The new Simple but Elegant invitation book has arrived. I decided to carry a different line of invites. There are very nice new additions and affordable. Think about ordering invites through Perfect Settings for personalized service. They are NOT the Carlson Crafts that you can order anywhere. You can look at some of the samples here:http://www.simplebutelegant.com/invitations.cfm But I warn you... the web does not do these beautiful invites any justice. Call me should you have questions or you want to see the book - you're going to love them! A lot of the invitations have embelishments and are very tastefully done.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year, guys!I'm so happy that the Holidays are over. I was talking to a very dear friend today and she told me that I really didn't skip Christmas. She reminded me because all of my days are special, Christmas had to be special too. All of the other stuff is just foo-foo. I've gotta agree. My son announced that he never wanted to have another Christmas like this one - I guess because it wasn't extra special but I tell you what.... just living as an Ayala (my maiden name) makes it special. On Christmas day we decided to go see my mom's "companion" (God forbid you say boyfriend). He lives in one of the nursing homes. I'm no fan of nursing homes and for those of you that work in one - you have a treasure in heaven! Anyway, my mom, my sister, Whitney and me decide to trek over. When the elevator opens we were immediately smacked in the face by an awful stench. We all instinctively cover our noses with our hands. As we get off the elevator there were rows and rows of people sitting in wheelchairs. They all begin to chant "hello", "hi", "hello", "hi, there", "hello".... so of course we're all saying "hello", "hi", "hello", "hi, there", "hello". We're walking down the hall with Mom leading the pack and my sister says to my mom "my God, Mami, what the heck is that awful stink" "it's him" my mom says pointing to an innocent bystander who is coming out of a kitchen. He smiles at us and says "hello". We get to Hector's room and I say to him "I brought Mami here last week and we were told you were down at the canteen dancing and drinking" he says "who me? How can I dance with this stub of a foot" and he gets up and starts dancing salsa then merengue really fast. Never a dull minute. We stay for another minute with my mom warning Hector about his blood sugars because she smuggled a box of Whitman's chocolates into his room. We finally get down the hall and an old woman starts pedaling really fast in her wheelchair (Fred Flintstone style) towards my mom and she's yelling "hey, hey, hey, hey!!" My moms says "quick, get into the elevator" so we start running because she's running. No one knows why we're running. We get into the elevator and my mom says "that woman wanted to touch my purse last week so I let her hold it and then she started screaming at the top of her lungs that I was stealing her purse when I went to take it back"..... oh, talk about a good laugh. Well, the man in the elevator thinks we're laughing at him and he starts screaming obscenities (that I can't print here) at us. ..... we laughed the whole way home. Thankfully, all of the roads were empty on Christmas night or I would have been in more than one accident.
Blogging
I've been so bad about blogging. I often go through the day and say "I ought to blog that" and then totally forget about it. However, I spoke with a very funny bride today that gave me such a good belly laugh that I said to her "can I blog that?".... she said "I was going to work the other day and when I got there I said to them "you can't tell me they're flying all of the flags at half-mast for James Brown"... no, said someone, uh, President Ford just died" Gotta love her!! Thanks for the laugh.
I finally got a minute to go through the new Knot magazine. I noticed that my Knot vendor party was featured in this month's issue. No, there's not a picture of me but there are amazing pictures of some of the highlights. There was not a picture of the cake or the favors - that were absolutely fabulous - and for that I'm sorry.
Us
One of Tony's coworkers sent this to Tony. Probably a good picture on a very bad day.... or if you're half blind. We had red eye so I fixed that and Tony looks really weird with black eye balls. His eyes are hazel so I'm not used to that. My smile is so strained b/c she was one of those people that tell you to hold still for 5 minutes before shooting the picture. Anyway, I thought the picture was funny....
Ledger article
The article was release last Thursday. Here she is in all of her glory. There was one typo (Jamie!!)... we all know the photo needs to be credited to my baby....it's ok, Whit.
