Catching up

It's been over a week since I last blogged. Sorry. I'll blame it on the weather! Wedding plans are chugging along.

The latest issues have involved money. And math. And I've even gotten a little feisty. It's definitely been the moments least passable for "laid-back bride."

First, there was trying to block the hotel rooms. Our reception is at a hotel. That hotel happens to be changing names in April. We knew this when we booked the reception. The wedding coordinator at the time said she didn't know exactly how much the room rate would be (because of the new name) but gave us a number it "wouldn't be over." We were OK with that. Fast forward... First, that wedding coordinator has left the hotel. The new wedding coordinator has proven impossible to get ahold of. I have left 4 messages with her beginning on about 2/9. She called last Thursday sometime between 7 and 9 p.m. while I was doing the FOCCUS stuff. I called her the next day but still haven't heard back. Anyway, so I talked to the sales manager about the rates. She said the rate was $10 more than the original "top" number, which I wasn't happy with but didn't fight at first. Then she sent the contract and it was even higher than she said on the phone - by another $10. So I got feisty and called and said that wedding coordinator No. 1 had said the rate wouldn't be higher than $x, and this number was $20 over that, and I wanted the original rate. She said she probably couldn't get it, but she would ask ... The next day she calls back and I got the original rate! SCORE! (Well, for our guests. Our suite is free!)

The second money "problem" has been the flight for the honeymoon. We want to go to Maui and Kauai. The Largest Airline That Has A Monopoly In Cincinnati doesn't fly to Kauai. So fine. We can leave CVG the day after our wedding and fly to Maui (by way of LA), spend a few days in Maui, then fly that Hawaiian Airline That Means Hello to Kauai. It's getting back to Cinci that is a problem.

The travel Web sites want to take us from Kauai to Honolulu to Seattle to Minneapolis to CVG or something like that - for multiple thousands of dollars. Why can't we just fly from Kauai to Maui and then switch airlines to go to LA and on to CVG? Well, because HATMH and TLATHAMIC do not have some sort of rights, so you can't book directly through THLATHAMIC's Web site for all the flights. We can fly that route, but we must book the legs separately. Well, it's not that we MUST, but to save money we need to.

See to book separately, the flights are $A and $B. But if you try to book them together (say by manipulating a certain travel web site with a sing-song theme song) the price is $A + $B + $54.61. Why??? So, it looks like to save $100 together, we will most likely have to make our return flight from Kauai to Maui, pick up our luggage from HATMH, recheck our luggage with TLATHAMIC and re-go through security. "Unless," said the helpful travel agent I spoke to who wanted to charge me an additional $30 pp to book the already more expensive 'combined' flight, "You get a really nice gate agent. Show them all your tickets, and maybe they'll book you all the way through to Cincinnati."

Here's hoping the gate agents in Kauai are super nice. And that the rates don't go up before we can get the tickets actually purchased, of course.