Miss Cream Puff, San Francisco Bay Area
Age and Occupation: 25, Illustrator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Merchandise Planner
Engagement Date: May 27, 2007
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: February 7, 2008
Venue: Ceremony at Crissy Field and Reception at the Green Room
About Me: I never dreamed about my wedding as a little girl because I was too busy playing in the mud or pretending to be Martha Stewart–but now that it's here, I'm having a fabulous time DIYing everything in sight! We’re planning a very fun multicultural wedding (I'm Jewish and Mr. Cream Puff is Chinese), filled with as many personal details as I can muster.
Stupid Things I Think About, Post #1
April 1st, 2008 @ 4:16 pm by Miss Cream Puff
Our budget is dying slowly. It gave a few whimpers in pain when we realized that our guest list had hit our maximum, yet we had no friends invited. It started to cry when we realized we hadn’t factored in a videographer, but we really wanted one. It started screaming bloody murder when we added an additional 39 people to the guest list. And now it’s dying. Despite all that, I still think about things that are likely a total waste of money.
Let me preface this by saying that I had never even heard of a chivari chair before I got engaged and started lurking around on the knot. Now I keep hoping that our venue will somehow decide to replace their god-awful chairs with chivari chairs at no additional cost. What is a chivari chair, some of you might ask? This is is a chivari chair:
image courtesy of Classic Party Rentals
I really like these chairs a lot. I am under no illusion that this is a reasonable or important thing to care about. No, I realize it’s totally stupid. It gets even more stupid when you realize that the average rental for a chivari chair is about $8. Per chair. For chairs.
These are the chairs provided by our venue for 50 cents each:
image courtesy of Shannon Berry.
They are very, very ugly, in my opinion. The room is so elegant, and these chairs are…not. Like, at all. Compare, if you will, to this photo of the Green Room set up with chivari chairs:
Photography by Lisa + James.
Oooooh. Aaaaaaah. So classy.
Part of me says, “They’re chairs. No one is going to notice them.” The other part of me says, “These chairs can like, make or break a room.” Stupid, stupid me.
My only hope is this: One of the caterers we checked out said that a lot of people split the cost of the rental with the other people who have rented the venue for the same weekend. So theoretically, if someone rented the Green Room for the Friday before our wedding and the Sunday after, we could split the cost of the rentals three ways and it would ALMOST not be a ridiculous and frivolous expense. Almost. Sadly, last time I checked, no one had rented the Green Room for Friday or Sunday.
I’ve heard the Green Room is a wonderful place to get married on Friday and Sunday nights in early August! Anyone interested? Contact them today! 
Seriously though. What stupid things do you think about that you realize are totally ridiculous?
53 Responses to “Stupid Things I Think About, Post #1”
I also worried non-stop about the chairs for the reception. Part of why we went with our venue was because the chairs are nice enough to not need any help so that was one thing that I wouldn’t have to stress about - but I probably will anyways!
These chairs are not stupid! We’ve rented them too! I totally think that the chairs make or break the room.
I hear you about the chairs! My place has hideously ugly chairs too, and charges $3 per chair cover- which I am not totally sold on either! I have yet to ask if they will let me rent different chairs, but I might just have to factor that into my new budget 
my venue surprised me a couple weeks ago by replacing their white plastic chairs with chivaris. for no additional cost to me! too bad you’re not in central Pennsylvania!
Our venue has the metal folding chairs, so we’re going with chair covers - so far I’ve found them for about $3/chair. Cheaper than actual chairs, but cover the ugly chairs that are provided!
surprisingly it was my fiancee to had issues with the banquet chairs at our hotel. i thought he was so crazy, but right. i was lucky enough to find a great chair cover company that was really reasonable $2.50 each and free delivery/setup.
I agree with you about those chairs. $8 per chair is a lot, but wow, those green ones …. It might make me insane to see them in my wedding pictures.
Yes, chivari chairs make the room appear nicer when it’s first set up and everyone first walks in. But after they are seated and everyone is enjoying the reception, the chairs aren’t noticed nearly as much - if at all. Hopefully the room gets rented another day (or two) that weekend so you’re able to split the costs. But if not, you are making the wiser choice on how to spend your limited budget: with a videographer and more of your friends there to celebrate with you.
