end-of-May recap

[chanaleh]

I wonder how many LiveJournal posts, historically, have begun with "Is too much. Let me sum up"?

The first annual SomerVaudeVille cabaret was last night and it was AWESOME. The sleeper hit, of course, was Tiger Boy, with 4 different acts (storytelling, mime, musical saw, and special bonus Kermit impression with puppeteering on the closing ensemble rendition of Rainbow Connection)! I'm so proud. Huge thanks to our intrepid prodstaff, desireearmfeldt, eclecticavatar, and greenlily (also my intrepid accompanist!), as well as MC derspatchel, for making the whole thing happen.

New Job: also awesome. I should write in more detail about it, but suffice it for now to say that so far everyone is super nice and loves everything I do.

Wedding planning: ugh.

More specifically: I'm procrastinating on dealing with certain other more difficult aspects (music, ketubah text, ...) by doing what I do best: the invitations. Unfortunately, I think I have finally worked my little HP DeskJet 952C into the ground (literally, I've broken a couple of the points off the feeder mechanism, which is causing great havoc on the remaining cardstock items that need printing). If I end up replacing it next week, anyone want this one? I just put a new cartridge in it and everything (and I expect I might buy some other model on the next pass). Fortunately, though, it's chugging along on the envelopes now, so in that sense, things are progressing.

Aside from dreading the all-too-likely post office mishaps (manglings and whatnot), I'm dreading the unavoidable fallout of people we can't fit onto the invite list who are going to be Rather Miffed at being left out. Yes, theoretically people can be mature about it (especially those who've been through it and know exactly how it is), and most of them will be. To you all, I sincerely apologize, and would love to have you attend a sheva brachot or something instead. But honestly? I'm already at the point of "much as I love all these people, I kinda hope 25% of them find they have other pressing obligations for Labor Day weekend." Much as I hate feeling that way, if I had it to start over again I would probably be twice again as ruthless in hopes of getting the circus (as it were) down to a more manageable size. I think my own expectations/ambitions for wedding awesomeness are starting to follow this graph. Hopefully this will have the beneficial effect of promoting simplicity in the THREE MONTHS remaining. "Done is good," as Barbara says.

This weekend: away, as we're going down to Princeton for Reunions. Leaving as soon as I can wrap this stuff up and get packed, in fact.

Comments

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

hmmm. we could try a meet on our ways home depending on travel mode as we are driving to NY for a wedding.

[dpolicar]

For the record - much as I would love to dance at your wedding, I won't be hurt if "left out" (or, conversely, am happy to suddenly discover another pressing obligation). Believe me, I know how it is.

Y'all both rocked, incidentally.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Too late, I just printed your envelope. ;-)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think I already mentioned that, even though Lis and I would PREFER to be at your wedding, her cousin's getting married the same day. So we're another two you don't have to worry about.

And, how come you never SAID how talented your sweetie is? He was scary-good.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

OMG, I forgot about the cousin's wedding! Well... I'll miss you, but you'll still have to RSVP accordingly through the normal channels. ;-)

I was really glad to see you last night, though! And -- yeah, he's something, huh?

[eudociainboston.livejournal.com]

I feel for you- being ruthless on the invite list is hard. If we had everyone we wished could come the guest list would have doubled. You do have the dress by now, right? I do not recommend getting it five weeks in advance like I did. :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Yep, I did get the dress!! I even have pictures from when my mom was here and I tried it on. :-) I mean to make a more detailed state-of-the-wedding post next week.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

I ordered my dress in April for an August wedding and got it the day before thanks to Herculean efforts by UPS and no thanks to the stupid bridal shop. I'm still miffed about that, and it's been 9 years!

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Hee! I wondered if that was Tiger Boy, and then decided that I needn't leap to the conclusion that all guys from Princeton must be the same guy. :)

(He was great. On the way home, I was remarking that I wanted to know what the other 49 things he auditioned with were, because they must have all been different.)

[bex77]

Have you heard the "rule of thumb" that half the people you invite will come? Even less if many of them are out of town. Perhaps that will help. I'd love to know if that turns out to be true. We invited everyone we knew (372 people!) and had 158 at First Church for our nuptials.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

The rule of thumb I heard was that 10-30% won't come.

[eudociainboston.livejournal.com]

That did not work for one of my friends- they invited 350 (mostly from out of state) 300 showed up and the venue held 200.

It was lots of fun when the fire marshal showed up...

