Notes on a Stag

Levi: “So Joe is organizing the stag and guess what…. it’s going to be in VEGAS”

Inner Monologue Levi: don’t look too excited don’t look too excited

Naama: ” That is so great, oh my goodness you guys are going to have such a good time!”

Inner monologue Naama: Be cool…  be cool… don’t seem nervous or upset, block out immediate mental image of last week’s CSI where the prostitute drugs the straying husband and steals all his money. You are way too calm and collected for that ….you are the laid back girlfriend … that’s right.

So maybe that wasn’t exactly how it  happened but I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a few moments of …shall we say… uncertainty after I dropped the boys off at the airport on Friday. I mean a stag in VEGAS! It cannot possibly get more debauchery-filled then that. So how do you cope? How does the calm cool collected bride-to-be refrain from becoming the ultimate cliche? More importantly, how does the guy…. go to Vegas, party like a rock star and still come home in his partner’s good books?

Truth is most of us girls look forward to the weekends of freedom as much as the boys do. It gives us an opportunity to do all the things that make the men a lil’ coo-coo. This past Sunday  I committed the ultimate weekend crime, I spent a great deal of the morning and early afternoon lying in bed and talking on the phone. A travesty in Levi’s mind but a perfect Sunday morning in mine.   A large portion of the weekend also went to doing extremely girly wedding stuff which I won’t share because I have too much pride to admit my love of china, stem wear and lace. Levi…well, he  seemed to have spent the majority of the weekend drinking and gambling. And again… he won’t share because ….(insert cheesy Vegas tag-line….i’ll start you off…”what happens in______ “)

An important discovery which I will share however, is that Levi and I actually consciously decided that we would not call each other while he was away and truthfully, that was the smartest thing we could have done.  A few well placed text messages mostly having to do with the Raptors crushing victories over the Bobcats and the Pacer’s let us know that one another was alive and well.

So not only did Levi come out looking cool and not weighed down by his ball and chain, but, I did not get woken up by late night drunken phone calls because Levi felt he “had to call”.

I think the no-phone call clause should be manditory for all stags/stagettes to ensure a peaceful and pleasant reunion. Oh and guys…. ALWAYS always bring home a present. That helps a lot too.

126 Days and Counting

It’s been a while since we posted, so I thought I would give an update on what has been going on in the last few months with the Levy/Cooperman wedding planning (or to put it another way, how much work Naama has done, and how little Levi has done, but is very very appreciative!):

The Rimrock

After the debacle that was the Silver Tip, Naama took the bull by the horns and found the perfect spot for our wedding. Since that time, I had a chance to check it out and I must say I’m pretty pumped. The Rimrock is a special place (the only hotel I’ve ever been to where you have to DOWN an elevator to get to your rooms…and trust me, the rooms aren’t underground). I think every room has a spectacular view and the area where we are going to have the ceremony and reception will suit us perfectly.

The Band

After going back and forth on a number of bands in the Calgary area, Naama and I really latched on to Zeev Berger’s idea of having something a little different like an Afro Cuban band. As it turns out, there is a band based out of Calgary that plays afro cuban music and is available next June. I’ll keep the name of the band a surprise for now, but I hope everyone is ready to bust a move – latin styles. Announcement: T-roy will be leading a latin dance training session just past noon on Sunday in front of the pool…this is not to be missed.

The Pre-Party Party

Otherwise known as the out-of-towners party is close to being finalized. It will be Friday night in Calgary…that is all I can say now, but everyone from out of town will have a place to party on Friday night. Stay tuned…

The Website

Yes, the all important website has some fresh updates. The colors have been changed to match our wedding colors, check it out…ooh la la. If you go to our home page, you will find the all important countdown to the big day.

And Everything Else

Of course there about 100 million other things that Nams is diligently getting done when she’s not writing her PhD thesis, but hey, the important thing is we have that countdown clock on our website. Without that, we should all ask ourselves, where would our wedding planning be? Nowhere I say, nowhere.

The Art of “On-Line” Hotel Booking

Over the past few years I have become somewhat of an aficionado of on-line hotel booking.

I know I am not alone! I have a large group of primarily female friends who openly admit to spending hours obsessing over the perfect hotel room for the best deal. Searching every possible website, some even going as far as to report on the quality of hotel rooms to certain member-based websites (you know who you are). So what is it about shopping for the perfect room? Is it the desire to get your money’s worth? To ensure that the bathroom is not in the hallway, or the bed isn’t as hard as a board? Or is it merely an issue of controlling every last possible detail of your hard-earned vacation? I believe it is a combination of all of the above. Regardless of the reason, and since I fancy myself a successful and consistent on-line booker, I thought I’d spend a bit of time giving some hints to those newbies among us, especially since many of you will be shopping around for hotels in Banff for our upcoming nuptials.

The first stop I recommend is www.tripadvisor.com. Trip Advisor’s motto is “get the truth, then go.” Well that is exactly what they offer, they are a website that individuals can join, or browse for free and search information on hotels. The website gives ratings on the quality of hotels all over the world, based on member feedback. You can get an idea of what a hotel does or does not offer, many members post real pictures from their trips of the hotel rooms and provide detailed (often scary how much time people have on their hands) accounts of their stay. Not only that, trip advisor also gives you an idea of the average room rate, and provides a search engine based on date, availibilty, and quality of hotel. It has booking links to expedia, hotels.ca, and orbitz along with a few others. I highly recommend checking out any hotel on trip advisor before booking! However, keep in mind that standards vary between individuals so focus on the average score, not on one persons posting if they had a terrible or overly wonderful experience.

