Tuesday, July 30, 2013

When Doves Chirp



We missed booking the videographer who works out of the photography studio we visited by one day. We are uncertain whether this was a blessing or a curse. Next on the list was someone referred to us by my dad’s office. He taped depositions for them sometimes. He lived a bit outside the city, if you consider Bloomington a city. He hopped off a lawnmower, his well-fed frame impressively nimble, as we pulled up the driveway to his garage studio. He aggressively dabbed the perspiration off his brow as he made our acquaintance.

My friend Andy described every videographer he ever met as an “older, overweight, overly enthusiastic, sweaty man who thinks he’s funny.” Either Andy only knows this one, or he is a visionary.

First impressions are significant. You want to find a shared wavelength with your vendors. We walked into the garage, and it felt like we were looking at an early-stage mock-up of the USS Enterprise’s control room that a Trekkie had been working on as a hobby.

We watched a couple of sample videos, as he was eager to show us some of the new effects he was working on, swirling clouds, silhouettes of strange objects transitioning from scene to scene, and doves chirping (which I don’t think they do). I prayed these were optional. The videos looked like they were filmed well, but they were overburdened with effects and transitional objects moving about the screen. Each segment was preceded by some clicking, a chuckle, and a “Check this out” that sounded like a bad George W. Bush impression.

We replied with, “That’s a new take on it” and similar vague assurances.

He was a technically astute, enthusiastic fellow, but his fun time involved the creation of special effects that Disney would have rejected in the twenties. We talked over the basics of the contract and described our vision as everything he was doing using only the camera.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Monday, July 29, 2013

THE INITIAL MEETINGS - Who is the Fairest of Them All?



The initial trip to the photographer’s studio was a mix of marketing and intrigue. My fiancĂ©e is a ten, and I’ll self-promote myself as a strong seven. As I take in the “viewing room,” a small area with a table, a bookshelf full of proof books, and pictures everywhere on walls and easels, I think:

We will so make the wall of fame. Or will we be too intimidating for those who follow? Or will they put us on the wall due to our lack of intimidation? Or will we not get the wall at all? Can I pay extra for it?

The price of any given print is seemingly ten times what it should be. I have a camera that uses film. I take that film to be developed, and they make prints from the developed film. I began to hypothesize what accounts for the extra $8 per 4 x 6 inch print?

“Your overhead could be reduced by not using solid gold to stamp the pictures with your logo. Our wedding photos really aren’t your cattle.”

“Is that the same photo-processing equipment they use on the space shuttle? Oh, you actually send them to NASA for developing. Lack of oxygen does bring out the blue in my eyes.”

Wisely, I reserved these comments for when I was home alone, enjoying them with my make-believe audience of celebrities and the cat.

Who doesn’t suffer the frustration and amusement of that witty comeback three hours later on the car ride home from work? You’ll get him next time, you think, envisioning exactly the same scenario tomorrow, when you’re prepared, and the subsequent ticker tape parade thrown in your honor. Then you get home and want to show off your razor-sharp, albeit time-delayed, wit by adding it seamlessly to your summary of the day’s events, only to find out that it really wasn’t that funny, and you were better off being the brain-numbed nitwit that is your work personality.

Had I really asked about print costs, I envisioned the response as: “What are the memories of this most special day worth to you?” And then I’d be screwed, as any answer less than priceless cheapens your wedding.

All vendors want you to believe that their services are in demand, that you have only one wedding, and you should lock up the best, which they are, as soon as possible. The photographer’s studio had hundreds of thousands of shots to choose from. I assumed that they would choose in-focus prints to display. They emphasized every soft skill and casually recounted the wedding horror story about their unfortunate cousin, probably fictitious, who went discount.

Candidate photographer, please don’t wow me with special effects like a Glamour Shots glow or airbrushed stronger chin or bigger pectorals. Just understand how the equipment works, and we’ll make each other look good. To quote Jeff BeBe in Almost Famous, “Is it that hard to make us look cool?”
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Paging Dr. Fashion



As a brief history of my sense of style and shopping habits, let me describe some aspects of my acquisition of clothes. First, I feel that, at 60 percent off retail, clothes start to become appropriately priced. In addition, I am also drawn to the rack of misfit clothes, left to fade into obscurity by their peculiar pattern and color combinations.

Christa and I started dating about four years after I graduated from college. Most of the misfit clothes that I had acquired during the previous decade were still in my possession. I don’t believe that she took me on as a project, per se, but I do know she has worked on me to not make an ass of myself, at least while in her presence. For some reason, any poor behavior and, more importantly, poor fashion reflects chiefly on women. As the primary subscribers to fashion magazines and as the presumedly more-refined sex, they bear sole societal responsibility for what gets let out of the house, fashionwise.

Her fashion critiques came in the following forms:

“Honey, you really shouldn’t.”

“It’s on sale for a reason.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be arrested for impersonating a drug trafficker.”

