While visiting the new Bloch Building, and specifically the impressionism exhibit, at The Nelson [Atkins Museum of Art], our hungry bellies led us to the most convenient source of nutritional satisfaction: Rozelle Court.
Rozelle Court is a cafeteria-style restaurant located in the central courtyard of the marbled art-deco museum. The location is modeled after interior Italian courtyards, with colorful ceiling frescos and a second-story balcony overlook that can be entered into from the museum's exhibits. It smelled delicious and familiar, and it took me a while to pinpoint the smell as akin to the cafeterias found in the department stores of Britain and Ireland.
While the food is cafeteria-style (it placed me back in the 9th grade, carrying my tray along the lunch line), the food is not. You won't find the wilted salads, rubbery meat, or dried-out sandwiches one usually associates with hospital or school cafeterias. The buffet is stocked by professionally-dressed staff, and the food is quite obviously designed and prepared by a chef. I was very pleased with the combinations of lesser-used tastes used only by nicer restaurants and caterers.
The selections included typical tea foods, such as sandwiches, scones, croissants, soups and salads. Of course, there were many desserts. I didn't try any, so can't attest to whether they were made on-site or came out of a box; however, given the impressive quality of the rest of the food, I would guess that the desserts would be just as lovely.
I would recommend Rozelle Court as a fine choice for those unwilling to leave the museum for thier lunch, or for those who would visit just to try the restaurant at least once.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Wedding Post #1
We were engaged a little over four months ago, on 4/21/07. He had been hinting on a weekend surprise for a few days, and of course I was thrilled by receiving (instead of a nice dinner out, as I expected for the surprise) a proposal and subsequent trip to the jewellers to pick out a ring. Immediately afterward, we set about choosing ceremony and receptions sites and setting a date. I had heard that in this area, these things must be booked between 12 and 18 months in advance. Oh, the joys of living in a city!
For 2-3 weeks things were rather stressful. We knew we wanted a church wedding, but we didn't want to be married in my church because I'm Catholic and he's not. Neither of us thought it was okay that the Catholic church essentially thinks that he's going to hell because he's not Catholic, and I wasn't willing to have my future family excluded from communion at our wedding. He doesn't have a church that he attends regularly (he kind of bounces around churches, searching for "the one"). Has anyone out there ever attempted to find a church that will marry a couple who are not members? It's extremely difficult. Either they won't do it at all because you don't belong, or they want to charge you upwards of $1,000. The whole process really soured me on churches. We are faithful people, and we wanted our ceremony to be a religious one, but most churches don't seem to want people to have religious ceremonies. If we didn't have the financial means we do, a church wedding would have been out of the question. To me, that's ridiculous. Everyone should be able to be married in a church, regardless of the amount of money they can afford to use to make it happen.
We eventually resigned ourselves to the expense, and set about choosing a church based on it's beauty. Eventually, we settled on a fantastic cathedral on Ward Parkway in Kansas City, MO. Being Catholic, a cathedral is what I grew up attending and wanted for my wedding. I'm more than excited that it will be the beautiful ceremony I've always dreamed of.
Once the church was settled, in came time to find a reception site. While we certainly aren't on a minimal budget, I am trying to keep expenses as low as possible. The ridiculous amounts of money charged by wedding industry vendors really do make me sick. I also don't agree that one should spend more on their wedding than they did on their car. Therefore, I was looking for a site with 3 requirements: 1, it must be beautiful, 2, it must allow outside caterers, and 3, it must be very reasonably priced. This was not as difficult to find as one might imagine. In fact, I found a couple of places that fit the bill nicely. I chose what I thought was the most beautiful: a phenomonal publicly-owned lodge set back in a park, in a very nice part of town. It's a bit of a drive (30 minutes) from the church, but the drive is through pretty neighborhoods, does not require any highway time, and might actually be a pleasant tourist experience for out-of-towners. Unfortunately, this particular site is such a great site that it books up 16 months in advance. So, even though I booked in April of '07, the earliest date I could book was in August of '08.
