Rental Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

Absolutely, and had this happened anywhere else but Georgia she probably would have been able to talk with them.A similar thing happened to me on I-75 in Georgia back in the 1980s. I was an American citizen living permanently in South Africa. I was in the US on business and had driven a rental car from Ohio down to Florida and was on my return to Ohio. I had just crossed into Georgia when a state trooper going south made a U turn and got so close to me that I couldn’t even see his bumper in my mirror. I kept my cruise set (55 MPH back then) and kept driving. I saw a large piece of truck tyre retread laying in the middle of my lane so I went right to miss it (car on my left so couldn’t go into passing lane). The cop actually hit the chunk of tyre and he turned on the lights. He stopped me for swerving out of my lane or so he said. I gave him my car rental agreement and that upset him. He claimed that I couldn’t rent a car in Ohio and drive it out of that state. Then I produced my South African drivers license and the fun began. He asked me what it was first of all. I told him it was my South African drivers license. The problem really came when I showed him my USA passport with my permanent South African residence credentials. I had a lot of explaining to do about that. He claimed that I had to have a USA license as soon as I arrived in America. Never mind that I was on a 2 week business trip over here, had no home over here, and had my return ticket home. Then he saw that my License was issued by the Transvaal Provence (I lived in J’oburg at the time). He said that wasn’t an official license because it never said South Africa on it. I said that I didn’t think his Georgia license had USA on it, only the state were it was issued. The guy actually pulled out his own license to look at it. He made several calls and we spent about 45 minutes stopped alongside the road. I had visions of winding up on a Georgia chain gang. In the end some other troopers arrived for the party and much discussion was held. I was finally allowed to leave. I have tried to avoid Georgia as much as I can ever since.

Practical planning tips:Use Google spreadsheets or other shared software. To stay organized, use this religiously. This also saves you stress knowing all your thoughts and open to-do's are in one place.Use various online and offline resources. There are great reviews, forums and books (e.g. Bridal Bargains - http://www.amazon.com/Bridal-Bargains-Throwing-Fantastic-Realistic/dp/1889392391/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299730400&sr=1-1 - does a good job helping you navigate new brands and not be ripped off; I haven't read it in over 5 years, but I learned a lot of wedding planning tips from it)Consider hiring a wedding planner or day-of coordinator. The rest of this answer assumes you are doing most of the planning yourself.For all vendors, be sure to keep contact info, cell phone numbers handy and get everything in writing and follow-up regularly, especially the month before to re-confirm the details.More important things to remember throughout the planning process:It is your wedding. The two of you should make the final calls.It is just one day (or at most a week celebration). You spend a lot of time planning for the big day, but what's more important is preparing for your marriage. Think of the issues which come up as preparation for far more serious life challenges in the future.Being engaged is a special, brief time. Don't forget to enjoy this period of your relationship. One day you won't be able to imagine what it's like not to be married.I. First things first: At its core, a wedding is an event (or series of events) with the end goal of celebrating you, your fiance and your decision to tie the knot. Basic event planning steps are where you should start:Size: Discuss with your fiance how large of a wedding you'd like. Consider other weddings you've attended. Less than 100 is fairly intimate and you're likely to get to talk to everyone at least once. More than 200 is large enough where you won't actually talk to everyone. Discuss any constraints you'd like to put (e.g. if your fiance hasn't already heard of the family friend today, the family friend is ineligible to be invited). Todo: Make a list of everyone you will definitely invite ("A list") and others you would like to invite if you have space ("B list"). Force your fiance and all of your parents to do the same. Do this on a shared Google spreadsheet or similar and give yourself time to let the old friends spring back into memory.Vision: Discuss the overall vision with your fiance. Even those who haven't planned their weddings since childhood have likes and dislikes when it comes to their own weddings. Figure out the