Bridal Breakdown Day

I had a real, albeit brief, nervous breakdown today.  Yes, I broke down on the bar at Tra Vigne and in bed for about an hour after we got home.

Today, we visited a party rental establishment to take a gander at plates, napkins and other requisite wedding nonsense.  I don’t mean to offend, but it is nonsense for Sweet Man and I.  I’m just not one of the women who has “dreamed of this day forever.”  

Anyway.  Sweet Man and I almost always selected the absolutely rock-bottom, least expensive items.  And yet… And yet.

$1,200

That was the quote we got today for the rental of wedding detritus, specifically (this detailed itemization is for those of you who, like me, ask “How exactly do wedding expenses these days come to be what they are?”):

• 50 chairs for the ceremony at my future in-laws’ home: $125
• 50 dinner plates: $25
• 50 dessert plates: $25
• Coffee cups: $17.50
• Saucers: $17.50
• 50 each of forks, knives, salad/dessert forks and teaspoons: $92.50
• 50 each of red wine, white wine, water and champagne glasses: $242.50
• Tablecloths and napkins: $172.50
• Basic delivery: $65
• Delivery and pick-up during specific delivery windows (i.e. when we actually need things to be delivered and picked up vs. whenever the rental place deigns to do so): an additional $125/each way for $250 total
• An additional 50 white chairs for the community center, should we decide we don’t want to use the metal folding chairs there: $190

While the saleswoman spoke too rapidly for me to follow, picking up tablecloths on hangers and saying things like $37 per” and “$18 per,” I honestly thought I would faint.  I started to feel lightheaded and warm and out of my league.  You see, in my geek parlance: There’s a chick bit in me that isn’t flipped.  I was not, like so many of the female persuasion seem to be, born with a princess dream or a vision in my mind’s eye of The Perfect Table Setting.  When I am exposed to women whose chick bits appear to be 100% flipped, I don’t know what to do.  They look at me as if I’m inadequate and require instruction.  Today, for instance, I was nastily reminded that “You may not care, but people DO respond to beauty.”  Thanks, chick bits.  At least Sweet Man was there to assure me that I didn’t imagine the implied inadequacy.  

Hence my breakdown. 

I am beginning to understand how certain wedding decisions are made.  I am beginning to understand, for example, how couples just give up and book a $5,000+ venue simply because everything is included – everything from linens to basic flowers to napkins and glasses.  I understand the desire for an all-inclusive venue because we tried so hard to save money by selecting an inexpensive reception venue.  The community center in our particular Napa Valley town cost us $9/hour, or $135 total for 15 hours (plus a $350 fully refundable cleaning deposit).

You get what you pay for.  $135 means nothing is included.  The community center has folding chairs and tables.  That’s it.  Plates and glasses have to come from somewhere, and someone has to bring them from somewhere else – for a fee.  Always for a fee.  I’ve learned that anyone will do just about anything you ask them to do – for a fee.

After receiving this quote of almost $1,200, Sweet Man and I scoured restaurant supply places online to see if we couldn’t buy everything we needed for less or the same price as the rental quote.  We couldn’t.  Even if we could have, where would we have put 50 of everything?  We have a tiny apartment and no storage space – and no one we know in their California priced housing has storage space, either.  

There is also the reality of the logistics: Even if we had been able to purchase dishes, etc. for less than the cost of rental, we (well, someone) would have had to spend the entire day after the wedding running dishes through a dishwasher – and have someone make sure the dishes first made it back to the house at some point after the reception.  Do we want one of our guests or family members to be loading up dirty dishes at the community center and running it back to the house?  No.  They should be enjoying themselves, not doing chores.  

Could we just chuck all of the dishes we bought into a recycling bin and call it a day?  It was tempting for a few minutes, but it’s a Marie Antoinette tendency that we don’t need to indulge.

So.  This is how it happens.  This is how you end up paying for wedding things that you need but don’t want to pay for. 

People keep telling us we’re “getting away with not spending much” (as if it’s luck vs. planning) but $1,200 for renting wedding items feels absolutely criminal.  I hate to use the typical bleeding heart statement, but i’m sure we could feed a few villages in Iraq for about $1,200, or help my unfortunate cousin with trashy, useless parents through college.  

Or do anything else besides pay for dishes.

The idea of compostable, disposable bamboo plates is not dead yet…