Within weeks of the engagement, I had three MAJOR hurdles jumped: the date was set, the ceremony site was chosed, and the reception site was booked. Next, I turned my attention to the budget. I figured I shouldn't move forward until we'd figured out exactly how much we were willing to spend, and how we were going to pay for said expenses. I did some precursory research into average prices and best bargains. This process did take a couple of weeks. It's amazing how many expenses have to be accounted for, and how long the research for each expense takes. Eventually, I was able to build a working, early budget with what I hope are reasonable estimates. We took this budget and developed a plan for how we were going to pay for the wedding. We were very lucky that both families were willing and able to contribute. In fact, our families are paying for what amounts to half of our wedding expenses. This really takes a load of pressure of us, and allows us to have a couple of little splurges!
While doing the budget, I came across a big, fat ridiculous truth about weddings: caterers are stupidly expensive. We met with two "budget" caterers. Sure, compared to other caterers, who would charge $20-30 a person (I SWEAR to you I am NOT making that figure up), these people would only charge us $11-13. Mind you, this ONLY includes a BASIC BUFFET meal, not a plated dinner. Think about it: in a casual restaurant, you can reasonably expect to purchase a pretty yummy meal, brought to you on a plate by your own personal server, for $10-15. For this same amount, budget wedding cateres want to give you GROSS food (we tried their food, and one caterer's actually made my fiance physically ill) that you have to serve yourself. Um, no.
Again, our luck has come into play. My mother's family has self-catered a couple of very lovely weddings. I have been to these weddings and honestly had no idea they did the food themselves. I have been to other self-catered weddings where the food looked and was displayed in a way that made it plain that the family had catered the event themselves. At these weddings, things were arranged beautifully and servers were hired. I'd had no clue they'd done it themselves. Additionally, several of my mother's friends cater themselves, and have offered to make the whole thing look professional. And lastly, my godfather runs the hospitality at a major downtown hotel. He will be able to borrow the linens and buffet service items, as well as purchase the alcohol at a discount through his connections. To be honest, if it hadn't been that we happened to know so many people with professional experience, we would never have chosen to self-cater. We would have sucked it up (albeit angrily) and paid one of these ridiculous caterers their stupid amount of money, just to have a nice wedding. We are very fortunate that we don't have to do it.
Once the fourth element, the catering, was arranged, I took a break from wedding planning. Work grew busy, summer arrived along with it's social business, and an upcoming vacation helped divert my attention. Serious planning didn't begin again until the week in August which marked one year until the wedding. It's funny, but before that time the wedding felt surreal. It was this big, far away thing that was "more than a year away." Once it was "only a year away" (and especially now that it's "less than a year away"), a slow panic began to build up. One might laugh at me for panicing over a wedding that is so far away, but then one doesn't have any clue how much of an anal, preplanner I am. Everything became so real and so serious all of the sudden!
I had read that it is best to order the wedding dress 8-10 months in advance of the wedding. It makes reasonable sense to me: most designers take 4-6 months to make the dress, and one wants to allow time for a FUBAR situation such as sizing issues or designer delays. I began shopping in early August of '07. I work 4-day weeks, so I began making appointments on Fridays. Each Friday, I have visited a different dress shop to dry on the dresses by that shop's designers. So far, I am 3 weeks into my experience. I plan to make a decision by the end of September. Starting to shop 2 months before I should order the dress has made this a much more fun and much less stressful experience than most girls I've spoken to. I have plenty of time to visit as many shops as I want, try on as many dresses as I want, and mull my decision for as long as I want.
Can you guess which dress is the front runner? It's the very first dress I tried on, at the very first dress shop. In fact, I had a huge amount of temptation to buy this dress that very first day. As I mentioned before, though, I am a pretty anal person, and I was afraid to make my decision too quickly; therefore, I am making myself visit many shops and try on many dresses before I purchase my first choice. "That dress", by the by, is at Ida's in Overland Park. I cannot rave enough about the shop itself and the service I received. Please, please, if you are planning a wedding, go to Ida's and give them a try. The woman who helped me was sweet and polite as could be, and every single beautiful dress she brought me was actually UNDER the budget I quoted her.
