Studio: So, our current studio is still being sold out from under us. We’ve been looking at new places avoer the course of the past few weeks. We pretty much are down to two places. Place we are in now – $2500. Huge rooms, okay layout, decent light (better before all the leaves came back), AMAZING outside with stone and ivy, great parking and driveway. Place 1 – $2200. Better location, all one level, we’d be the only people there, good exposure, great light, bad driveway, crappy curb appeal, needs a lot of gardening work. Place 2 – $1500. Upstairs only (downstairs is empty but dark as a pit), decent light, not as great location, good driveway and parking (which might change if the downstairs is rented to other people), decent curb appeal, needs a lot of gardening work, has a better layout. We decided that upstairs is just too much of a risk for all of our advantages going away when/if downstairs is rented. So, we contacted the guy who owns place one and said “Hey, we know it’s advertised for $2200, but we want it for $1800.” He says “Oh, well, I don’t know why it’s at $2200, I want $2600.” Us: “LOL, that’s more than we are paying now for less space. That’s a big fat NO.” So we had knocked that place off the list and we were pretty set to make the best of it at the upstairs place, when he comes back this week with “Oh, well.. I guess I could let you have it for $2200.” Aurgh.. I am so tired of the waffling. I will be happy when we sign something and we can quit second-guessing all of our feelings about it.
Wedding: The venue we’re liking here in Athens is cheap and lovely, but it’s a smidge little and doesn’t include anything, which means we’d be renting chairs, tables.. etc PLUS doing all of our own setup and teardown unless we can get a caterer to do that So, I really really don’t want to be taking down table and dirty dishes when I could be hanging out with guests after the wedding, so that’s becoming more of a concern than I’d anticipated. So now I’m looking at other venues I’d originally nixed because they were more up front, but now I’m thinking it’d be worth it to not have to worry about getting tables and junk back to the rental places that night.
On top of all of that, I walked out the door to go to work on monday and I find that the apartment complex’s landscapers have chopped down the crepe myrtle tree in my flowerbed. Like, chopped it off at the roots and left it there, on the ground. They came back later and chopped up all the trunks, but left the roots in my flowerbed. I called and was like “WTF?!? That was my favorite plant in the damn garden!” I was SO upset, I nearly cried. Apparently, the manager of the complex hadn’t authorized that at all and was just as shocked as me. I guess she pulled some strings or made sure the landscaping people understood how pissed she was, because there was another crepe myrtle planted right in that space when I got home today. 😛
On the wedding front, if you can afford it, the option that’s the least work for you sounds best. In my experience, weddings are hectic enough without adding work you could avoid. On the other hand, maybe you have a reliable family member or friend you could delegate the clean up and rental returns to, so it’s not on your mind.
You could also see if there are cheap-for-hire people, like college students, for setup and takedown – I did this sort of thing all the time in college, and was glad to do it! It would be nice, if you do have it there, to have this task off your plate, and that might be an option worth exploring if you are hesitant to ask friends or family. But don’t be – I’ve helped setup and takedown for friends’ weddings in the past, and was always glad to lend a hand to make the day easier on the couple! (Plus, I got to smuggle in booze. 😉 )