structure (is it multiple days? a single day? local? at some faraway destination?) and each of you should choose 3 things you absolutely want to have done well (e.g. great food, perfect dress, open bar). It's a good idea to keep some document (tab in that Google spreadsheet) to capture other special ideas you guys have.Budget: Discuss what you can spend, who else is contributing to figure out your overall budget. Weddings can vary vastly in cost depending on city (coastal cities can be >50% more expensive than in middle of the US) and your taste.II. Location & Date: With your vision, guest count range (estimate your invitee to attendee ratio which can be anywhere from 50-95%) and budget, start to solidify the types of wedding venue you want. Questions to ask yourself:Local or destination: Local is easier to plan, destination is more interesting and a decent way to force your guest list to a smaller size.Single site or multiple: Do you want your ceremony and reception to be at the same place or not? Are there other events (e.g. tea ceremony) which you need to hold during the wedding day?Indoor or outdoor: Time of year and location obviously a factor.Over 250 people or under: At a certain size, your choices become limited to large venues like dedicated wedding/event centers, large hotels or convention centers. Under about 250, you can consider less typical event venues like local restaurants, wineries, zoos, museums, schools, gardens, etc.Anything special you're looking for: a view of the ocean, a place where all guests can equally see the dance floor, a city view, a place you can overhaul entirely, a place with special meaning in your lives, etc.Do your research online, look at pictures of actual weddings from the place and then make appointments in blocks so you can spend a few days and hit a lot of places. If you're calling a non-traditional wedding venue, you should consider getting rental quotes on the phone without saying your are planning a wedding (call it a family reunion or other celebration) to avoid the wedding inflation. When you visit, bring a camera to take pictures to help you remember the sites.Once you have a short list, here are factors to consider when choosing and booking a location and date:Fees: Dig deep on the requirements. Some places require you use their coordinators. Others charge you a per person cake cutting fee. Many limit your choice of vendors.Size & layout: How many can be accommodated? Do you have buffer if your guest list balloons? Do you want a dance floor? Think through the things you'd want and what space requirements they'd have: e.g. slideshow (will it be dark enough in the room, is there room for screens large enough plus projection), a photo booth station, a 14-piece band, etc.? What would the layout of tables be and is it what you're looking for? Will the place photograph well?Date: What is available? Will these dates work for everyone (does it conflict with family members' graduations? other friends' weddings? any must-have vendors)? Note that Sunday weddings can be harder for traveling guests but can be cheaper; weekday weddings are even harder for guests and even cheaper for you.Book the place(s) with the required deposit. Be sure to actually read the rental agreement before you sign (and ask for edits and changes based on any special needs) and keep copies of it, contact info of the person at the venue and copies of your deposit receipt handy. Remember that your wedding, as special as it will be, is one of potentially hundreds of events the site is handling in a year. You (or your wedding planner) need to be responsible for following-up and keeping the site and your other vendors on point.III. Wedding Dress: For better or worse, the wedding dress industry is not nice to consumers. Brides are not that cost sensitive and unfamiliar with brands -- so they are a gold mine. Often dresses are not made until you and a bunch of others around the world order them, so that's why you hear about the notoriously long lead times and "rush orders" for dresses needed in less than 6 months. Factors to consider:Budget: You will wear this dress for maybe 12 hours or so, but it will be in a lot of photographs. Decide how much you are willing to spend and don't forget all the pieces you'll need to put the look together including the dress, alterations, shoes, undergarments, veil, other hair pieces, wraps/shawls, make-up, hair updo, cleaning the dress afterwards, etc.Styles: Get the bridal magazines, look online. When you go to stores, try on styles you weren't considering, you will likely be surprised as you most likely haven't ever seen a wedding dress on. Don't be surprised if most places require appointments and an assistant who suggests dresses versus let you browse. Often stores cut out brand labels and dress model numbers