Dom Perignon
Five years ago when we started this whole venture, we were gifted a bottle of Dom Perignon. We always said we would open it when construction was done and at the Grand Opening. We have moved 3 times since then... from State St. to Queen St. to Locust St. - is that 2 or 3?? It's actually 2 or 3 too many! Anyway, the bottle has never been packed up. Tony wanted to be sure it was always in sight.... kind of keeping his eyes on the prize. Well, October 15 came and went... we were spent after the construction was complete. We decided we'd open it during the Holiday Cocktail Party... never did. We decided, then, that we would open it for our 20th Anniversary. We went to dinner at the Railroad House and were stuffed so no champagne that night either. Ok, we have a trip scheduled to Atlantic City with Tony's company and we decide to pack up ol' Dom again. After a night of cocktails, dinner and appetizers - not in that order - we go to the after hours party in Tony's boss's suite... for more drinks. We finally get to our room at about 1 am. Tony takes the bottle out of the fridge and says "we're drinking this baby tonight!" Ok. I think. I need another drink like a hole in my head. - mind you I may have had 2 drinks all night... soooo not a drinker. So he's taking Dom out the box talking about how long we've had it. Puts the bottle on top of the table, I turn for one second and Tony is standing there with wine glasses. Ok, where'd they come from. I thought he just turned into Emeril and was about to shout "BAM" with those glasses. "Where'd they come from?" I say. "Oh, girl, I was ready... I packed these babies!"So after 5 long years of waiting, good ol' Dom Perignon was finally uncorked. (Tony even followed the instructions from one of our client's about opening the bottle at a 45 degree angle so as not to lose any champagne. Which worked. - thanks Mitch!) So there we were at 1 am drinking fine champagne, saluting to our health, happiness and business. We drank that bottle dry... good lawd. Since I'm not a drinker, I didn't have anything to compare it to but I can assure you I savored that drink and reflected on all the tears, hard work, tears, stress, tears, frustration, tears, planning, tears and our dreams coming to fruition. Thank you to all of you who helped with that - especially the tears part.
Raised by a woMAN
My mother has been living with my sister temporarily - she's brave. I'm told that this morning over coffee they heard a huge bang! upstairs. My mom said "what fell?" my sister says "no, I think someone broke into the attic window"... my mom in her infinite wisdom politley gets up and finds the biggest knife my sister owns out of the knife drawer. "Where are you going?" my sister asks. My mother says very indignant "Oh, upstairs to clip his nails, what do you mean where am I going, I'm going to find out who we need to hide from"My mom is telling me this on our way to the doctors today. She has me in tears - my mother is one of the most funniest people you'll ever meet - I say to her.... "Mom? what were you going to do if someone would have grabbed your bad arm and took the knife?" She says "oh, they weren't taking the knife from me... believe me. If I need to hide, I want to know how big they are and what I'm hiding from" I think my mom is still 30-something in her mind and still running a household of 6 children after her husband died. All the while, she is 67 years old, has rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and moves like a turtle with arthritis. It's got to be awful getting old. I talked to my sister later in the day and we laughed so hard I was the one who ended up with an asthma attack. She said my mom was walking toward the steps with this huge knife like if she were just going up to the bathroom. After the whole nail clipping thing she says to mom, "well, let me up first" they're going up the stairs and she feels a breeze on her neck. She turns around and sees my mom weilding the knife around and mom whispers "practicing" to my sister. Good Lawd....! In the end... they never did find out what the bang was. We sure got a good laugh from it though.
Columbia at night
Yesterday was just awesome. It was probably close to 50 degrees. I slept until 10:30 am - which I never do.... or seldom do. We had a Scottish dance group here on Saturday night and there was a member outside playing the bagpipes. Bagpipes have a way of bringing tears to your eyes. Anyway, the dancers were awesome - I have no idea how they remember all of those steps. This is probably why I only free-style dance. The town was participating in the Christmas Lantern Tour which always is a huge success. This year was no different. I would suspect that we had between 60-100 people.... most of them really in the Christmas spirit and departing with a hearty "Merry Christmas!".... so very nostalgic. I served hot chocolate that was a huge hit and I got to talk to lots of people at my bar. Things like this remind me of why I got in this business to begin with... people from different walks of life really pique my interest and I simply just like talking to them. I took pictures of Locust St. that has been lined with lit snowflakes. Which I love! Everyone in town has been talking about them, too. The picture is a little dark but forgive me for wanting to get off of 441 with Turkey Hill trucks zooming by! Tony's nerves were wrecked. hee-hee. So here's the picture, and I'm still alive.
The New Addition
As Anthony would call her:
The Niece.
Willow is her name and we are very proud of her.
Except Pebbles hates her!
