Mothers of Brides, Mothers of Grooms

I know it's a cliche but I really never understand why some Mothers try and make weddings about them.  Now the bride that I had this weekend was a completely unorganized mess and don't get me started on her "day of" wedding planner that was non-existent, but their is helpful and their is overbearing.  The Mother of the Bride kept changing everything that the bride would do and setup because she didn't like the way it looked.  This meant the Bride kept getting more stressed out and frustrated, not to mention the fact that it made things take forever and I was moving tables and thing around which I do not normally do.  That's what my houseman does and he wasn't scheduled in until later.  Now once the reception started usually things should run pretty smoothly, especially if you've planned things correctly but the mother continued to pull their respective children aside to complain to them about the other mother and what she was doing.  Mainly the fight was over the DJ and what type of music he was playing.  One mother wanted slow and jazzy while the other mother wanted more upbeat and modern.  This was all different from what the bride and groom had given to the DJ in their list of what to play.  In the end I know that this is as I said before a cliche, mother taking over the wedding story but this was really the most evident I have seen it.  I can't imagine pulling my child away from their reception and party to complain to them and cause problems.  The mother of the groom and the groom missed the bouquet toss!  I know that my Mom reads this so please remember this story when it comes to my wedding, not that you would ever act like that.  In the end...you have class.

Ladies Night

I love being able to take a night out with a good girlfriend.  Their is really nothing like it.  Last night Jenny and I met up after I got off work and went out for a nice dinner.  It was great, we went to The Grove which is downtown at the new Discovery Green Park, part of Houston's green initiative.  It has beautiful tall windows along 3 of the 4 walls overlooking the park and I have to say that the bartender makes a good martini.  We had to wait an hour for a table (rockets game across the street and Houston Marathon weekend) but the time flew by.  It's just nice to know that no matter what's happening in my life or those few certain close friends lives that you can still treat yourself to a nice night out and a nice meal.  It made for a really nice weekend even though I spent half of my Sunday shampooing our couches.  The photo attached is from Jenny's wedding and is one of my favorite pics of her and I and it really shows our personality!  Anyway, check out the link below to the restaurant...The Grove Restaurant.

Must Love Dogs

So I went and saw Marley and Me today.  Oh my gosh!  Can you say sobfest!!  My friend Emily and I ventured out in the cold to the movies yesterday and saw it.  The beginning of the movie was hilarious and I kept finding myself laughing out loud thinking of Hula.  Hula is Dillon's brother Evan's dog that lives with us and she is the most adorable catahula hound dog in the world.  She's not quite as destructive as Marley but she definitely has the energy and craziness sometimes.  She makes us laugh constantly.  At the end of the movie though all I could think about was Jaffe our wonderful cocker spaniel who died a few years ago.  I just couldn't contain myself and sobbed once I started thinking about him.  Anyway, I love dogs and hopefully someday I'll have another one that's all mine!  For the time being here is photo of our little Hula!

Brides, Brides, Brides...

Back to life as usual.  Holiday season is over and it's back to normal days at the office and thankfully no more holiday parties.  What I am crawling with is BRIDES.  It's not a bad thing though.  We're actually really starting to fill up for 2009 and working on 2010.  It's exciting and exhausting at the same time.  Really it's some of my currently schedules brides that are driving me crazy and are exhausting.  I have this one wedding coming up that is really "country comes to town."  I don't mean to make fun of them but the bride is 20 years old and her bridesmaids are her sisters who are 16 and 13.  I finally got the bride to pick food she wanted to taste for the meal and she brought her sisters with her.  They tasted all of the food and then her sisters asked if their was a kids meal we would be serving (chicken tenders and french fries) and if they could have that instead because this food was too much for them.  We are a 4 diamond property with an award winning chef so it's a bit weird for people above the age of 8 to be asking for chicken tenders.  Then this bride informed me that she had put within her invitation a choice for her guests of chicken, beef or fish.  This is NOT something we allow.  If we are going to allow a choice of entree that is preselected ahead of time we might do it for less than 100 guests and we would only allow 2 choices, not 3!  What I have enjoyed a bit of (an I do feel just a bit bad that I'm enjoying) is that she's now stressed out because of all of the work that it takes when you offer your guests a choice of entree.  To do this you have to make sure all of your guests actually respond with their choice filled out and then create a seating chart for then and then create place cards that somehow show our waitstaff which of these entrees your guests are having.  As of right now she only has about 50 guests who have actually RSVPed and her guest count is due in 2 weeks.  She's estimated to have around 120 guests. This could become interesting!  I'll keep this updated!!!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!  Can't believe it's 2009 but it was fun ringing it in.  I actually had to work all night at the hotel, we had a huge party in the lobby and then a wedding in the ballroom.  A really cute couple getting married and a lot of drunk people downstairs.  It's really amazing what people will do out on a night like that.  I know I've had some crazy nights of drinking and partying but I really don't think that I've ever been all that bad.  Really there was just a lot of stumbling around and falling down.  My coworkers and I really enjoyed laughing a lot at them.  It was nice though because even though we were working we were joking, laughing, dancing and even had a glass of champagne at midnight.  We did have to kick some people out for smoking pot in our Den which amazed my bosses but really, come on, how can that surprise you on NYE!  

The amazing part for me was in the wedding.  We had all of the guests in the ballroom, seated and waiting for the announcement of the bride and groom and they ended up having to sit and wait.  This being at 9PM at night when the guests have yet to have dinner.  Turns out the Mother of the Groom decided to stop on the way from the church to get pizza.  She held things up for almost 45 minutes!  She also got up immediately after being announced and the couple starting there first dance to go out of the ballroom to the bathroom.  How can a mother not want to see her son's first dance at his wedding with his new wife??  I just really don't get it!  My banquet manager thinks that it was because the couple were from different races and maybe she didn't approve.  I hope that this wasn't it because that is so sad; but something was definitely going on.

Well at least after getting done around 130AM I made it out of the hotel and to the bar where Dillon and some of our friends were just in time to have 1 drink before they closed.  It was definitely a needed drink after a very long night!