so you can't compare prices easily (evil, I know). Bring friends, relatives who will be helpful only. Take pictures if the stores let you.Timing: Check on the rush order timing, and as excited as you might be about your wedding date, I recommend you tell them your wedding date is 4 weeks earlier than it actually is to ensure on-time delivery.Alterations: See if the store requires in-store alterations. Wedding gowns aren't easy to alter well given the materials and complexity of some dresses, especially strapless dresses. Budget time for alterations as well as hundreds of dollars.Accessories: As you will know by now, all things "wedding" related cost more. Consider looking for accessories outside a bridal salon or borrow from friends if you don't want to spend hundreds on a veil.Cleaning: Depending what you do with your dress afterwards, you can have it dry cleaned and/or packaged in an archival box.Make-up & hair: Research make-up and hair options. Some people hire professionals to come to wherever they are getting ready; others go to a beauty salon. Consider whether bridesmaids and mothers will need professional services too. Some make-up artists stay with you during the day to help do touch-ups or hairdo changes.IV. Bridal party apparel:Bridesmaids dresses require some lead-time too, but usually not as much. Typically bridesmaids pay for their own dresses, but you can cover the expense if you wish. Work with your bridesmaids or have your maid of honor lead the coordination. Make the final call yourself in case of conflicts. Several stores have gotten into creating wedding apparel, e.g. J.Crew. Stores like rkbridal.com in New York offer online/fax orders and price matching.For men, tuxedo rentals are fairly flexible and many nationwide chains make it easy to get measurements taken. Do take special care to have folks pick up their tuxes at least a day in advance and they must try the tux on in the store in the fairly likely case there are sizing issues. (To be convinced, read my review of Men's Warehouse at http://www.yelp.com/list/my-wedding-palo-alto.)V. CateringFood: Decide what type of food and banquet style you want. You could serve lunch or dinner, or just have cocktail hour or a light brunch. Buffets are not any cheaper than plated food, but require fewer servers, yield hotter/fresher food and require space on your floor layout. Plated meals can feel more formal and be easier for guests. Food stations are good for lighter receptions but can be sufficiently heavy and interestingly diverse compared to a more tranditional meal. Do a tasting if you can.Fees: Caterers have lots of hidden fees, most notably the service fee which usually starts at 18%. Investigate staffing fees, rentals for tables, chairs, chair covers, linens, flatware, dinnerware, glassware, etc.VI. Cake: Some caterers or locations (e.g. hotels) can provide your cake. Definitely do a cake tasting though often with cakes of height, the density required as well as how long they have to be left out can make them taste bad. This is definitely not a rule as I was happy to find my wedding cake at a regular bakery which does delicious wedding cakes, though they book up fast. As a cost-saving measure, you can have extra sheet cake of the same type of cake made. The cake, once cut up, looks pretty unrecognizable, so the sheet cake might even look better. Watch out for the cake cutting fee on top.VII. Florist: Florists range from those who provide you with specific arrangements to people who are more event designers who can help you build out the decoration and look & feel of your ceremony and banquet tables. There's been some recent trends to get more creative than flowers for reception centerpieces -- rocks, potted arrangements, fruit, your favorite memorabilia or photos and other ideas can also be used.VIII.Invitations & Collateral: There are numerous online resources for creating invitations, programs, placecards, table cards and anything else you need printed for your wedding. A friend found artists on Etsy.com who would do custom designs for you and send you the files you need to get their logos, special fonts printed elsewhere. You can also use offline stationary, greeting card (e.g. Paper Source, Papyrus) or crafts stores (e.g. Michael's) to get invitations created.Tips: Personally, I think having consistent design throughout all your printed materials brings cohesion and polish to your wedding. That includes color choices, fonts, graphical elements, paper choice, etc. FedEx Kinkos can cut a stack of paper for around $1 per cut, so please do not waste time cutting your own invitations if you just need basic straight lines. Use a Google form or other form to collect updated mailing addresses; consider doing RSVPs online or save-the-dates online to save paper. If you mail RSVP