Our 20th
So today is our 20th Anniversary.... very hard to believe. We decided that we would celebrate last Saturday right after the wedding we had. We called for reservations to the Railroad House in Marietta. I had the best crab cake dinner I ever had in my life. Then we checked in to the bed and breakfast. I know it's called the railroad house but for some reason I forgot about the railroad part. By the fourth train I was ready to just go and lay on the tracks... I was that tired. In the morning the owner, Raphael (who is also a life coach and very bubbly), asks in his usual upbeat way "so how'd you guys sleep?" - he must have seen the bags under my eyes. "Ok" we say in unisom - lie. "any ghosts sightings?" "um, no" I say "... should there have been?" He smiles coyly and says "I put you in the ghost room" ... greeeaaattt. Seems that for the year that they've been owners they have had 4 ghost accounts in that room. The ghost has a sheet fetish and likes to play with guests sheets. Ok, I say to Tony, remember when I got up at 4 am to make the bed? I was sleeping on a bare mattress.... I didn't think anything of it. I turn to tell Raphael and he says - "you ought to tell that to that woman over there... she's the one on the brochure that had the sheets pulled at night" seems that that woman decided to revist the B&B after the escapade with the ghost.... brave soul. "I'm glad you're telling me all of this now.... I wouldn't have been able to sleep in that room."Nice joke, Raphael..... about returning that favor.....
Columbia Ledger
Our very own Jamie Fessler-Koons came over to interview me this week to talk about Perfect Settings. I just love her. Look for the article in next week's Columbia Ledger. It's a weekly paper for our town - you have to get it if you want to be in the know of it all. I'm sure Jamie did a fine job - as always with no typos. I'm looking forward to it. I'll post it here next week for all to see.Thanks for your time, Jamie.
Skipping Christmas
Who's with me? It seems that everyone I talk to is stressed that Christmas has successfully snuck up on us yet again. With having soooo many irons in the fire this year (yes, I got burned quite a few times!) I just feel like I can't do another stinkin' thing. Sure I'm jolly for the holly but who gave me the job to deliver all that honkin' holly? I soooo love Christmas (I know, you can't tell) I just think it came at the wrong time of the year this time! Last year at this time I was completely done with Christmas shopping, had all of my cards in the mail (BTW... I do Christmas cards every other year so don't feel slighted if you don't get a card this year) and most of my cookies baked. I can't even fathom going to any store... even if I didn't do cards every other I wouldn't want to do them and Pillsbury is looking mighty fine for my guests this Christmas. Oh, and did I mention I coordinated a wedding in 2 wks - for this Saturday - with an ugly cold trying to keep it's grip on me. Someone help me.... tell me that I am blessed and smiled upon... tell me I have 2 functioning arms and legs and that alone should suffice... if you can't tell me these things then you should at least consider coming down and unpacking ornaments; for crying out loud!!
Ben and Wanda's Wedding
Now that I finally have time to breathe, I can safely say that Wanda's wedding was absolutely beautiful. She was just ecstatic. - not to mention beautiful herself.
The reception was held at Perfect Settings and I have to tell you - if I say so myself - it certainly was a Perfect Setting. The ambiance was perfect. The lighting was perfect and guests were perfect - well maybe not all of them... we were expecting quite a few less.
I don't think I ever saw Wanda so happy. This was the very first time I was involved with one of my closest friend's wedding. I never had to before. So it was critical to me that everything be just perfect. Not only did I know the B&G I knew I had to see people I've known my whole life - quite different from working with clients that you've met within a year and have never met their guests - only by name.
I reminded Wanda - quite a few times - that I was missing a coordinating symposium that I was supposed to attend down in Baltimore. Fortunately, it was well worth it.
*****I wanted to add the picture that Whit took during set up.
The food whore
... of course I didn't name her that.So I belong to a wedding planner's website. One of the women - I think she's in CA - has a caterer that she works with exclusively. She's called the food whore - makes you wonder. At any rate, she has a blog that keeps me generally entertained for days.... when I grow up in blog world I want to be just like her. Read on:
It's not that I am not a romantic person by nature, I mean - I have that in me.
But some of the stories we hear when dealing with Brides for Wedding Tricks - well, they seem just a little over the top.
We recently met with a bride, and she went into great length discussing her desire for an ice sculpture. She wanted >"... flowy and graceful... I want it to evoke emotion. I want it to be The Groom and I entwined in a loving embrace - and to look like we are floating to the sky in a cloud of passion...I want it to reflect how our married life will be..."