Oh my, I’m having the same issue. My chairs look a lot like yours, but rounder and burgundy, not green. Chair COVERS cost $7 each! Sigh…the chivaris are lovely, but the green ones aren’t too hideous…right?
we’re actually calling rental companies about chairs tonight, but white wooden folding ones for the ceremony site (outdoors in a park). Our reception site has weird black fake chiavari chairs with burgundy cushions that SO don’t match their barn aesthetic or my pale wedding colors, so we’re moving the ceremony chairs to the reception site in between. and that’s what i’m worried about. they’ll somehow get lost or dirty on the way there. they all won’t make it in time, etc. but, we’ll see. “where there’s a will, there’s a way” is my motto for the moment.
I am sort of a chair snob….I think they make a room. That being said I also love the wood folding chairs which are like 3.50 each. They come in white, natural and mahogany.
Alot of people including your caterer etc. get 20% off (even me :)) so that could save you some chedder.
Nobody’s rented for the 3rd come one people. Some great people were born on that day. wink wink.
You know where to find me if you need the discount.
Good post, because this is very common. I ended up spending about $3 each for chair covers with gorgeous satin sashes.. and they did really make a difference, but I could not justify the chivari prices.
I did spend a lot less on other decorations because the chair covers and sashes made the room very elegant on their own.
i cannot fathom spending $8 pp on a chair. and you don’t even get to keep the chair! the budget we’ve been so careful about would collapse.
our venue is charging us $2 pp to add chair covers and floor length linens. they bought the linens/covers and only charge us what it costs them to clean them.
this is why we went with a venue that is not about nickel and diming us. it may not be the most coveted venue in the area, but they are nice to us and our budget!
First off - Not a stupid thing to worry about.
(And I say this for self-preservation, because this was the source of the biggest fight that my husband and I had during the wedding planning process. Obviously you can tell what side I was on. )
I had to have Chivari chairs. He thought it was ridiculous and said “no way” - not enough room in the budget. And he was right. It did put us over budget.
So, what did I do? I ordered them anyway. It was bridal insanity. I had officially lost the fight and I went out and did it anyway.
The one moment of satisfaction came when his mother’s friend gushed to us, “I just love the chairs! We had them at our daughter’s wedding too!”
Not sure the moral of my story other than… I’ve been there and know exactly how you feel.
The Chivari chairs are pretty! I have a similar problem - roundish burgandy chairs perfect for whatever business functions are hosted in the venue - not the greatest for wedding receptions.
We are doing chair covers with ties. If you aren’t into the whole “big bow” thing, they can be tied in a myriad of ways. We are just having them knotted in the back.
I know what you mean about the budget thing - we broke ours with the videographer and my monumental candy buffet on top of the donation favor we were already planning on.
Oh my… the chairs AND the lighting do add to the Green Room!!
(drives the last fatal blow to your budget, rips its heart out, still beating)
We all have something different to stress about. I just cannot get worried about the chairs. I am in the camp of “once people are in and eating who’s looking at the chairs?”
We’re going to use the chairs at our venue that look a lot like you’re “don’t like them” picture. I chose those over the 2nd option of the chairs that have a brass lattice back not too different from the chivari. I think our guests tushes and back will be happier with the amount of cushion compared to the chivari bars across the spine.
$8/chair… I’d be happy to have $8 more to spend per person in the appetizer hour…. That’d be 3 more tasty bites!
I actually have the same exact obsession! Our venue has perfectly fine white, wooden chairs, but when we went there for a sweetheart tasting (they set the place up like a mock wedding and all the vendors are there doing their respective vending-dinner, cake, etc.) they had Chivari chairs! I fell in love and plan to rent them if not too expensive….
Um, yeah, ditto on the chairs. We honestly went into our venue with very low expectations because we had seen a photo of the reception space set up with very ugly chairs and even uglier chair covers. Lo and behold, they’d replaced all of their old, gross chairs with absolutely gorgeous chairs in the year since their photos were taken. The cushions even matched our chosen colors! It was pretty much nirvana.
Any chance your ultimate guest count will end up dramatically smaller than your guest list? (If, say, you were like me and planned for 160 and ended up with 85 or so, that’s only half as many chairs … not to mention dinners, etc.)
those chairs provided by the venue are horrible! you are not being ridiculous at all for wanting pretty chairs because like everyone said already, chairs can totally break or make a room. everything is all about presentation and ugly chairs will be such a contrast to all the pretty things that you’ll have at your wedding.
i say you should try to find reasonably priced chair covers to cover those chairs up. they can turn out really pretty if you find the right color and style. the chivari chairs are a bit too expensive and probably not worth it on a tight budget.
I’m dealing with the same thing! I wouldn’t dream of leaving our hideous, $2-each hotel-issue chairs uncovered, so by the time you add the $6-each slipcover charge, I might as well get the $9-each chivaris. I actually managed to convince my family this was a good idea — I think they all understood how much the ugly chairs would stand out in an otherwise beautiful room!
