I've been so busy spazzing about pregnancy stuff that the piano recital has really crept up on me! Only a month and a half until the date I'd picked!!!

Thankfully I've got 9 out of 10 students already working on their songs, but this is going to be cut close! (The tenth took off for the summer and I've been playing phone tag with his mom for him to start back, although I've heard from his friends that he's decided to drop hockey and guitar in favor of piano and is eager to be in the recital)

I still haven't actually reserved a place, so if anyone knows of a nice place with a piano in Sunnyvale or close by that has room for 10 students plus families, let me know!

Otherwise I will reserve the same okay but kinda crappy place that I did last year, which costs me $200 to rent, assuming its still available!

I've also decided to breakdown and hire a professional photographer. The awesome guy who photographed our wedding for a very reasonable price said he'd charge $300-400 "for the shooting, editing with titles and smooth transitions, and authoring the DVD with a menu and a custom case."

Given how much work it was when I did all of the editing and whatnot myself for last year's recital, I don't doubt that this is a reasonable price. However, I'm not sure what the additional cost per dvd will be, and I am pretty sure that I will lose money on the venture. (if I charge $25/dvd and assume one sold per student, which is a little more than what I sold last year, that's $250)

But yeah, I just don't think I can resist even if I do end up at a slight loss. The kids are just so damn cute, and we all put so much work into the recitals...

I'm really glad that I'm not trying to put together my first recital while pregnant. And that I'm not trying to learn a Rachmaninoff song right now! ;) It helps a lot to have at least some experience with knowing how long it takes the kids to learn more difficult songs, to have the recital program from last year to revise to print out rather than having to learn how to use the software from scratch, etc.