I spent 2 different Fridays at David's Bridal, simply because they have such a massive selection and I burned out about halfway through the list of dresses I wanted to try on. After the second visit, I decided not to purchase one of their dresses. I did find one I liked pretty well (although it wasn't "that dress"), but I just didn't feel it. I didn't feel any of them, really. Having been to Ida's before, I could tell the differences that the $200-300-less price made. The dresses at David's weren't cut as well, so they didn't flatter my figure as well. They were uncomfortable, because there was less boning and the fabrics were stiffer. The trains were plain and shorter ("that dress" has a beautifully decorated train); chapel length at David's is shorter than designer dresses, I'm sure as a way to cut costs. Most of them had a simple zipper backs, instead of ties or buttons (which I was suprised to find does make a big aesthetic difference).
I also went to The Gown Gallery in the Waldo neighborhood. I had heard wonderful things about this little shop, which burnt down in the fire that destroyed one of Waldo's historic landmark buildings. I wanted to offer them my patronage in order to support a local business which is trying to rebuild. Unfortunately, there just weren't many dresses to try on. I know this wasn't the shop's fault, but I went specifically to try on Maggie Sottero. They only had 3 Maggie Sottero dresses, and really not many other dresses period. I do hope that they are able to rebuild their stock and future brides continue to give them support.
I have given myself a deadline of 9/21 to make a decision. This date, 9/21, is the last Friday before "that dress" goes off sale. The designer is having a trunk show at the shop on 9/27, and until then all her dresses are 20% off. So, I only have 1 or 2 Fridays left from this point. This coming Friday, 9/7, I'll be out of town, so I can't visit any shops. On 9/14, I plan to visit the last 2 shops on my list: Mia's in Olathe and Bridal Extraordinaire in Shawnee. On 9/21, I will make a final visit to try on "that dress," and will visit any other shop I discover I've missed.
Mia's has a pretty sour reputation. I've heard from others that the service is pretty rotten, and have one account of an order mix-up with no apology. I actually visited the shop once a few months ago, when I was scoping out dress shops to visit in the future. I was displeased with the atmosphere (although the salesgirl seemed nice enough upon first impression) and had decided against visiting the place. It was small and crowded, and reminded my of a cheap department store. Dresses were displayed on circular racks and there was no decor to speak of. Mia's is a Maggie Sottero retailer, however. I plan to visit Mia's to try on Maggie Sotteros, and if I find one that blows "that dress" away, I will order it from The Gown Gallery. I'm rotten, I know. Over the years, though, I've come to value customer service over everything else. I choose to reward customer friendly business with loyalty, regardless of whether I could get cheaper service elsewhere.
The other wedding task I'm actively working on are our save-the-dates. We had engagement photos taken on our recent beach vacation, and plan to use one of the photos as a picture postcard save-the-date. Save-the-dates are one of those wedding expenses I don't want to drop a whole lot on. I've spent 4 weeks trying to find a reasonably-priced vendor that doesn't sacrifice too much quality. I have to say, I'm pretty frustrated at this point. I specifically want a postcard to save on postage and to avoid having to purchase envelopes, but this seems difficult. Online retailers won't send me a proof before I purchase at least some of the postcards, and I refuse to purchase anything without seeing a proof first. Fortunately I started early on this endeavor as well, and can afford to take my time finding the right vendor.
For 2-3 weeks things were rather stressful. We knew we wanted a church wedding, but we didn't want to be married in my church because I'm Catholic and he's not. Neither of us thought it was okay that the Catholic church essentially thinks that he's going to hell because he's not Catholic, and I wasn't willing to have my future family excluded from communion at our wedding. He doesn't have a church that he attends regularly (he kind of bounces around churches, searching for "the one"). Has anyone out there ever attempted to find a church that will marry a couple who are not members? It's extremely difficult. Either they won't do it at all because you don't belong, or they want to charge you upwards of $1,000. The whole process really soured me on churches. We are faithful people, and we wanted our ceremony to be a religious one, but most churches don't seem to want people to have religious ceremonies. If we didn't have the financial means we do, a church wedding would have been out of the question. To me, that's ridiculous. Everyone should be able to be married in a church, regardless of the amount of money they can afford to use to make it happen.
We eventually resigned ourselves to the expense, and set about choosing a church based on it's beauty. Eventually, we settled on a fantastic cathedral on Ward Parkway in Kansas City, MO. Being Catholic, a cathedral is what I grew up attending and wanted for my wedding. I'm more than excited that it will be the beautiful ceremony I've always dreamed of.