So, after carefully and obsessively reading all the feedback onTrip advisor you narrow down a few hotels that suit you! What’s next, well check out the prices of course! I often go to sites like expedia, travelocity, or hotels.ca to see what sort of availability there is and also what prices they are offering. But don’t despair if the prices seem too high, there are still options. The first thing to do, which many people forget, is to go directly to the hotels website, often their prices are slightly cheaper then the larger sites like expedia, not to mention there is no service fee. I recently looked in to booking a hotel in Montreal over the May long weekend. I searched and searched and ended up with an amazing deal on a beautiful hotel in Old Montreal based on a special directly off the hotel website. Often these deals will have certain rules, such as no cancellations etc. But let’s say you have tried all these options and still can’t find a hotel in your price range….what’s next?

The final option, which although slightly risky can be very rewarding. Recently, Levi and I headed down to Boston for a fun weekend getaway with some friends. Well, for some reason Boston was booked solid and we couldn’t find anything for less then 300 to 400 a night. Since we were not too picky about where we stayed within the city, we decided to try out Priceline.com. This website at first glance looks like your typical travel website, where you enter in particulars such as date, general hotel location (downtown, airport etc) and then they give you all available options. BUT what they offer that other sites do not is a special added feature, at the bottom of the page or sometimes in between listings is the following:

BEST DEAL – Name Your Own Price^® and Save up to 50% GO

So using this feature, you basically enter in what class hotel you want, where and when and then YOU list a price that you are willing to pay. I know for Boston, I entered in as low as $25 to see what i could get, unfortunately i didn’t have much luck at the price point with a four-star hotel but you can keep going higher until something works. The catch is, you have to take what they give you, so start with 4-5 star hotels and work your way down. If you have no luck, Start again with 3 star hotels and low price points and work your way up. This is a great last minute option and you can get some pretty amazing deals. We ended up with a BEAUTIFUL hotel room listed on expedia at $450 USD a night, for $199 USD a night right in downtown Boston. Not too shabby!

Anyway, if you are a bit more flexible give it a try, you have nothing to lose and it’s a great shot if you are booking at the last minute.

**** If you do find a good deal, pass on the information through this blog or at least to Levi and I because it would be a lot of fun if everyone stayed at the same hotel.

That’s my little tidbit of knowledge if you have anything to add let me know!

Happy holidays everyone!!!!

Raps on top

Okay, since I can’t remember the last time the Raptors were tied for top spot in their division, I thought I had better document it.

Check it out…man o man is the East ever bad.

Change is inevitable

As sure as the Sam Mitchell will fiddle with the Raptors starting lineup, wedding plans are bound to change. As much as we expected the unexpected, I don’t think we expected EVERYTHING to change.

This past summer we made a special trip out west to scout out venues for the big day. We went to a bunch of hotels in Calgary, checked out a few in Banff, drove all the way to Kelowna BC to see a winery and finally ended our search at the Silver Tip Golf Club in Canmore. As soon as we saw the place and the phenomenal view, we knew that this was the place we wanted to get married. It appeared to fit the bill perfectly. We met with the person in charge of weddings at Silver Tip (her name was Jessie, but I think I’ll give her the name “Yessie”) .

So, since there was a lot of construction going on at Silver Tip, we had a lot of questions and Yessie was very attentive to our concerns and gave us a ton of reassurances about everything. We had questions about the size of our party, where the ceremony would be in case of bad weather, where people could hang out for cocktails…and Yessie had answers for everything. Will this building that is far from finished be ready by next June in case of bad weather for our ceremony? YES! Is this room big enough for possibly up to 200 guests? YES! Can that gawdawful gazebo on the “10th” hole where our outdoor ceremony was to take place be moved? YES! Wow, how sweet, how easy was this wedding planning going to be…we we’re all hooked up…and Yessie had us convinced that Silver Tip was the place for LeviAndNaama- 2007!

Can you guess what happened a few short months after our meeting with Yessie? Yup, sure enough, things changed. When we contacted Silver Tip last month, Yessie had moved on to a new role at the organization and we had a new person in charge (let’s call her Naoway even though I think her real name is Shelly).  Well, after Naama’s first call with Naoway, the once rosey outlook we had with Yessie was quickly darkening.  The indoor option was highly unlikely to be finished in time, there weren’t enough chairs for our outdoor ceremony and new ones wouldn’t arrive in time, there wasn’t enough space in the reception area for dancing after dinner without shifting things around, and on top of all that the costs for everything increased.  As you can imagine, the panic started to set in, albeit a controlled panic, because in reality our wedding was still 7 months away, but we really needed to get the location sorted out asap.

Westjet to the rescue!  Luckily, some last minute deals on flights were available and Naama took it upon herself to jet to Calgary to get this all sorted out.  Within a few days, everything changed, but we think its all for the better.   So the location has changed, its now the beautiful Rimrock Resort in Banff, the date has changed, it’s now a week later -June 24th (coincidentally the same day as Gay Pride and Jenn Kicis’ birthday!).  Nams and I are happy that we are now dealing with seasoned pro’s at the Rimrock and we are hoping there will be no drastic surprises like a Yessie turning into an Naoway.  Little surprises I think we can handle.