cards, consider writing in light pencil a unique # that corresponds with each invitee in case someone doesn't properly fill out their name and you can't associate the RSVP card to the recipient. Obviously maintain a spreadsheet of RSVPs and make sure your RSVP cards include all the fields you need to provide the caterers with the info you need to give them (e.g. a couple wants chicken and fish, do you need to know which the wife wants vs which the husband wants for their placecards?).I'll call out wedding favors here since it fits as one of the things you will be physically handing out. If you have a theme, brainstorm what would be fun and creative. For the sake of the environment, before you buy 200 trinkets, think about what guests would actually want, use and keep.IX. Photographer & Videographer: After a wedding, besides your fond memories and funny stories, the photos and videos are what are lasting. Having an edited small set of photos and/or videos which highlight the day is priceless, both for the two of you as a couple, your parents, and also to your future children. Browse these vendors' online portfolios, ask friends to see their wedding albums and videos and find someone whose style you like. Note that even cheap ($1-3K) photographers may be terrible and no better than your amateur SLR-lugging photographer friends. So make sure you see some images which make you feel an emotion, awe you or otherwise make some good lasting impression on you. Consider hiring photographers and videographers who have worked with each other so they are used to each other and don't get in each other's way.Tip: Formal wedding albums are very expensive (many hundreds of dollars) given the archival quality of the book and binding. Unless you definitely want one, consider going with a photographer which doesn't force a package deal with it upfront. You may find after the wedding that you weren't sure what you were thinking spending all the money you did for the wedding; plus you realize you'd have to require white gloves for people to actually view your album. Instead, if you can get the digital copies, make a cheaper flip book for your coffee table.X. Entertainment: This can be your friend with a great iTunes playlist and nice speaker system to a DJ or a live band or two (perhaps different for your ceremony, cocktail hour and post-dinner dancing). Be wary of using house speakers for sound unless you've tested it out while the room is filled with talking guests. Often these systems are weak and made for background elevator music. Consider who will be your emcee -- a friend, the DJ or lead singer of your band. Provide clear instructions on the style you want (e.g. funny, raucous, stand-up comedian, etc.) and how self-promotional they should be. If they are doing your introductions, be sure to provide pronunciation guides for your wedding party.For your ceremony, do be sure people will be able to hear the officiant, you, your fiance and any musicians or speakers. You may be a little shy, but it isn't that fun to watch a wedding where you can't hear anything. Similarly think through the seating plan if that within your control to ensure people can see well.XI. Transportation: Map out all the relevant locations for your wedding day -- from where you, your fiance, parents, wedding party members will stay the night before, where everyone will get ready, where everyone will meet, when folks need to arrive for photos, the ceremony, in-between photos, the reception, etc. Figure out who is transporting themselves and whose transportation you care about and decide whether you will hire limos, shuttles or other transportation, or work with friends to chauffeur you around.XII. Rings: If you have an engagement ring, look for a wedding band which will complement it. Men's bands tend to be thicker and thicker bands need to be slightly larger that thinner bands for comfort. Consider engraving something special inside your bands. Allow for time for re-sizing when ordering.XIII. Personal details: Having been involved in many wedding and attended countless others, I strongly recommend you continually consider how to make your wedding day yours. Not for the goal of outshining other weddings, but to make sure it's a day that is about you, not what a typical wedding has to be since you are the ones shelling out the time and money. I've seen some nice personal touches, e.g. game lovers had guests do various brain teasers in a table competition. It's hard to think of these personalized details, so keep that running list of brainstormed ideas and ask your closest friends for thoughts on what makes the two of you unique.Day-Of coordinationHaving run day-of coordination many times, I'll have to write another answer on how to make sure your wedding runs smoothly as this one is long enough.