Once the church was settled, in came time to find a reception site. While we certainly aren't on a minimal budget, I am trying to keep expenses as low as possible. The ridiculous amounts of money charged by wedding industry vendors really do make me sick. I also don't agree that one should spend more on their wedding than they did on their car. Therefore, I was looking for a site with 3 requirements: 1, it must be beautiful, 2, it must allow outside caterers, and 3, it must be very reasonably priced. This was not as difficult to find as one might imagine. In fact, I found a couple of places that fit the bill nicely. I chose what I thought was the most beautiful: a phenomonal publicly-owned lodge set back in a park, in a very nice part of town. It's a bit of a drive (30 minutes) from the church, but the drive is through pretty neighborhoods, does not require any highway time, and might actually be a pleasant tourist experience for out-of-towners. Unfortunately, this particular site is such a great site that it books up 16 months in advance. So, even though I booked in April of '07, the earliest date I could book was in August of '08.
Within weeks of the engagement, I had three MAJOR hurdles jumped: the date was set, the ceremony site was chosed, and the reception site was booked. Next, I turned my attention to the budget. I figured I shouldn't move forward until we'd figured out exactly how much we were willing to spend, and how we were going to pay for said expenses. I did some precursory research into average prices and best bargains. This process did take a couple of weeks. It's amazing how many expenses have to be accounted for, and how long the research for each expense takes. Eventually, I was able to build a working, early budget with what I hope are reasonable estimates. We took this budget and developed a plan for how we were going to pay for the wedding. We were very lucky that both families were willing and able to contribute. In fact, our families are paying for what amounts to half of our wedding expenses. This really takes a load of pressure of us, and allows us to have a couple of little splurges!
While doing the budget, I came across a big, fat ridiculous truth about weddings: caterers are stupidly expensive. We met with two "budget" caterers. Sure, compared to other caterers, who would charge $20-30 a person (I SWEAR to you I am NOT making that figure up), these people would only charge us $11-13. Mind you, this ONLY includes a BASIC BUFFET meal, not a plated dinner. Think about it: in a casual restaurant, you can reasonably expect to purchase a pretty yummy meal, brought to you on a plate by your own personal server, for $10-15. For this same amount, budget wedding cateres want to give you GROSS food (we tried their food, and one caterer's actually made my fiance physically ill) that you have to serve yourself. Um, no.
Again, our luck has come into play. My mother's family has self-catered a couple of very lovely weddings. I have been to these weddings and honestly had no idea they did the food themselves. I have been to other self-catered weddings where the food looked and was displayed in a way that made it plain that the family had catered the event themselves. At these weddings, things were arranged beautifully and servers were hired. I'd had no clue they'd done it themselves. Additionally, several of my mother's friends cater themselves, and have offered to make the whole thing look professional. And lastly, my godfather runs the hospitality at a major downtown hotel. He will be able to borrow the linens and buffet service items, as well as purchase the alcohol at a discount through his connections. To be honest, if it hadn't been that we happened to know so many people with professional experience, we would never have chosen to self-cater. We would have sucked it up (albeit angrily) and paid one of these ridiculous caterers their stupid amount of money, just to have a nice wedding. We are very fortunate that we don't have to do it.
Once the fourth element, the catering, was arranged, I took a break from wedding planning. Work grew busy, summer arrived along with it's social business, and an upcoming vacation helped divert my attention. Serious planning didn't begin again until the week in August which marked one year until the wedding. It's funny, but before that time the wedding felt surreal. It was this big, far away thing that was "more than a year away." Once it was "only a year away" (and especially now that it's "less than a year away"), a slow panic began to build up. One might laugh at me for panicing over a wedding that is so far away, but then one doesn't have any clue how much of an anal, preplanner I am. Everything became so real and so serious all of the sudden!
I had read that it is best to order the wedding dress 8-10 months in advance of the wedding. It makes reasonable sense to me: most designers take 4-6 months to make the dress, and one wants to allow time for a FUBAR situation such as sizing issues or designer delays. I began shopping in early August of '07. I work 4-day weeks, so I began making appointments on Fridays. Each Friday, I have visited a different dress shop to dry on the dresses by that shop's designers. So far, I am 3 weeks into my experience. I plan to make a decision by the end of September. Starting to shop 2 months before I should order the dress has made this a much more fun and much less stressful experience than most girls I've spoken to. I have plenty of time to visit as many shops as I want, try on as many dresses as I want, and mull my decision for as long as I want.
