July 20th, 2010
I find it perplexing that there’s so much discussion and confusion about Facebook having brand issues. More than a few good thinkers are asking why users would be so dissatisfied. Honestly, I would have been shocked if Facebook had performed any better than they did.
Facebook has repeatedly committed the cardinal sin of showing what comes across as callous disregard for their userbase. Loyal users are a sensitive, fickle bunch. Above all things, they don’t like change or the feeling their patronage and loyalty are being taken for granted.
Between significant improvements to the user interface, repeated changes to privacy settings, and ongoing shifts in how advertising was treated, Facebook has riled the core userbase mostly without apology. Instead of providing a safe, secure, predictable internet home away from home, Facebook has given its users innovation and improvements. For newer users, the changes have been fantastic. Let’s face it. Facebook’s old UI was horrible. Good business decisions? Probably, but for user relations, you’re better off slowly boiling the water.
For users with more longevity, it’s the same as trying to swap out a child’s security blanket. For those users, it becomes all the more frustrating because they’re essentially trapped. They can’t go anywhere else even though they’re unhappy and now, they don’t trust Facebook as far as they could throw the server farm.
Facebook isn’t the first site to face unhappy users and it won’t be the last. Time will tell if Facebook’s choices to make changes despite their users will be a wise or foolish decision. For now, they have some brand repairing to do. In the meantime, they’ll have to be content with “popular, but disliked” and hope no one invents a better mousetrap in the interim.
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June 11th, 2010
Over the few days, staff at the Red Lion (our wedding venue) have been a bit overwhelmed. Given the sudden absence of the primary (and only legal) entrance to their property, it isn’t terribly surprising. However, plenty of individuals have taken the opportunity to help out and provide unexpected generosity and kindness.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, the brides for this weekend have had to relocate and the Red Lion stands to lost $30,000 in business from lost weddings alone. Of course, bridezilla comes to mind when sudden last minute changes in wedding plans occur, not to mention changes as sweeping as having to suddenly relocate your wedding. 9News.com and Colorado Daily have covered some of the gracious (and profoundly unlucky) couples impacted by the washed away bridge. What the Colorado Daily article doesn’t mention is the graciousness and generosity that both the Red Lion and the couples are experiencing. Wedding planners, venues, and customers pulling together to relocate weddings, help pay for the bridge, and get the bridge rebuilt.
When I spoke to Tina the day after the bridge went kablooey, she was stressed and overwhelmed, but she had a plan to make the weekend weddings happen. While ultimately she was not permitted to use the back road to shuttle people in for the weddings, she was committing to making sure those couples still had the weddings of their dreams (despite Mother Nature’s contribution). Like other brides, I called to check in and ask to be kept in the loop on developments. I also offered up the idea of a temporary bridge and told her I would happily pay my part. From Tina’s comments in the article, I have a feeling that other brides also offered up support and optimism.
A washed out bridge is an act of God. Finding ways to express kindness, support, graciousness, and generosity in the aftermath is the essence of humanity. It’s life-affirming to see how people have truly risen to the occasion, just like the swollen waters of Boulder Creek that caused it all to happen in the first place.
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June 6th, 2010
We’ve gotten nearly everything wrapped up for the wedding and hopefully, we’re done bleeding money for awhile. Oof.
- Wedding dress picked up. This is a story in and of itself and I’ll post about it later. Suffice it to say that I would NEVER recommend getting alterations at The Wedding Shoppe in St Paul, MN. Their service for choosing and purchasing a dress, in my experience, was excellent, but the alteration process was less than optimal (and not just for me). I’ll share more of that story later.
- Attendant’s gifts ordered.
- Bridesmaids’ Jewelry – I wasn’t planning on buying jewelry for the bridesmaids originally, but decided that it would be a nice gift and take one more thing off of their plates. I stalked 1928 Jewelry for a few weeks and ended up finding some very pretty navy blue pieces on sale from the Blue Moon set. I also bought a faux pearl and crystal bracelet and earrings to wear with my wedding dress.
Card Box – Similar to the guest book, I just wasn’t sold with the easily available options and had postponed getting anything until I stumbled on a Wedding Card Birdhouse on etsy. It’s personalized and comes with one roof for the wedding (with a hole for cards) and another lid for the birds! Extremely cute and clever. I’m excited about it.- Discovered we don’t need a full kids’ table – only 4 kids attending.
- Plane tickets to wedding purchased.
- Going Away Dress – Purchased yesterday. We’ll need to leave our hotel pretty early the next day so I decided it would be significantly easier to have the wedding dress already under control. Since we were already at Bloomingdale’s* on a registry-related task, I checked out their plus-size selection. I found a lovely Jones New York Collection dress in our wedding colors – white with navy flowers with apple green leaves and centers. It seemed quite appropriate and it looked great with a fairly reasonable price tag (read as “on sale”). I’ll wear it with a cute pair of white sandals and then repurpose both of them for one of the dinners on our honeymoon.
