Hi fellow soon-to-be-weds! I'm looking at a venue that only gives us 2-2.5 hours to set up before the event. It's in a public park. I'm a bit of a decor girlie who wants a decent amount of florals and the like. Do people find that this would be a valid amount of time to get everything loaded in?
Also if there's anyone specifically with Eolia experience, your words would be VERY welcome.
Bride and I were roommates back in college, I introduced her to her fiancé, I helped him coordinate the proposal. We've been quite good friends for a while, so it made sense when she asked me to be her MOH and I happily agreed.
Trouble is, she's bad with money. Perpetual credit card debt, all for FOMO stuff. Nails and hair appointments that cost hundreds. Accepting every invite. Elaborate birthdays or parties. She's not dropping thousands at a pop, but it adds up and the debt keeps growing.
She doesn't get the cost of weddings. She wanted a classic 150 person wedding, photographer and video, DJ, open bar, full catering, beautiful venue for 10k. New York area. Then the guest count dropped and the budget increased to 30k, which is money they still don't have.
Meanwhile, FOMO is taking the reins on her planning. A bach party that pushes the budgets of all the bridesmaids, 6 hour drive away, 3 day weekend because that's what you do. She wanted a dress she could dance in cause she's a big dancer, but was swayed by the princess gown, so now she needs two. She's given out a thousand dollars of cheap trinkets to the bridal party. As the MOH, I've gotten 16 gifts personally.
She's an instagram bride who gets agitated when I bring up cost or practicality, so the scope keeps increasing. The groomsmen need swords and boutonnieres. The bridesmaids need tiaras and lanterns and bouquets. The centerpieces will have greenery and florals and fake candles and fruits. She's giving out favors. She's doing a dessert bar but then decided she also needed a cake. The wedding is in December but she fell in love with the garden space for the ceremony, so now she needs to get blankets and rent heaters so people don't freeze.
The centerpieces and bouquets will be made by the bridal party. And because we don't have an industrial fridge to keep them fresh, we're going to have to do them the day of the rehearsal dinner. The centerpieces have to be done the day of the wedding to keep the fruit fresh (she can't stand bugs). We'll need to assemble the favors. The seating chart will be on us to station and put together.
I don't mind the regular bridesmaids stuff. We'll put together the bach party. I'll coordinate a shower with the wicked witch of the west (her mom). We'll learn a choreographed dance bit. We'll keep the dance floor packed (god I hope this happens naturally and we don't have to pull people on). I'll hold her dress when she has to pee, learn to bustle it, hold her flowers, and fluff her train. I've gone dress shopping and to the bridesmaids brunch she threw before the dress fitting so we could all meet each other. I like this stuff.
But going over all the decor stuff and watching her create this growing mountain of stuff that we'll have to all DIY right before the wedding is stressing me out. I'm not the only one, but she doesn't take well to hearing it from us. And some of us make a chunk more money than she does, so she takes it personally that we think she shouldn't get a traditional wedding. She does all right for herself, but ultimately the debt has stopped her from being able to do anything with her salary for years.
I don't really know what I need. I just need to vent, get it off my chest for a bit.
Has anyone ever felt like there’s a correlation between what bridesmaids are willing to spend on pre wedding stuff (shower, bach) and how extravagant the wedding is? Like if I’m planning a smaller, cheaper backyard wedding and asking the bridesmaids to help with some DIY decor, not doing anything special or splashy for guest experience (obviously food, drink, DJ but nothing more) are the bridesmaids subconsciously expecting a cheaper, less splashy bach?
Idk exactly what it is, but I feel like I shouldn‘t be planning an expensive trip or asking for a formal shower because my wedding is so budget. I can afford the weekend away, but it feels weird asking my bridesmaids to drop money when I’m on a budget. Do I get a shower where someone drops money to create a party with the sole intention of giving me gifts if I’m not giving them an expensive wedding back?
I have asked for budgets and have no intention of exceeding them, so maybe I’m totally overthinking it. But I’m just wondering if anyone has noticed a correlation between wedding size and expectations of extravagance for pre wedding parties.
I'm looking to book a Saint Lucia trip for next March and have found a deal that fits my budget (4k, 4 nights, flights included, all inclusive at The Landings). Checks 2 of our 3 boxes (Caribbean beach and good reviews. Doesn't have the restaurant variety I wanted but the other two are more important).
Question is, is there a point where the prices drop? Are there huge sales? Do I already have a significant enough discount to just book now?
Also does anyone have thoughts on The Landings? I'm not sold on it but it seems a good deal even if they only have 3 restaurants.
GPA is the limiting factor here. Failed out of college 10 years ago. GPA since has been better, 3.7 in the last 60 credits, but I’m aiming for the service schools because I’ve already got 5k in clinical hours.
My volunteer time isn’t there yet and I’m trying to get a sense of what they want to see. 500 hours? 300? 1000? What would people consider kind of the minimum amount of volunteer time to have a shot at one of these schools with otherwise mediocre stats?