Can you guess which dress is the front runner? It's the very first dress I tried on, at the very first dress shop. In fact, I had a huge amount of temptation to buy this dress that very first day. As I mentioned before, though, I am a pretty anal person, and I was afraid to make my decision too quickly; therefore, I am making myself visit many shops and try on many dresses before I purchase my first choice. "That dress", by the by, is at Ida's in Overland Park. I cannot rave enough about the shop itself and the service I received. Please, please, if you are planning a wedding, go to Ida's and give them a try. The woman who helped me was sweet and polite as could be, and every single beautiful dress she brought me was actually UNDER the budget I quoted her.
I spent 2 different Fridays at David's Bridal, simply because they have such a massive selection and I burned out about halfway through the list of dresses I wanted to try on. After the second visit, I decided not to purchase one of their dresses. I did find one I liked pretty well (although it wasn't "that dress"), but I just didn't feel it. I didn't feel any of them, really. Having been to Ida's before, I could tell the differences that the $200-300-less price made. The dresses at David's weren't cut as well, so they didn't flatter my figure as well. They were uncomfortable, because there was less boning and the fabrics were stiffer. The trains were plain and shorter ("that dress" has a beautifully decorated train); chapel length at David's is shorter than designer dresses, I'm sure as a way to cut costs. Most of them had a simple zipper backs, instead of ties or buttons (which I was suprised to find does make a big aesthetic difference).
I also went to The Gown Gallery in the Waldo neighborhood. I had heard wonderful things about this little shop, which burnt down in the fire that destroyed one of Waldo's historic landmark buildings. I wanted to offer them my patronage in order to support a local business which is trying to rebuild. Unfortunately, there just weren't many dresses to try on. I know this wasn't the shop's fault, but I went specifically to try on Maggie Sottero. They only had 3 Maggie Sottero dresses, and really not many other dresses period. I do hope that they are able to rebuild their stock and future brides continue to give them support.
I have given myself a deadline of 9/21 to make a decision. This date, 9/21, is the last Friday before "that dress" goes off sale. The designer is having a trunk show at the shop on 9/27, and until then all her dresses are 20% off. So, I only have 1 or 2 Fridays left from this point. This coming Friday, 9/7, I'll be out of town, so I can't visit any shops. On 9/14, I plan to visit the last 2 shops on my list: Mia's in Olathe and Bridal Extraordinaire in Shawnee. On 9/21, I will make a final visit to try on "that dress," and will visit any other shop I discover I've missed.
Mia's has a pretty sour reputation. I've heard from others that the service is pretty rotten, and have one account of an order mix-up with no apology. I actually visited the shop once a few months ago, when I was scoping out dress shops to visit in the future. I was displeased with the atmosphere (although the salesgirl seemed nice enough upon first impression) and had decided against visiting the place. It was small and crowded, and reminded my of a cheap department store. Dresses were displayed on circular racks and there was no decor to speak of. Mia's is a Maggie Sottero retailer, however. I plan to visit Mia's to try on Maggie Sotteros, and if I find one that blows "that dress" away, I will order it from The Gown Gallery. I'm rotten, I know. Over the years, though, I've come to value customer service over everything else. I choose to reward customer friendly business with loyalty, regardless of whether I could get cheaper service elsewhere.
The other wedding task I'm actively working on are our save-the-dates. We had engagement photos taken on our recent beach vacation, and plan to use one of the photos as a picture postcard save-the-date. Save-the-dates are one of those wedding expenses I don't want to drop a whole lot on. I've spent 4 weeks trying to find a reasonably-priced vendor that doesn't sacrifice too much quality. I have to say, I'm pretty frustrated at this point. I specifically want a postcard to save on postage and to avoid having to purchase envelopes, but this seems difficult. Online retailers won't send me a proof before I purchase at least some of the postcards, and I refuse to purchase anything without seeing a proof first. Fortunately I started early on this endeavor as well, and can afford to take my time finding the right vendor.
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