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Gettin’ Tipsy

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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12 Comments

  1. Marc

    Hi Lisa – I worked for a small business owner in 2000. She owned a bed n breakfast, she was a wedding planner, and also owned a tassle, ribbons and bows business that sold to restaurants, hotels, high schools, you name it. Anyway…this lady had very few scruples when it came to hidden charges in her capacity as a wedding planner. She had a sparkling personality that drew people to her, and her B&B had a ballroom and a wedding chapel next to it on the 10 acre property. So she could plan the wedding, host the reception and cater the event all in one place. Receptions could be held outdoors or indoors as the B&B was a good sized mansion with a large green yard with big cotton wood trees near a lake. People would have a great time until they received the bill.

    She routinely added a 20% gratuity. I quit working for her after six months. I found out that people I knew that used her services, were getting billed for me as an employee, as bartender, washing dishes, preparing food, and setting up and putting away tables and chairs for banquets, receptions, etc. The problem being…I wasn’t a employee in that capacity at all. I worked telephone sales for her tassle business with restaurants and hotels. I had no part in the wedding business. So my advice is this…discuss all fees and charges with your planner and get the cost quote in writing before giving up your credit card for the down payment. Also…it doesn’t hurt to request references from previous customers. They’re more likely to tell you how it went for them and if they felt they got their monies worth. Enjoy your special day:)

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Oh that’s too bad. I’m glad you realized sooner rather than later and got out of that business. Doing unethical things like that is bad karma. And thank you for the warning! The wedding coordinator gave me a good tip and said to double check that the caterers don’t charge gratuity on the rentals. I didn’t even think about that!

  2. Carbzilla

    Oh yum! I’ll have to put that on our list of nice, close places to go out.

    Our venue came with a coordinator so I didn’t have to spend the extra money. We didn’t use one for Rylee’s wedding. Everyone was assigned a few tasks which worked out great, but she has the luxury of a HUGE family and her brother lives with the florist. 🙂

    I think this will take a lot of stress off you which is great. There are always a million things going on at once. You should really be able to enjoy your day and your party.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      It was a great place! I liked it a lot and want to go back for the music events. They were setting up for salsa dancing when we left. The four of us should meet there sometime. And maybe Rylee and Corey want to join us!

  3. Emily

    We had a day-of coordinator for our wedding, and it was AWESOME. She provided great advice and guidance leading up to the wedding, ran our rehearsal, and did everything on the day of, for a flat fee. (We knew what we were paying her in advance.) I would totally recommend having one! It was so nice not to have to worry about dealing with something if something went wrong.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      It sounds like the coordinators we’ve talked to are doing a flat fee too. I plan on getting everything in writing and whether or not that might change after the fact. But I’m excited about having a coordinator who can take care of the minutia on the day.

  4. evilcyber

    Apropos wine tasting: the other day I had two glasses of a nice dry German Dornfelder. Not exactly the heaviest red out there, yet the next morning a tremendous hangover greeted me. I hadn’t had any alcohol for so long that even that small an amount made that big an impact.

    By Jupiter, I’m becoming a softie 😀

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Sorry about the hangover! Apparently my age is catching up to me because I can’t drink much either!

  5. Kay

    My cousin had a coordinator that came with the wedding/reception place for her wedding. I was the point of contact for the day for anything needed. It came in handy when the staff had questions and didn’t want to stress the bride. One helpful thing, my cousin made a spreadsheet of all vendors for the coordinator to use – djay, flowers, limo, etc. It came in handy when the limo didn’t show up on time and she had to call them.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      That’s one of the things the wedding coordinator will do. Even though we are just hiring a “day of” coordinator, they start working with us 6-8 weeks before the wedding finalizing everything and organizing the flow of the day. Thanks for the recommendation on the spreadsheet! Will pass that on.

  6. Miz

    you know me…
    Im ELOPED MCGEE.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      There are days where that is a very appealing option….

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