She was dead serious. And hey, good on her. But when she left The Partner looked at me and said, "Maybe I am cold and dead inside, but I think I threw up a little during the ice sculpture description."
"Yeah. If an ice sculpture reflected my married life it would be a picture of me slumped over my butcher block with an empty martini glass while the husband sat watching Battlestar Galactica in tattered sweats."
"Good times."
"Yeah, good times."
She should be writing for someone at Fox, for crying out loud!
For someone like me who is going on 20 years of marriage, this really struck my funny bone.
October 15, 2006
Definitely a day to remember! The day we completed the venue. WHEW! That was a very long haul. I thought the day would never come.We spent all of Sunday in the basement - me shining a flashlight into the electrical panel and Tony installing breakers. Every so often I was given the responsibility of handing off instruments, taking me back to the OR days. Thank goodness Tony's not as snippy as a surgeon - no pun intended. Anyway.... it's complete.... and workable. Now to just start finding those bookings.... Bring on those Christmas Parties!
The Historic Tour of Columbia and Wrightsville
The tour is finally over and it was totally awesome. We were out looking at other houses and met up with some friends who wanted to see our house so we came back. Well when we got here we couldn't get out! Everyone kept asking questions... I finally put my bag away and smiled and answered questions. I don't remember ever seeing that many people at one place that weren't prepared to cut-a-rug and toast the bride and groom. Not only that, I truly didn't think that our place was that intriguing.... I'm not trying to be humble. When we restored the place we didn't take into consideration all of those people who thought we should do things differently. We merely did what was best for us. I was very touched that so many people thought the place was fabulous. Also, it really made me happy to see that there were a lot of young people involved with the tour. For some reason I thought that mostly older folk were interested in architectural history but not so. I bet 1/2 the people that toured the building were in their 40s. ... Hey, that's still very young! Someday you'll agree with me! At any rate, Columbia will be featuring a Ghost Tour in October as well as a Christmas Lantern Tour in December. You should check it out! You will not be disappointed!
Heartfelt sadness
This post goes without saying.... I'm truly saddened by today's events, here in Lancaster County. All of the forthcoming details have literally made me sick. I do pray that the community would bond together and reach out to the Amish. Those children - the hurt and unhurt will need lots of counseling. I do hope that the Amish will allow the outside community to help them in this regard. I originally set out to post (this am) about this weekend's marathon of floor laying..... I'm too exhausted to talk about that now....
House Tour
The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster has joined forces with Columbia and Wrightsville to do a historic tour of 20 homes. Mine is included in the tour. It's October 8th. Come join us and see what our blood, sweat and tears have gotten us...and 19 other people, too! http://www.hptrust.org/calendar.php
Painters welcome
We are all recovering from a full weekend of painting. What an awful job!! Thank God for paint sprayers... what a blessing in disguise on wheels.Yesterday when I was getting out of bed, I realized that patients who had been telling me for years "Don't get old, it hurts" really had some wisdom in those words. Your back doesn't forget anything! It's been screaming for mercy for 2 days now. I'd love to stay in bed past 8 am tomorrow but no such luck. Poor Tony has to feel worse. He did much more work than me. I promised myself I wasn't going to whimper at all this w/e but an hour before calling it quits I finally said "I can't roll with that huge roller thingy!!" I felt like my head was going to roll right off of my shoulders.... those ceilings are soooo high and far away. Thankfully, we are truly in the home-stretch. The brand new concrete sidewalks (a real source of contention for me) are being repoured tomorrow. The granite was to be delivered tomorrow but some poor soul dropped it and it cracked and broke in half. The shop owner called me today and apologized profusely. Jose, just add it to my list of chronicles for this book I'll write called: Never build a reception hall unless you own the town, the land, the state and all of its people.
The Knot Party Pics
Here's a link for the party pics.http://www.pictage.com/event.jsp?event_id=224070
The party was a huge success and I definitely had a great time. - I think from the pictures you can see everyone else had a good time, too.... or maybe the Martini Luge was what was making them smile.
Everyone was really helpful and I met some really good contacts and vendors for future engagements (no pun intended).
I hope you like the decor.... especially the lounge... it was my favorite. My vision was met with the rental company, he did a great job. Telepathy works wonders. I just love when my vendors acquire telepathy from me...