One relative who was staying with us stomped into the living room and told us to quiet down or go somewhere else, in the middle of my daughter’s birthday party, as though it were her house and we were her unruly children.My husband’s cousin Casey had split up with her boyfriend and been forced to move out of his house, and since she was close to broke her first call was to me, asking if “it would be cool” if she moved into one of the apartments I own. Her entitled attitude rubbed me the wrong way but she was still family, so I told her she could stay in one of the guest rooms at our house. That was a huge mistake, because not only did she stay butthurt that I hadn’t given her an apartment, but she proceeded to treat our house as though it were a full service hotel: She put her laundry out expecting it to get done for her, she complained when we didn’t make dinner, she smoked inside, she locked my dog out, and she even tried to throw a party. As rude as all that was, nothing compared to the insanity of her yelling at us in our own home, telling us to move the party to the closest McDonald’s if we couldn’t get the kids to make less noise. I am not a complete idiot, so I knew that she was being deliberately shitty in the hopes that I’d let her live in one of my rental properties instead, but that wasn’t happening.Casey is my age, but she’s spent the years a little differently, so at this point in time, couple of years ago, she was pushing thirty and she had no home, no job, and an old car that belonged to her parents. We’d already tried to help her out the way we’ve done all our relatives, but she had dropped out of the community college we were paying for and used the last tuition money on who knows what. Later she wanted to become a phlebotomist so we agreed to pay for her classes, but once she realized that we’d be paying the school directly that time, she lost interest. We’d given her a used car that she ran into the ground, and given her smaller sums of money countless times, all as loans that we knew we’d never get back, but we hoped she’d eventually grow up and try to pay us back. Casey is just one among many of my husband’s relatives that we become obligated to help when we took over the family business, and by the time her boyfriend kicked her out I’d lost patience with her. You might think that I should have just allowed her to stay in one of my apartments, but knowing her history I’d honestly have paid the deposit and a few months rent for her to live somewhere else before I set myself up for all the bullshit that would have brought with it.We’ve got a really big house that separates our private rooms from the rest of the house with doors that lock, because I hate having anyone outside my immediate family in my private space just as much as I love hosting, so it wasn’t an issue that we didn’t exactly trust Casey. I didn’t think she’d rob us or anything, but I definitely wouldn’t have put it past her to snoop, borrow without permission, and perhaps even take a little money from my wallet or the giant jug of change we’ve got. She isn’t my favorite person to hang out with either, so so it worked out perfectly that we had a couple of guest rooms on the second floor in the main part of the house, above the large living and dining room where we normally entertain guests. Well, it was perfect from our perspective, but when we first showed Casey into her room and pointed out the bathroom in the hallway that she’d have all to herself, her first question was why she couldn’t have the room at the end of the hall with the en suite and small sitting room. It wasn’t something that we should have had to justify, but my husband explained that though it was technically a guest room, it was the one my sisters stay in when they visit so it had some of their stuff in it. There really wasn’t anything Casey could do about it, but she made sure to mention at dinner that night how cold she’d been running from the bathroom back to her room, for all ten feet of the distance, after she took a bath.Before Casey came to stay with us, we’d made and signed a clear agreement that she would be with us for no more than six weeks, and that she’d be a guest with no tenant rights. She was to stay out of our private areas, she was welcome to the food in the kitchen but she had to clean up after herself, she wasn’t allowed to smoke inside or outside except under a little porch area by the garage, and she wasn’t to have anyone over without our permission. She was a guest in the house where we live with our children, and she’d need to behave accordingly. She could use the pool, she could use the exercise equipment, and she was welcome to eat with us when we cooked dinner, but other than that she had to feed herself. Most importantly, she had to spend her days actively looking for work and a place to live, treating her search as a job in itself. Casey felt that we were being unfairly strict, and that we were treating her as a child even though she was actually a bit older than me, but we had already had bad experience housing my husband’s spoiled relatives, and we knew how she tended to act. It wasn’t long before she proved just how justified we were in asking her to sign that contract!My husband and I both work and we both own businesses, and we want to spend the time we have at home doing things we enjoy, so we pay a woman to come in daily to clean and do other household chores. Sherri is a valued employee and we’ve made it a point to teach our children to treat her with the respect any working professional woman deserves, so she does what she is paid to do, and we never take advantage of her to do anything outside of what she signed on for. She cleans the bedrooms, but if my kids don’t put up their toys, pick up