- Guest Book – I didn’t want a typical guest book, but still wanted to have a place for people to leave their names, thoughts, and hopefully, email addresses. I looked at the recipe card style boxes but it didn’t make sense to me beyond the day of the wedding. It would just be a dust magnet. Despite my leanings otherwise, I ended up going with a book as it made more sense in terms of keeping it. I found a lovely handmade one on etsy. It’s personalized with our names on the cover.
- Matt’s ring picked up.
- Turned in final paperwork for venue with best guess guest count.
- Made final arrangements with vendors and altered orders based on the guest count.
- Thank you notes! (Hooray for Matt writing them!) The list is ever increasing and he’s keeping up pretty well.
Now we need to pack for a week for pre-wedding, the wedding, and a week of honeymoon, as well as making sure the apartment is in a reasonable state. Somewhere in there, we need to spend quality time with the cat. Regardless of how much quality time we get in, he’s still going to make us pay when we return. I have no doubt in my mind.
Really, that’s the bulk of it. We need to finish our pre-cruise registration bits and print off or boarding passes and luggage tags, but hopefully, that’s by far the most complicated thing we have left to do. I’m really, really looking forward to the honeymoon, if for no reason other than we can both get some much needed rest.
*Just as an aside, prior to our setting up our registry, I’d never shopped at Bloomingdale’s but their customer service throughout our wedding planning have definitely won my business. They are one of the few registries that has a built in Thank You manager, as well as excellent service in person, including useful (and very few) phone calls (as opposed to annoyances).
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June 3rd, 2010
I had a message from Bloomingdale’s to let me know that our dishes and towels were on sale. It felt extremely surreal. I’m definitely not complaining about having our registry items on sale just prior to the wedding. Sales are never a bad thing. It was more of an unexpected personal touch. I appreciate it.
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February 16th, 2010
In the midst of work being insanely busy, moving, trying to finalize wedding plans, and everything else, my back decided to act up. This time last year, it did something similar that resulted in me having a microdiscectomy last May. Unlike last year, I got an MRI right away. All signs point to “normal,” but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. I’m hoping that this time, I’ll be able to have physical therapy versus losing mobility. Last year, I ended up barely able to walk. I’m sincerely hoping that this year is very different. I’m banking on the MRI results truly being “normal.”
I spent the last weekend in a lot of pain and did a fair amount of sleeping. Needless to say, the Save the Dates didn’t go out. I’m going to get them done and out this weekend. I did manage to go try on my dress and pick a bridesmaid dress that all the bridesmaids actually like. I consider that a major accomplishment.
On the downside of things, my rings came back from the shop and we tried to pick them up last night. While the wedding band looked good, my engagement ring was flattened on one side and very thin where the split had been. Dixie, who helped us last night and every other time we’ve been in, was just as bothered as I was and made arrangements for the ring to be fixed at another shop. She commented that she would be talking to the Kay Jewelers District Manager and the District Repair Manager. I hope she does. It’s sad that we’ve had these problems and it really shouldn’t have happened. If it weren’t for her being genuinely helpful and concerned, I’m sure I’d be pretty irritated at this point. Good customer service carries a lot of weight.
So, all told, things are good despite my back and carrying a large bottle of Tylenol everywhere I go. I’ll feel better when the Save the Dates and the move are done this weekend. I think I’ll take an afternoon off later this month just to recuperate from the craziness and enjoy our additional 300 square feet.
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February 8th, 2010
Let’s see. In the past week, I’ve gotten my finished Save the Dates (which look great!), split the band on my engagement ring, scheduled my first dress fitting, and scheduled time to pick out bridesmaid dresses (with at least two of my bridesmaids).
Let’s talk about the ring, shall we? My fiancé bought the ring in Michigan but the warranty includes resizing, etc through the Kay Jewelers family of stores. So, that’s where we went. We took the rings in to be sized in early January and two and half weeks later, they were ready. When we picked them up, the engagement ring looked fine, but the wedding band had a nick in it that looked like someone had hit it with a screwdriver blade. When I pointed it out, they took it back to be “buffed out,” but when that didn’t fix it, they swapped it out. No problem, seemingly, and no issues. Less than a week later, I’m fiddling with my ring and my nail catches on the back of the band. I look and the band is split all the way through. My nail had caught on the split. When I took off the ring, the band didn’t even look circular anymore. Back to the store.
The woman who assisted us before seemed genuinely horrified at the band splitting. The gentleman who helped us suggested that the soldering had split. The ring, obviously, is back in for repairs and reshaping. I asked how they would fix it and he said they could fix it via soldering. Hopefully, that’s true. I’ll definitely be checking it carefully. It bothers me that we’ve already had to take advantage of the warranty twice and I’ve been able to wear my ring for less than a week. Blah.
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