We had the exact same thing happen! Our venue showed all of these lovely photos with the chivari chairs but when we got there that day there were clunky black ones. The chivari chairs? $8! So we found chair covers for $2.50/each. Luckily my fiance hated the black ones as much as I did, so he though $2.50 chair covers were a bargain!
These chairs are for our ceremony and reception - so that helped justify it too.
Have you thought of chair covers rather than chivari chairs? I mean, I’ve personally always thought that chair covers were ugly, but a lot of people use them to dress up ugly chairs… and I’ve actually seen some chair covers that have looked quite nice! There’s also other chairs out there that are a lot cheaper, and still pretty!
My big thing is flowers! The logical thing is to order roses in bulk to save money… but I am having a slight obsession with having several different flowers to dress up the roses… *sigh*. Someone needs to snap me back into budget!
P.S. I totally think that venues buy ugly chairs just so that chair vendors will pay to be preferred vendors!
One of the main reasons we picked the place we did was because of the chairs. I refused to have ugly metals chairs and didn’t want to spend a fortune on chair covers. We got lucky and our place has simple white wooden folding chairs.
I have an idea…..know any of our knottie girls getting married on the 3rd close or in SF. You could offer to move the chairs to their location etc….. just a thought!
OMG YOU GUYS!!! I JUST FOUND OUT THAT THE GREEN ROOM IS BOOKED FOR THE DAY BEFORE AND THE DAY AFTER!!! Cross your fingers!!!
When I was reserving chairs, FI saw those chivari chairs and asked if we could have those. When he heard that they were $8 a piece, he stopped wanting them.
I agree with pp. Chair covers could solve your problem.
lol I crossed venues off my list if they didn’t have decent looking chairs when I first started looking, coz I didn’t want to deal with and pay for renting other chairs!
Luckily we have not-ugly chairs. Not as elegant looking as the spendy chivari chairs, but not conference chairs either. Although our event coordinator did ask me if I had a problem with the chairs, as they could get others. Maybe now I will have to ask about the chair options, just to see what they are! (I actually had to google my venue to see the chairs after reading your post, because although I remember telling the coordinator they were fine - I couldn’t remember what they looked like! Hilarious, because we had lunch there last Saturday, spent an hour sitting in them!
I too dislike our chairs, but sorry to say they arent as bad as the green ones. theyre light blue patterned in silver. horrible to me, but when i mentioned chair covers (not even renting chivari chairs!) to FI, my mom & anyone else that would listen, they both were like, ‘um, no, youre crazy. These are FINE.’ okay, so defeated. Of course I also got the “look” for saying the carpet isn’t great (it’s not Awful, just really “busy” in a dark color). I say, fine it’s just one day, too much money & i wont think about it anymore (but really a girl has to dream that maybe they’ll spontaneously replace the chairs & carpet by june?!) So good luck w your decision.
i am amidst the “chivary chair” debocle. FI says no freaking way - I say, i love them.
I convinced my caterer to give me white linen chair covers for free.
I’m going to pretend that under the slip cover there are gorgeous chivary chairs.
I am also contemplating chivary chairs for the head table. You know, for effect.
Um, my latest worry was my invitation envelopes - I had to put *gulp* ram stamps on them. That’s right, ram stamps.
I was sure people would be laughing uproariously as they received them, but alas, I’ve been told that no one will A) notice or B) care.
So yeah. Ram stamps.
uggh, i’m like you…i TOTALLY L-O-V-E the chivari chairs. that was one of the things for me that was one of the deal breakers for my sites…sad right? just chairs…but oh so beautiful. really changes the whole feel of the site. i hope you can find someone to split it…but really, its true..its just chairs so if you can’t afford it, don’t spend your money on that. i think its better to spend it on videography if you can…
I rented chiavaris for $8 a pop and never looked back. I loved them, I detest chair covers, and DH said no videography, period, foot down, end of story. So videography money became my chair money and I *loved* how it turned out.
Good luck w/ the Friday and Sunday brides! Maybe you can find somewhere else in your budget that will unexpectedly open up.
i actually got the “guess what, we are getting new chairs, chiavari chairs” phone call and i thought i was in heaven. all though i was ok with the wooden and white ones, i was sooo excited!
Hope you can split the cost with the Friday/Sunday people because I do really, really think this will make and ENORMOUS impact on the room — more than any kind of centerpiece ever could, for example. Our venue is an ordinarly, non-descript hotel ballroom — there are zero options in the small town where we’re getting married — so I was insistent on the chiavari chairs to spruce it up a bit.