I got a 2 liter of diet root beer and am ready for some fun summery treats without busting my diet.
My company is one of the bigger ones (we get the occasional name drop in Ed's newsletter. It's very exciting). We're also still pedal to the metal on AI. My manager said that "more token spend is better" though I've also heard from a dev that we're supposed to be targeting 250 a month (I'm a writer). It feels like we're behind the times a bit on some of the slowdown that our similarly bloated cousins have been initiating.
I'm sitting in a meeting right now. Apparently we're moving from our current authoring tools to full AI tooling. I'm so curious how stuff like this is going to play out. I see no reason for this. It won't speed things up, it won't make life easier for us. It's just moving from one tool to another, which we admittedly do all the fucking time. I've always assumed the mindless tool changing has been a result of cost balancing, which is something I don't see as an IC.
So I'm so curious about this 9+ month transition that we're kickstarting, seemingly at most to save some bills, when AI costs are increasing. Part of me wonders if we will even complete this tooling change. We have a license for our current tools. They don't charge us for any of the things we do as long as we've paid our subscriptions. What happens if prices continue to climb? Are we getting charged every time we push a change? Every time we build out our documentation? Every time a patch has to go out? Are those prices variable due to the unpredictable nature of LLMs and their inability to be consistent?
Who else is out here seeing their companies embark on lengthy changes, seemingly oblivious to the darkening writing on the wall? Any predictions on how that'll go? Has anyone had this kind of broad, internal change that's been stopped partway because of the changing landscape?
Hey New England brides!
This is a long shot cause it might be too niche (though I'd also love to hear from vendors who might've worked these events too). I've had my heart set desperately on a mansion wedding for decades. My vision is something like
-outdoor cocktail hour amid gardens
-indoor, seated reception
-no barn vibes, no modern venue vibes, no big-white-tight reception
-150 people
-100k budget
Feels like it should be doable, but it seems like the idea of having the whole, 150 person party in one room for a sit down dinner wasn't a high priority for the folks who designed these mansions.
I've got Tupper Manor as maybe the only place that could put that many people in one room. It's a nice place, but I want to cast my net a bit wider. So I'm also considering places that split the capacity across multiple rooms. I want to get a sense of the flow of these. How bad did it feel?
Places I've thought about touring so far include Glen Manor, Wadsworth Mansion, Aldrich Mansion, Branford House, Eolia, and Endicott Estate. If anyone has experience with one or more of these OR HAS OTHER SUGGESTIONS, I'd love to hear more.
I'm a technical writer at a big tech company, so I both see this jargon in digital spaces (like reddit, linkedin) and in my lived experiences (work). Often people will play down the hype about AI taking everything from us. They'll say "It'll just become another tool." And I'll be honest, if the thread went away, and we kept our current iterations of LLMs, there are things I would use them for at work. Mostly I'd make them do my linking work, I'd have them run scans of slack to find tasks buried in threads, have them make reminders. Things I probably could do with the right tool or with extra time, but are boring and don't get me much.
But that brings me to my question. Is it financially viable for LLM providers to have invested all of this money and continue to (compute costs, data center costs, training costs, headcount costs, advertisement costs) for something that is a 'just another tool'. If we manage to package this 'tool' as just that, what would the price point have to be for it to be viable to the LLM companies? What would the companies have to cut? Would these just become locally run? Would there ever be money to train new models? Would the lack of new training cause them to fall out of favor?
I feel like, especially on a subreddit focused around a financial podcast, I don't see much of a deep dive into this. I wouldn't expect one from Ed--the whole thing is too farfetched and he's not gonna spend an entire episode on a big old "what-if". But I wonder if anyone else has thought about this in depth. What would it look like if it were 'just a tool'? What versions of the product would have to go away because they just burn too much money? Where would things like image and music generators go? How expensive are the products that are just chat-bots meant to keep you company or provide roleplay or answer questions? Would it completely fall out of those spheres because it's too expensive or would those become things you have to download locally because they can no longer afford data centers?
So I've seen a lot of people mentioning working at companies that have scrapped AI initiatives, dialed back dramatically, refuse to mandate it, etc. I've also seen people talk about their own projects and businesses that they are developing without AI usage.
Now I'd love to see something like a stickied thread where people could share these names. I'm sure many of us are either anxious of losing our jobs or are sick of using AI in work, so I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in wishing I could find a list of companies that are lite on AI policy. Similarly, as someone who is exhausted of slop in the stuff I consume, I'd love to be able to move some of my purchase power away from places I know that embrace it.
Now I know this is primarily a subreddit for Ed's podcast. I'm a subscriber and big fan, so I don't want to make this place a big, self-promo-y marketplace. At the same time, I know it's become a place for likeminded folk to discuss the damage that AI does. Something that promotes positive action could be useful.
If this is totally just not a fit for the subreddit, then does anyone know where something like this might exist? Other subreddits that might have something of this sort? Fwiw, I have no interest in promoting anything of my own. But I'm aware I might have to job hunt soon, and would desperately love a place where I didn't have to use this shit endlessly.