Wedding Blog

I actually found a major loophole in my photog contract. Basically if for some reason she couldn’t do the wedding she’d refund the deposit 6 weeks after the ceremony. I redrafted it to say that she would find me a replacement photog of similar style and experience to provide the same packages of products/service that she does in the event that she can’t shoot it herself. We signed the revised contract and now I have more peace of mind.

I’m a total freak about contracts too - as a law student. BUT, what bugs me most about the contracts is that most of the time, the dispute won’t be worth enough that I’d actually take someone to court.

Furthermore, if I do everything on my end (like I know I will), what good does a contract do for me on the morning of the wedding if my florist fails to show up? It’s things like that that get to me - there’s nothing you can do if one of your vendors ruins the wedding because even IF i were to take this person to court and/or get all of my money back, the day is ruined and there’s no way to change that.

Sorry - Miss Kiwi, you hit a nerve with that one, as it’s my most frequent source of panic. It doesn’t help that I’m one of the “tess” brides - she was the first vendor I booked a year in advance, and her backing out and disappearing with my money has made me really uptight with all the rest of my vendors.

I don’t think it’s paranoid. I wish I had been more paranoid when I had read my reception venue contract. My venue was a private residence that was rented out for weddings. One day about a month and a half ago, I get a call from my caterer that there is a problem. The are selling the venue and we have no place to get married. We had lawyers look over our contract and it was worded in such a way that I judge would have to decipher what it meant. I thought it meant one thing and the owner said it meant another. I think he did this on purpose so that we would have to go to court, which is a major inconvenience and financial burden and counted on the fact that we coudn’t do it. And he was right. The venue is gone and 26 couples were affected. So the lesson here is, yes! Be careful with your contracts! And be skeptical.

I read your other post on your raves about your florist. Could you please send me her contact info? Thanks!mydarlingdayna@sbcglobalnet

Lawyer bride advises: GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING, AND GET IT DONE EARLY. One of our key vendor contracts quit her job the day after our wedding, and guess who’s glad we have everything written down!? Phew! Some of the stuff she agreed to, I think was the result of her being already mentally checked out of her job. She knew she was about to quit and didn’t feel like over-negotiating so she just counter-initialed whatever I changed in the contract. So it worked to our advantage.