their laundry, and make their beds, Sherri will skip their room and they have to clean it themselves. We give our kids an allowance, and we take a small amount of that money out as payment for the services Sherri performs for them. It’s pointless on a practical level, but we do it to teach them to value her work. Since this is how we expect our kids to treat the maid, you can probably imagine how insulting it was when Casey started off her stay by putting a pile of laundry outside her door, and rudely remind Sherri of its presence when she didn’t touch it. That was only the first fight of many caused by Casey’s refusal to clean up after herself, and once I made it clear to her that Sherri didn’t work for her, she started a campaign of passive aggressive harassment. Less than four days into her stay, Tony had to threaten kick her out, which ended with Casey crying about how he cared more about the maid than her, his dad’s brother’s daughter.Over the next couple of weeks I caught her smoking in the house, and we had daily fights because she wasn’t looking for a job or an apartment with any real effort. My oldest daughter came and told me that her Aunt Casey had been telling her and her sister about how cruel I was, clearly trying to manipulate my daughter and undermine our relationship, but Kaylee is way too smart to fall for that. This happened the day after we almost kicked Casey out, when my husband woke up in the middle of the night to an alert that someone had incompletely disabled the alarm and opened the front door several times, and it turned out to be Casey walking out a couple of guys she’d had over. Tony flipped out when he realized that two strange dudes had been in our house that night, and we talked to Casey for hours until she broke down and cried. It seemed as though she was finally done playing her games, because when Tony called her dad to let him know that we were kicking her out, all he said was to get the keys and his car back from her first. That seemed to shock her back to her senses, so we agreed to give her one more chance, though the terms were different now. We changed the code to the alarm so she would not be able to leave or come in after we armed it at night. She would have to leave the house when we weren’t home, and she would be helping Sherri clean the house.We thought everything was okay, because she actually did as we’d asked for two or three days, until the Sunday of Kaylee’s birthday party. It was a pool party for an 8 year-old girl, so of course it wasn’t exactly a quiet affair, but we were in our house on a huge lot surrounded by woods and the river, so it never occurred to me that we’d receive a noise complaint. I guess Casey couldn’t suppress her bitchiness any longer, because just as Kaylee is opening her presents, when we are all laughing and making excited exclamations over her presents, a pissed off looking Casey comes stomping down the staircase and yells at the whole room to tone it down or take the kids to McDonald’s, because she was trying to sleep. It was 2 pm so she really shouldn’t have been in bed according to our modified agreement, but she did look like someone who’d been tossing and turning in frustration, so I guess she just lost it. All the kids looked embarrassed because an adult had told them to be quiet, and the parents looked confused, but my awesome kid Kaylee just stood up and told everyone to ignore her. “That’s just my Aunt Casey”, she said, “she gets cranky, but this isn’t her house”, and she went back to opening presents. The kids accepted Kaylee’s announcement and went back to having fun, but I had to reassure their parents that my daughter was right, that we really should just ignore what that angry person in the pajamas just yelled at us, before I went upstairs and told Casey to pack her shit and get out.She didn’t even try to apologize when I barged into the room after her, instead she stuck to her guns and attempted to justify her reaction by explaining that she had a headache, and that it was possible to have a birthday party without all that screaming. I am absolutely certain that Casey was being deliberately obnoxious throughout her stay because she wanted me to move her into an apartment, but the fit she threw during the party seemed like a genuine reaction, one that she did not expect to have such severe consequences. She was shocked when I told her to leave and refused to debate the issue, which is understandable considering how many chances she’d gotten, but she fucked with my family for the last time. Yes, we’d promised to look after Tony’s relatives in exchange for the business, but there were limits, so I started showing her shit into her bags and carry it down the back staircase for her. She followed me, arguing, begging, and crying, and when Tony came outside to join us in the driveway she looked relieved, like her cousin would save her, but all he did was snatch the keys to her dad’s car from her hands, pick up her bags, and carry them all the way to the end of the driveway where he placed them on the road off of our property.She stood there for about half an hour, but then she must have found a ride because when I checked out the window again five minutes later she was gone.EDIT: A few of you have asked what happened after we kicked Casey out, but I’m afraid the answer isn’t very exciting. I don’t actually know where she went that day, but it wasn’t long before she moved in with a new boyfriend. She avoided us for a little while but then after we saw each other at various family events, we went back to being superficially courteous to each other. She still hasn’t changed, and she’s currently living with some other dude and doing occasional work stocking coolers for a small chain of convenience stores.