Over time, we worked out the basic arrangements of clothing acquisition for me. I can continue to apply my 60-percent rule, but she has been granted semi-universal veto power. She won a bigger victory in reducing my donations timeline from infinite to a couple of years. Needless to say, there will be some snazzy gentlemen hitting the soup kitchen this year.

For the wedding, I was allowed to find my own tux, albeit with a veto option and innumerable helpful hints. My search began. The first store stocked their own tuxes. This allowed them to offer rentals at a reduced rate, compared to shops ordering from what is, apparently, a tuxedo super warehouse located somewhere in this great land. I walked in, and it didn’t smell quite right. It seemed like a perfect environment for an illegal bingo parlor: something old, something smoky, and something a bit metallic. I pulled the first jacket off the mannequin and tried it on for style. It felt like it was moving. When the older woman behind the counter asked whether I needed help, her voice was a little worn, perhaps from a late night of bingo calling. I asked to try on a jacket in something closer to my size. She returned with one from the back room. This one smelled smoky, and I think I detected a hint of roasted meat. Apparently, the storeroom backed up to a bar, allowing the stench of its patrons and their indulgences to continually make its way through the walls and vents and into the tuxes. I think she saw me retching slightly and said that this one had just been returned, but everything got laundered before it was officially issued again. I felt I was wearing a tux that had been worn for a viewing—by the motionless, horizontal attendee no less—and it may or may not have been laundered yet. I began weeping and ran from the store.

My second shop was a step up, considering it had no unusual smells upon entering. It had a more standard setup. Mannequins displayed the various styles, and it offered a jacket in the appropriate size to try on. Then there was the book, Jim’s Formalwear. At some point in the past, Jim apparently acquired every rentable tuxedo in America and brought them all to some place I’ll call Tuxedoville. He then published a book showing all the styles and accompanying ties, shirts, shoes, etc. He sent this book to every place of business interested in renting tuxes and a seeming monopoly was created. Tuxedos in a couple of weeks, that’s Jim’s promise.

Our assistant in this store was slightly competent, but far from helpful. As I was trying to figure out what vest style I liked best, a woman in purple scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck came in and asked if she could help me.

“With what exactly…doctor?” I said, with an uncertain grimace on my face.

“Becky said you had some questions.”

Something about this didn’t compute. I was standing in a tux-rental room weighing my vest options, and someone in scrubs with medical examination equipment was asking me if she could help. Was she at lunch? I didn’t specifically say what my questions were, but I felt the situation implied they weren’t of a medicinal nature.

“It has been a while since my last physical, and I want to make sure everything is still working as intended,” I answered, trying to establish what her profession was.

Apparently part of the bridal shop team, she was pushy and overbearing—and seemed to want an order placed before she went back on duty. I may have been mistaken to assume that she was off duty or did anything at all regarding patient care. Maybe she was a doctor of fashion, or maybe she shopped like me, but at the uniform store sale rack. I didn’t last long with her. I thanked her for her help and said I was going to mull it over a bit. I asked Christa what she thought about the vest options.

She said, “I don’t care. Get what you like.”

This was the most jarring sentence I had ever heard. After all the work on refining my wardrobe, all the effort to make the wedding day as special and perfect as she had dreamed, she had given me full authority for the decision on vest style—the same vest, albeit under a jacket most of the time, that would be photographed and recorded as a part of our eternal wedding memories, until the end of history, as what I wore on our wedding day. I wasn’t ready for this responsibility, even less for being given this responsibility voluntarily. What part of my checkered fashion past gives you the confidence to so casually bestow upon me this momentous decision? This was a pressure cooker. All the mannequins headlessly stared at me, waiting for me to act. I used the only safe retreat I had.

“Let’s think it over at lunch, shall we?”

At lunch, we solidified our agreement that we didn’t like Dr. Fashion or her establishment. It was an improvement over the first shop, but we still didn’t have confidence in them. We did not lack confidence in their ability to correctly place an order, but in their ability to care or to provide service after the sale.

Next we went to a Gentlemen’s Clothiers, which, by title alone, conveyed the “We are not satisfied unless you are satisfied message we were looking for. In addition, they were actually friendly and had a seamstress on staff, in case last minute alterations were needed. They explained upfront that everyone gets tuxes from the Tux Tyrant, Jim, through his full-page color catalog. The prices were comparable, and the calming assurance of their conduct sold us. I also detected no smoked meat, parlor games, or surgical instruments in their establishment.

The last tuxedo-finding information I will pass along comes from one of my groomsmen, who I will briefly channel to relay the story in the first person.

(Start channel)

I went into the store to get my measurements and made brief introductions. The gentleman said this should be painless and drew his measuring tape, like a menacing sword of truth. A polite female employee grabbed the clipboard, and judgment time was upon me.

He asked, “What waist-size pants do you usually wear?”

“Thirty-six or thirty-eight,” I replied.

He let out a disbelieving, or perhaps disapproving, groan as he wrapped the measuring tape around my naval. “Let’s put down forty-two.”