I drew the line at special linens though. While I do think these can also make a big difference for minimal cost, it was out of the budget after the chiavari chairs!
our chairs are similiar except they are burgundy.
i will admit to picking the colors of my wedding with these burgundy chairs in mind. i figured it best to work with them instead of against them.
my budget is up under the kitchen table scared right now….whimpering. shaking like a leaf. i just realized yesterday morning that we’ve hit budget.
and we dont have a cake, a florist, invitations………
omg……
I have this same problem with my venue! I’ve been researching like crazy for the best deal on chiavari chairs, but even at the cheapest rate I found, I just can’t justify the cost! As soon as I read this post, I e-mailed my event coordinator to ask if the day before and/or after mine is booked yet (this is an awesome idea!) so that maybe we can split the cost. Thanks for the post, Miss Cream Puff!
But I will say that I have fallen in DEEP love with that leafy light pattern on the floor. How do I get one of those?
I don’t think the green chairs are that bad, honestly.
The silly thing I think about is tree rental. Stupid and expensive, don’t have a clue how to fit it into the budget, but I think it would really make a difference in the space. So there you go. I had a budget breaking week last week. My head hurts.
I splurged on Chivaris at the last minute.
Best decision ever.
I fought kicking and screaming with my hub over the fact that the chairs provided by our venue were HORRIBLE and I HATED them and couldn’t possibly ever have anything like that even near my wedding (and I am a reasonable girl.) But then he said “How many weddings have you been to where you remember the chairs?” I thought long and hard about it and realized that I could not remember chairs from a SINGLE wedding I have been to…and upon asking couples what kind of chairs did you have anyway…alot of them were crappy brown folding chairs, crappy banquet chairs, etc….so I caved and am sticking with the provided chairs hoping that I, nor anyone else, will notice them…I think you’ll be fine with the green chairs. Spend that extra money on a your honeymoon or something…You’ll probably enjoy it more
At first, I was all about the chivaris. But when I showed a picture of them to Mr. Lovebug, he said, “But they’re so bamboo-y and asian looking!” And I realized that even if they’re not BAD bamboo-y, they are indeed bamboo-y.
And that realization saved us hundreds!
I totally agree with the poster Jess above - I think you notice them when you first enter the room but after dinner gets going and people are dancing, you won’t notice them. I’m saving the money and skipping the insane price for chivaris. That decision was helped when we actually sat on a chivari and realized they weren’t even that sturdy! Our other chairs are run-of-the-mill chairs, but I’d rather spend the money elsewhere.
Thank you for this post!!! It made me feel so releived that someone went through the same agonizing detail about something as silly as chairs. When I first started planning my wedding 11 months ago, I had no idea this would even be a factor. Although our wedding is at a country club, I found the chairs to look awful! I know that know one will see them after they sit down, but it kept torturing me, and my fiance said, “this really makes you unhappy, so we’ll find a way to pay for them.” I can’t beleive I am spending $2000 on chairs…it’s not even like I will get to own one after. The things we do for our weddings! Fiance and I joke around that we’ll buy chaivari chairs one day and do a public service by donating them for a night to sweet brides in need!
[…] yesterday’s obsessive post about chairs, I decided to call the Green Room, just to see if someone happened to rent the room […]
ugh, I hate our chairs too. We’ve compromised as the covers are ridiculous here so we’re doing a tulle sash on the black chairs. It’ll just have to do!
Fingers crossed Miss Creampuff! I hope the other brides the day before and after will understand the need for chivaris. If they are anything like all the other brides here on this post, you will have nothing to worry about.
PS This is the thing I have wanted most to splurge on since my planning began. I also think it makes the room click!
That’s not stupid at all. I LOVE Chivari Chairs! If I were to get married anytime soon, those chairs would be a MUST! I’m trying to convince my May bride to rent those chairs out. Most chairs the venue provides are ugly. I’m SO over the standard satin chair covers for round back chairs. There are so many cute things you can do with the Chivari Chairs from the sheer ribbons you can tie on the back, to the chair pads, to the sheer covers you can put over them. I know I’m not any help with your decision, lol!
[…] chairs ever since I started looking at wedding blogs but eventually I talked myself out of it. Then Miss CreamPuff’s post got me worked up all over again, and I went hunting. These are the chairs that our venue offers for […]
I’m in Harrisburg, PA and looking for chiavari chairs. Where is your venue? Maybe they can help.
