Sketchiest “Receipt” Ever

While cleaning out some files this past weekend, I stumbled upon a receipt from our wedding.  I wanted to block a majority of the wedding receipts from my mind, but actually smiled when I found this one!

For anyone new to the blog, Nick and I got (fake) married in Cabo in November of 2010.  While I wanted it to be really nice, I also didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg.  I had hoped we could find some deals in Cabo.  But alas, any company dealing with Americans knew how to markup their merchandise. The bouquets in Mexico cost the same as those in the US.  Which makes no sense, since many of the flowers we get in the US come from Mexico!

For some reason I convinced myself that we were going to get a deal on the flowers.  In all honesty, flowers didn’t really matter to me.  They die and you can’t take them back to the US – well, at least I don’t think you can.  So we set off on a mission to find some inexpensive wedding flowers.

We got a tip from our rehearsal dinner vendor and headed off into the less touristy portion of Cabo.  Off the beaten path, if you will.  We quickly found ourselves in a section of Mexico reserved for locals.  Perfect!

Thankfully, I had brought Nick.  My interpreter!  The kid speaks some decent Spanish, which was good, as there wasn’t a single English speaking person in the store!

After some hand gestures, pointing and pictures, we had determined what we would be needing for our wedding.

1 bouquet of cymbidian orchids and calla lilies
2 corsages for the madres
4 boutonnieres for various males
1 hair flower for my sis

Easy enough!  Needless to say, I was still unsure of what the final price would be and if I would even actually see these flowers on our wedding day.

Here was the receipt.

Basically the opposite of official.  And don’t worry, the final price is quoted in pesos.  It was about $115.  Ironically, Nick had no idea what flowers should cost and thought that 1000 pesos for a bouquet was outrageous until I told him it was actually a good deal.

No email, not even an address.  Nick confirmed via phone on the 30th of October and we showed up a few days before the wedding to hand over $115.  And the flowers showed up! I was a little skeptical and had made a mental list of things I could hold instead of a bouquet if the flowers never arrived.  It was a short list and involved towel creatures, so I was glad the flowers did in fact show up!

I think it’s funny that I found this situation “sketchy.”  What’s wrong with a hand written receipt and a little bit of trust? This was such a fun interaction and I think it’s kind of a bummer that things like this don’t happen as much as they use to (not that I’ve had a deep seeded history of hand written receipts in foreign countries).  It remains a fond memory of our wedding (although we are lucky enough to have many) and I’m so glad we decided to take the little risk.

Random sidenote: when the bouquet arrived it was absolutely perfect and exactly as I had requested.  A few days later, Nick tells me that he met the flower guys at the hotel and noticed a few brown flowers in the bouquet.  Knowing that I would not be happy, he made them swap out the brown ones for some non-brown ones.  This cracks me up because I can just imagine Nick and the Mexican delivery boy sitting in the back of the van, the whole time Nick thinking, “oh geez, Bryn’s going to be pissed!”  Love that kid. And for the record, I wouldn’t have been mad.