This was a blow. I tried to smirk it off, but the ruler didn’t lie. But I did wear thirty-six or thirty-eight; check the label. I guess there could be a little bit of love that hangs out over the jeans, but I still control it. I’m too young to pull my pants over my naval.

In the meantime, he had measured my shoulders and announced, “Athletic build.”

“Yes. Did you hear that? An athletically built forty-two, baby. I’m calling the wife to tell her a real man is coming home.”

Friday, July 19, 2013

Thingys 101



I don’t know the business side of running a wedding and formal gown shop, but there seems to be an overwhelming belief that each shop should exist in a black box. All information shall remain within the doors. No word of what you saw or heard should be passed on, and pricing is done mostly by witchcraft.

Because I was such a wonderful fiancĂ©—and because our entire bridal party lived two thirds of a country away—I was given the pure thrill of accompanying Christa on several trips to bridal shops in San Diego. The layout was similar in almost all the shops. The most prominent feature was the goddess pedestal, where brides-to-be stand to be fussed over and view themselves in 180-degree mirrors. There were a handful of admiration chairs for blood-related opinion givers to sit in, and approve or disapprove of the gown options.

One half of the store usually contained various bridal gowns; the other half held the rainbow of bridesmaid dresses. The great difficulty was separating the color from the style. Instincts tell you not to touch anything in lime, but sadly there was a dress in lime that didn’t want to be lime, and it was just waiting to be snatched up by a colorblind bride, without prejudice against color, tassels, or bedazzling. The odds are against finding a dress in your color scheme and style to try on for an exact trial run. Instead, you must refer to the book of swatches, try the dress on in the wrong size, and project the body types and sizes of the bridesmaids into them. Meanwhile, across the country, the bridesmaids were all looking for dresses in the same way. They let Christa know what they’d found and wanted her to view and critique, thereby instigating the great bridesmaid dress scavenger hunt.

I tried to help with this search, but without a make and model number, it was a crapshoot. My choices produced the following responses:

“Honey.” The one where the second syllable gets lower, like I had just been told three times “not that one.” It was probably one I picked on color. Lesson learned, for at least another fifteen minutes.

“I don’t like the thingy.”

Was it the class of thingys or this specific thingy that was bad? Was it the thingy in combination with this other thingy, one too few, two too many? I guess I overslept the day thingys were covered in all the fashion design courses I took. I tried to learn the thingys to avoid, but they were all so similar, yet so different. Cursed thingys.

“Why don’t you just hold the ones I’ve picked out?” she finally said.

Your skills are not worth my time. You really help more by not helping. Did you not get the memo?

Once the options have been selected, you head off to the dressing rooms. Some stores have dress Nazis who personally attend to you, meaning they don’t let you out of their sight for fear that you might try and document what you look like in the dress. They wait by the dressing room, sometimes inside, at the ready with many large pins to create the illusion of an altered dress or to penalize those who attempt to escape with the knowledge they have gained. Fortunately, there was time for secret-agent photo reconnaissance. Given my previous field experience, this was really not a challenge. Let me see if I have any chewing gum in my pocket…“Oh, did I just take a picture?”

I’ll admit a waist-high shot of a fuchsia dress, two sizes too big really didn’t help the decision process, but it was one of the only victories I could salvage.

I was thanked for my efforts afterwards, since Christa knew I genuinely tried to help. But in my frustration, I translated it to, “I know you’re not a woman or aware of elegant style, but you did manage to drive here without getting lost. Way to go.”
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Thursday, July 18, 2013

LET THE PLANNING BEGIN - OUTFITTING THE TEAM - His Highness, the Groom



As soon as you get engaged, you are behind schedule on the wedding planning. It doesn’t matter if you set a date or not, there is always something that needed to be done yesterday. And get ready for the ideas and suggestions to come flying in. Everything anyone had, saw, wished, or dreamed of regarding a wedding could now work for you—and you’ll hear all about it.

The morning following the announcement to Christa’s parents, we were awakened to the news that we, I mean she, had an appointment at a bridal store to try on dresses. Welcome to your first day of special-day preparation. Her mom wanted a chance to be a part of dress try-ons. The moms want to be involved, a lot.

As we held to tradition, I was the only one not able to see Christa and was stuck downstairs. Christmas never felt so good. I don’t think I had ever been in a store catering to women where I had nothing to occupy my time. Victoria’s Secret had sexed up mannequins. Bath & Body had good smells, but a bridal shop with no tuxes. I was left with rhinestone tiaras, which, when worn by a solitary gentleman, produced strange looks from other store occupants.

About every fifteen minutes, someone yelled down the latest dress rankings in completely abstract terms (an MOB specialty), so as not to tip me off to any of the details.

“She sort of liked the one she had on before this one. It was essentially white with some design things. What do you think about that?” the MOB asked.

“It sounds like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” I replied.

Eventually, I fled, for momentary relief, to the sensual oasis of a grocery store. So rarely does one seek to smell cheese. I was able to obtain a magazine with some nonbridal subject matter and passed the remaining time in the shop posing as the intellectually curious gentleman with the tiara on.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival