DJ horror!

"5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40 hundred stab, thousand jook".  If you're confused, then you have every right to be. That first sentence (if you can call it that) is actually the way a song starts and guess what, it's one of the songs my DJ was going to play at my wedding. Apparently it's not a violent song, the stabbing and jooking going on is supposed to have a sexual connotation. Now this would almost be funny if it wasn't my wedding.  I can just see Grandpa dancing to this one.

My ex SIL's  (used to be married to my brother) new husband is our DJ friendor  - as in vendor we're not paying. He did a really god job at a wedding that I went to in January so when my ex SIL offered as their wedding present, I was thrilled. But when I had them over and asked him to bring his laptop so that we could just run through a "Play" and "Don't Play" list. Most of his songs ended up on my "Don't Play" list. So now with the 3, 876,432.1 things already on my TO-DO list, i've now added create reception playlist.

I figure I could give him some leeway with the cocktail hour and the other music like for first dance, cutting of the cake etc. are already in the bag. If he plays some crazy song during the cocktail hour, most people won't notice with all the talking, eating and mingling but the reception is another story.

So now I have to go rifling through my old CD collection; my itunes library; and ask my brother and nephew for the latest music. I don't what's out there now considering the only time I listen to the radio is in the car and it's usually "The wheels on the bus go round and round", thanks to my little man or the current Yankees game thanks to Mr. Muscle.

Sigh, the joys of being the 'little woman' and the mommy.

JEM.

So we signed the contract (PT 2)

So where was I? Oh yes, so Mr. Muscle told me not to worry because he was certain the man would call me back as he seriously doubted that there was any "other couple willing to pay full price". Of course he was right because about 10 minutes later the man called back, still trying to explain "his situation". I told him to put himself in our shoes and even if he had meant to say $1750, he had actually said $1650 and it just wasn't in our budget to go any higher.

Would you believe what the man who is also a Bishop said to me? He said that my guests would be bringing us money so we could cover the cost. After I picked my jaw off the floor, I said what?!!! "Sir this is certainly not why we're inviting people to our wedding, we want our family and friends to come and celebrate with us". The SOB said, "weddings are big business , maybe you should have different friends". Among many other things like God will provide the money. I told him that God could also provide us another place to have our reception. Can you believe that? This is a bishop who leads a congregation and whom people look up to. I was done. I said there was no way in hell I would do business with this guy. Well he kept calling me back and even offered to give us the price we had first told us, (even if he still denied it).

Mr. Muscle said we should just take it since he knew how stressed I was about not having a venue at 5 months before our wedding. To be honest, we really love the place. It's exactly what I wanted our event venue to look like, but just dealing with this guy who was so unchristianlike was so - for lack of a better word 'disheartening'. In the end, we took the place but I let Mr. Muscle handle the contract and deal with this guy. I still don't feel 100% good about it but I am relieved that we got a venue, since everything else can now be decided.

Just thought I would share my story with you. I'm exhausted now.

TTFN (ta ta for now).

So we signed the contract...

for our venue. As you can see from my post title, I'm not as happy as I had expected I would be and that's all because of the negotiation process. I swear it left me with a dirty feeling. First of all, I prepared a list of questions and called the "man in charge" yesterday. Most of my questions were answered as I was hoping he even said that we could have wine, just no 'hard' liquor like whisky or vodka etc. so I told him we would come to make our first deposit today.

Lo and behold, when we called him to tell him we were on our way, he asked me what price he had quoted me. I told him it was $1650. That does not include anything but the banquet hall, and tables and chairs, no linens or anything else. We also get to use the kitchen for heating things up and organizing food service etc. We thought that was initially high considering our budget but we kinda moved things around to accommodate it because we really loved the place. It doesn't need any decorating except for our table decor. Well the esteemed gentleman said that he didn't remember telling us that and the price he remembered was $2000. You can imagine how stunned I was, here we had tried so hard to move things around to make this happen and this swindler was changing things on us.

Anyway I told him there was no way we could make that. He tried all kinds of tricks saying that it was costing him XYZ and he had to provide us with AC for the entire time and that he had another couple come to see the place the day before who were willing to pay full price. I was so mad, Mr. Muscle was even more pissed. So we told him to let the other couple have it since weren't going to pay a penny more than $1650 and hung up on him. I was seriously distressed at this point. I'm sorry to leave you hanging at this point but my DOC is here now and we have to go over a few things. I promise I will continue this story later.



TTFN (ta ta for now).