Maybe I can arrange to be in labor on 8/31 and that would take care of 2 :)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

That's more like what we heard, I think. 20-25% maybe. The hotel guy said "oh, Labor Day weekend, that's really going to cut down on your attendance rate!" and we scoffed at that notion, in our particular case, but have no data as yet to tell whether he was right.

Don't even think about not inviting me.

[seventorches.livejournal.com]

I promise not to show up.

That said, why don't you have it on a weekday, like we did. That weeded out maybe a third of invitees.

[points.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you need to use any of my equipment. My HP8150 is open for your use. :)

And trust me, we know -exactly- how 'only can invite so many' can be.

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, really. And then, after having to invite this ridiculous number of relatives on all six sides of the families, when most of them didn't come, I was half relieved, and half miffed. Can't win.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Have you done this? It really helped us. For each person on the list, write down a percentage chance that they will come. For example, your mother is a .9--if she can get there, she will be there--but your Great-Aunt Mildred from Winnepesauke is a .3--if she can come, she will, but if it's her bingo tournament that week, she won't. This is surprisingly easy to do once you get going. Then you add up that column and the result is how many people to actually expect. We invited over 300 people and estimated 162 and got 164.

[skreeky]

Yeh, we did that, but I think more effective was the "A list, B list, C list" approach. A list MUST be invited. B list you'd really like to invite (and this wound up with priority 1, 2, and 3 subdivisions). C list is people you wouldn't mind having there. When you get some Regrets cards in, you send out another set of invitations to the next priority list. Believe it or not, most people who are sending regrets do it right away. There may be half a dozen who just never reply, but those are also the people you probably assigned a .2 probability anyway. You're basically churning the invite list for two weeks straight, but the final number comes out about right.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I wish we'd done something that sensible. We got married three years after I'd moved here from California. Most of my closest friends were out there, and I felt they deserved invitations, even though I know there was a low probability that most of them would make it. As a result, we didn't invite some local people who, while they were not as close to me emotionally, were close enough physically to actually be there.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

This is the approach we tried to take from the start. Tier 1 is "people we'd HAVE to invite no matter how small the party" (wedding party, aunts and uncles, oldest friends). Tier 2 is "people we want there", later subdivided into 2a and 2b based on whom we could bear to imagine not inviting -- 2a gets first-wave, 2b does not. And it's incredibly painful to demote people from 2a to 2b, but at this point it seems unlikely that we will be doing much in the way of second-wave inviting, unless we get a WHOLE lot of regrets in.

Tier 3 is "people we'd like to have, but it's not the end of the world if we can't include them" (or, in a couple cases, "people we feel like we ought to consider inviting but just NO"), and sadly, those are just not going to make it in. Tier 5 is "invitation only": people we invite even though we know they can't (or are pretty darn sure they won't) come, such as my grandfather. There is no Tier 4.

I would love to try the probability-aggregate approach, but I think my sense of calculating actual odds from person to person is just not that finely honed!

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Hey, we should email about sheva brachot, btw. :)

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

I will understand if not invited, of course, although I would like to see you at some point...just not picky about when exactly that point is. :)

[gingicat]

You don't have to invite us - after all, we didn't invite you. :) (Well, okay, we didn't invite ANYONE because I started hyperventilating every time I tried to draw up a manageable guest list. But still.)

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

I will be extremely miffed if I'm not invited. *grins*

[laurion]

I picked up a spare laser printer recently, and would be happy to sell to you if you are only printing B/W.

[laurion]

Oh, and I feel your pain. We struggled to get our head count down to 200. *sigh*

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, this is my color printer, an inkjet. I do also have a B&W laser (which I got secondhand for free and is also crappy and temperamental), but I haven't even bothered hooking it up since we moved almost 2 years ago; the color one is what normally matters more for my purposes, if I'm printing invites and things (for clients or, in this case, myself). :-} Thank you though!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Good luck with it all!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Not expecting to be invited but very much want to see an invitation. :-)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh! :-D You'll appreciate them, too. I'll make sure to get you one.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Very cool! You can just put a Post-It on that says "sample." ;-) BTW if you could use another sheva brachot, let us know, we'd be honored. (No pressure! Seriously!)

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, I bet we would love to have another sheva brachot. :-D What a lovely offer, thanks. Targeted toward Arisia folks?? Let's discuss!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Wheeee! I'll send you a note. Bwah ha ha ha...