over it. Like "food preference: fresh poon" and then Elizabeth and Stacie were like,

"That's pretty ballsy considering their parents will probably see it" and I was like hell yeah I'm a badass!

And then I woke up the next day and threw it away so it would never accidentally get sent because I don't know what my drunk self was thinking.

I'm coming to the wedding."

The unfortunate thing is had he been sober in the morning, he would have seen the envelope was addressed to US, not our parents.

At the end of the day Rebecca and I realized that since we're having a family style dinner w/ each table getting a meat, veggie, and fish option that putting a spot on the RSVP that said "Dietary Restrictions: _____" was a tad unnecessary. I didn't know it would lend us to getting answers like "Fresh Poon". However, while I'm on that subject, it's just speculation, but if that is indeed where he wrote on our RSVP, does that mean that he CAN'T eat that and only prefers stale? Okay, I'll stop - this is a wedding blog... class it up Dave...

Not just a videographer!

Scratch another major item off of our wedding checklist. A few weeks ago we hired a videographer for our wedding! Daniel Boswell joins the Temple! Welcome to the family! Calling Daniel a wedding videographer doesn't even scrape the surface, or enlighten you as to how talented the guy is. His videos are cinematic! I really want to introduce him to you all.

When I was a kid, my dad was always the one with multiple cameras strapped around his neck. He had multiple regular photograph cameras as well as video camcorders. Every milestone, play, sporting event, birthday, etc etc was captured onto video. Recently, after watching many home videos, I realized how special they are to me, and how important they are to have. I just watched a video of myself at 3 years old holding my baby sister for the first time asking my mom if she had a vagina - then laughing. A memory that would have been lost forever had it not been captured on tape. Photographs are extremely important, and to me, video is equally important as well.

Saying all of that, when we first started our wedding planning a good videographer was absolutely something in which we wanted to invest. However, as we've been planning and searching for a videographer we watched our budget dwindle. Soon we realized we didn't have two pennies to rub together and videography was starting to look unrealistic. I know this isn't an option for everyone, but because I live in Los Angeles and have friends that shoot behind the scenes footage for DVDs, I turned to them. I figured I'd get two guys to come shoot the wedding then give me all of the footage and in my "free time" I'd edit our wedding video together. When we started factoring in all of the expenses of getting these shooters to the wedding it seemed just as expensive as hiring actual wedding videographers. I also researched buying lots of FlipHD cams, having friends shoot the wedding, loading all the footage to a hard drive, wipe them clean, then returning the cameras to Walmart. I was just too worried the cameras would get damaged, or lost, and I really worried about video quality and sound quality as well. It seemed to be a lost cause and a black day for Temple of Groom.

That was until I saw a video of Daniel's work. Watch it, then keep reading:

Um, what? Wedding videography can look like that? Seriously? I have to have this. It's so important to me. I HAVE to have this. I. Have. To. Have. This. After watching this video twice, getting chills and choked up watching the wedding of TWO STRANGERS, I decided to do some research. Surely this is extremely out of my budget.
When I got to Daniel's website I realized something very innovative and incredible - the video posted above is not something that Boswell took home edited over a couple weeks and sent the newlywed couple - it's something that he shot on the day of the wedding and EDITED on the day of the wedding and projected AT the freaking wedding! Two shooters (Daniel included) come to the wedding and capture everything up until the cocktail hour. Then while the other shooter continues filming everything, Daniel sneaks away and edits all of the footage. It's called his cinema reale package. Unbelievable.
So Rebecca and I reevaluated our budget and moved some things around in hopes that we could hire Daniel. We crossed some things off... x's and o's... DIYed a couple more things.... did the math... crunched numbers... carried the 1 - then emailed Daniel a hail mary "please let this work" email.
He called back shortly after. The impression I got from him immediately is that he, like our other vendors, is extremely passionate about his work. He does it, because he loves it - not because the wedding industry is a great place to make money, but because he genuinely loves the rush he gets from shooting, editing, and watching everyone's joyful faces as they watch his work. It's so special. Then, unbelievably, as if the wedding hand of God touched our phone conversation, Daniel's rate fit into our modest budget. It was, perhaps, one of the happiest moments I've had during this whole planning process.
If you're looking for a special wedding video, look no further.
PS. If you'd like to see the video of me holding my new baby sister - get your friends to follow Temple of Groom! If I get 7 more followers to subscribe to the feed on the left side of the page - I'll post the video.

