slee517 wedding: April 2007

i officially am ready to switch banks. i signed up for national city when i started college only b/c it was a bank on campus, and i ended up sticking w/ them despite other banks having better interest rates... just b/c i didn't want the hassle of switching. well, i'm DONE!

for our wedding we got a bunch of checks we've been depositing slowly. on this particular trip to the bank, some were addressed to tim so he endorsed the back of all of them to me, and then i signed underneath him. for those, the teller was like, "oh there are too many here. if you just had 1 or smthg it'd be ok. but w/ this many we need to see his ID." and i was like, "so if i had one check like that and it was worth $5000 that'd be ok, but b/c i have 8 that are worth $2000 that's not ok?" i could tell she got flustered after that.

and then there were other checks made out to both of us, so i signed those and i thought i'd be able to deposit them. but she said that b/c BOTH our names were on them, BOTH of us had to endorse them, regardless of whether "and" or "or" was used between our names. that really pissed me off b/c if a check's made out to either me OR him, then i should be able to deposit it on my own!

so this lady (?manager) came over after hearing the commotion. and she said they couldn't cash ANY of those checks b/c he didn't belong to national city. so i was like "fine just deposit the ones made out to me, and i'll deposit the others in his account. we'll close this one later." and they were like "all banks are going to have the same policy."

so in any case we went to fidelity, tim's credit union, and they accepted all the checks! he just had to sign all of them, which makes sense. i got added to his account too... i WAS going to add him to my national city account, but now i'm so upset that i want to switch banks! i realize that adding him to the account would solve the check-depositing issues, but now i'm not going to do it out of SPITE! yes that's right, i can be a real grudge-holding bitch.

it's ridiculous that if a check is made out to 2 ppl, both have to be national city members in order for them to even consider depositing it. half of all married couples now have separate bank accounts, so does that mean that the checks they receive made out to both of them are worthless... that no bank will deposit them if they don't belong to the same bank?! oh my god. they are so retarded. i've asked other ppl, and although it seems banks are getting stricter about depositing checks, other ppl have had no problems depositing checks like the ones i had.

i'm just so upset at national city that i want to take my business elsewhere! unfortunately i have my direct deposit going there, so i have to open a new account first, change the direct deposit, and THEN close the account. plus i just moved a bunch of money from my savings account into a CD and i can't touch that money for a year. :(

so that's it. we are officially on the lookout for a new bank! i'm thinking of TCF, LaSalle, or Flagstar. Anyone have experience w/ any of those?

this weekend was our first choice weekend to get married. we'd wanted this weekend so i could take 2 weeks off work straddled over april and may. but being outside today, i realized that it was probably a blessing in disguise that we ended up w/ our third choice date.

i mean, it was hot. tolerable in the shade, but sweaty hot in the sun. i imagined what it would've been like to wear my dress outside taking pictures for hours, and just the very thought made me uncomfortable. i loved my dress, y'know. after hours of dress shopping, when i tried it on i knew it was THE dress. it was convenient that the silk satin and crinoline were heavy, b/c it was chilly on our actual wedding day. i've read stories though, about brides who passed out during their fittings due to the heat. i think i would've had to choose a different dress, and that would've been hard.

also, my allergies kicked in. my eyes were itching like crazy, and when they get going, my allegra doesn't work 100%. i practically claw at my eyes; i rub them until they feel sore, making my eyelids turn red. it would've been awful to be grabbing at my eyes throughout my wedding!

so in the end, getting married in march worked out. even though our honeymoon occurred one week shy of being low season, we were able to get several deals on our vendors b/c it was their last weekend in the low wedding season. and of course, i got to wear the dress i wanted without feeling like to pass out. :)

i'd always said that if i had the wedding to do over again, i'd A) go for the destination wedding we originally wanted, B) stick to the under-100 guests we tried to have, or C) have a huge wedding. inside i knew i never would've gone w/ the huge wedding, b/c it would've been such a headache, and plus, we wanted to (and did) pay for half of the wedding ourselves, and w/ our fairly pricey taste, we would've gone into debt.

but after watching the video my friend's husband made, i think a bigger wedding would've been nice. not a HUGE wedding... but there were some ppl that tim and i just couldn't invite. like, he invited no one from work... granted, he doesn't love his work peeps the way i love mine, but still, they hang out. we were forced to stick to 100 invitations, b/c that's how many we ordered hahaha! even w/ the extra envelopes they gave us, there were none to spare, and we sent out 98 in the end. (i messed up some of writing, y'know.) we ended up w/ 160 ppl, which is a pretty good size, but some friends' laughing faces were still missing.

so, as beautiful as a destination wedding would've been, i think i would've looked back on the pictures and wished there were more of my friends there. y'know, when we told our parents we wanted to have a super small wedding in the caribbean, my mom thought i'd regret doing that, b/c she didn't have a reception and sometimes regrets it. at the time i didn't believe her, but it turns out she was right.

i'm so excited... one of my friends' husband made me a DVD from the wedding! he downloaded music... edited it... made a scrolling slideshow introduction... everything. i saw a snip of it today, and it actually makes me wish i'd hired a videographer! i never thought i'd want to see myself on screen, but the way he put everything together looked so awesome. the dancing... the comments... our first dance... he even got the cake cutting where the cake tim was trying to feed me fell on my dress. it's so great. (not the cake falling on my dress part, but y'know, that's part of the memories.) hearing the music brought me right back to the day. i can't wait until i get my own little copy. :)

well, we're back from the blur of a wedding day/night and our honeymoon! we had an unbelievable time in curacao. it was definitely the best vacation ever, even though our 9 days and 8 nights were a few days too short! if you're like us and not really the type to spend all your time lounging around the beach/pool and swimming, we totally recommend this place. there was sooo much to do there. literally, for the first 4-5 days we had at least 1 activity/day.

i was going to write about the funny things that happened the night of and before the wedding... and also write about our honeymoon and show pictures... but things have been kinda hectic since we got back! first our plane was delayed. then our luggage was lost. (and of course it wasn't the bag w/ our beach towels and snorkeling gear; it was the one w/ all our clothes!) and now tim's sick and i've been stuck at the hospital w/ the OB labor from hell.

we WILL get around to posting about the last 2 weeks though! and we're also starting to sort through all the wedding gifts we got at the wedding. thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family for their generosity! (no, that was NOT the official thank you card. that'll be coming your way hopefully soon!)