My Gift to Ben the Groom

This weekend a fellow groom blogger is tying the knot: Ben the Groom. First and foremost, congrats to one of our blogging brothers! I think this is the first groom blogger I've seen get married off since I started blogging!

Ben is faced with a dilemma that in less than 2 months time I'll have to figure out myself: where do groom bloggers go once married?! Hopefully Ben will stick around long enough to show us pictures of his wedding and fill us in on everything he learned from the wedding!

I figured that I would get something for Ben... my gift..... the gift of song. (click play on the youtube video then read my lyrics starting at :15 along with the music).

"Ben the Husband" in the key of "Ben" by the Jackson 5

Ben, we hope that you will blog some more

You finally reached what you were posting for

Grooms can sometimes feel alone,

The Knot won't throw us a bone.

But you, my friend, helped me

you were my Wedding Bee. (you were my Wedding Bee)

Ben, you're always posting everywhere,

about what guys should wear as underwear.

If I'm ever in a bind

and don't know where to find

Your posts, one thing I know

You're twitter's where I'll go (you're tweeting all the time)

I used to say - wedding industry

never had, guys like me.

But I was wrong, obviously

Now it's "us", now it's "we"

Ben, most people would turn you away

People don't listen to a word grooms say,

Tweens don't tweet half as much as you

making weddings work for you

I'm sure you'll post again

as a husband blogger Ben

DIY? Ok, np!

This weekend we saw a major DIY win at the Temple of Groom household. Very exciting when one of these diy projects actually works as planned.

We finally crossed the escort card board off our list. Not going to lie, Rebecca did most of this project, but I was there when we bought everything and I'd like to think I helped out a lot.

Saturday morning was spent at Michael's getting our ketubah put on stretchers and wandering through the aisles for a few hours. One of the larger items on our to-do list is the escort card board.

Obligatory rant: Okay look, I get that there needs to be escort cards, or some sort of cards that tell everyone where they should sit. I just think it's one of those things that we easily start to stress about. Oooh, what's a cool way to tell people where to sit? Look, I love all the little details as much as the next guy, strike that, MORE than the next guy - because I have a wedding blog and the "next guy" doesn't. It just seems like one of those details now where we have to think about what we're going to do, and make it look nice and presentable, because if we DON'T have it, mass chaos ensues. And you know what, I will say this, I wasn't incredibly helpful during the planning stages of our escort card board. Instead of having a definitive idea, and executing it, Rebecca shot so many ideas my way. And you know what? I liked them all. They were all fine. It was something I just wanted to get done, and I didn't really care what the finished product was: cute little paper chairs with people's names printed on them, just printed out little cards, etc etc etc... It was something that I said, and I admit this goes against the nature of my blog, "If you like it, I'm totally behind you". That being said, I do love the end result.

So here's what we got:

Michael's: 18x24 picture frame (50% off!), magnets, small paper flowers, spray paint, chalkboard spray paint

Home Depot: large piece of sheet metal

When we got home I fixed the pool shed roof that I fell through a couple months ago and Rebecca started spray painting the picture frame a high gloss white. Then she cut sheet metal down to 18x24 and sprayed it with chalkboard paint.

I came in with an 18x24 piece of plywood that we mounted the sheet metal onto and then fit it into the frame! "We" made an awesome framed magnetic chalkboard. Then Rebecca took the small paper flowers glued them onto the magnets. Once we have our guest list finalized and our seating charts done, I'll print names out on small pieces of paper and we'll use the flower magnets to put them on the chalkboard.

Sure we could have bought something exactly like this online w/o having to spend a day working on it, but we have such a connection to this damn chalk board now! It's great. At the end of the day we did save money too. We love it. We'll hang it in our kitchen when the wedding is over. Who would have thought, I'd love an escort board?

It's just nice to have a DIY win!