Wedding Blog
A couple of weeks ago, while making my long commute to work, I was listening to the news on the radio when they delivered the story that might be one of the worst wedding nightmares for a bride: a local wedding cottage, with dozens of weddings booked for the upcoming year, abruptly shuts down, leaving no trace of the owners and no explanation to the customers.
What was more surprising, for me, was that the Wedding Cottage was located in my hometown, outside of Dallas, and I had even attended a few weddings there while growing up. The Wedding Cottage was one amongst a cute little cluster of yellow cottages that, for years, had art galleries, stores, antiques, etc. I have fond memories of having tea with my mom at the tea room that once existed in the cottages. In the past ten years or so, the growing city, and need to expand the roads, has led half of the cottages to be torn down and the remaining ones not in the best of shape.
(photo from: www.chapels.com)
While it is not uncommon to have vendor changes throughout the course of planning, I couldn’t even imagine having to pick up the pieces of your major location up and shutting down on you last minute. I had a hard enough time trying to pick our reception venue with over a year to plan, I can’t even imagine having to find a last minute replacement for your entire wedding.
The thought of having all your hard work just *poof* disappear stresses me out just thinking about it. So much so, that, for some reason, I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about this very story and told myself to blog about it today.
Have any of you had to face a major vendor change during your planning? What is the best way to handle a last minute “hiccup” in your wedding planning?
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Share this post: One Of My Worst Wedding Scenarios
that is absolutely terrible! I can’t even imagine going through that kind of stress! Short notice my butt! I certainly hope all the couples at least get their money back- although it is not nearly enough to compensate them for the other problems it has caused all of them.
This isn’t too last minute, but three months out we just were told that our church will not be available and that we need to find another one.
It’s not our churches fault because the ceiling is falling in, but still, it sucks because there is nothing available really. We have to choose between moving everything to be four hours later, or driving an extra 30-40 minutes.
A few years ago when my brother and his wife were planning their wedding they had booked a beautiful historic spot in their downtown for their reception. Then one day driving to work they heard about a mishap downtown, a building was supposed to be demolished, but the wrecking crew screwed up and tore down…you guessed it…their reception site. Luckily they were able to get a new spot, but sadly the beautiful historic building is gone forever. My SIL is one the most laid back people I know and that trait really came in handy during that set back!
Three months out we had to change venues from a friend’s home to something else (for health reasons). Thank goodness it was a Friday wedding or we wouldn’t have been able to find anything. I wasn’t expectng that extra chunk of money to have to go out, so that was hard, but our friend’s health was way more important.
Our venue called us a few months after booking, and told us “sorry. we double booked you”. We were forced to find not only a new venue, but also had to drop our caterer (who we loved) because we couldn’t find a new venue that would let us bring our own. Now, we have a new venue and caterer, but I still miss our old caterer. I miss our old venue too — but not the jerks who operate the venue, who caused me an extremely stressful and difficult month of trying to find a new place.
We also changed our photographer. The first one suddenly got flaky on us, and we had to drop him. Plus he had done a friend’s wedding, and she was less than pleased with him. We ended up finding another photographer, for just a tiny bit more money, who was a million times more awesome. We’re definitely glad our old photographer turned flaky, because we love our new one.
So, I guess we learned that bad crap will happen, and sometimes it will work out better than it would have originally, and sometimes it wont. Either way, you have no choice but to just make the best of it.
Some family friends had to change their ceremony site about a month before the wedding — they had applied to be married on public land (at a tree that had special meaning for them as a couple) but the paperwork got lost somewhere in the bureaucratic shuffle and when they found out their application for a permit had been lost, they were told that there was no way for them to re-file in time. Memo to self: do not attempt to deal with the government on your wedding day.
Fortunately they were able to have the ceremony at their reception site, so it could have been a lot worse.
For a year and a half, we were planning on holding our Australian AHR at FI’s aunt and uncle’s house - it’s a gorgeous home, and they were thrilled when we decided to get married and happily offered it to us. And then changed their minds with 3 months until the date.
Obviously our relationship with them is way more important than a wedding venue, so we didn’t throw a hissy fit or anything, but I do wish they had mentioned it sooner (apparently they’d actually changed their minds several months before, but hadn’t actually told us); it was a major challenge to find a suitable venue for a Saturday night in the middle of peak wedding season with only 3 months to go!
4 1/2 months out pretty much the same thing happened to me and I had to find a new venue. I got lucky and had a beautiful wedding, but it was really scary and upsetting losing my venue. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I grew up in the same hometown (go jackets) and I too have been to a couple of weddings at that location. I had even considered holding my wedding there - thank god I changed my mind and booked somewhere else! It was really shocking.
[...] day after my post about the Wedding Cottage that closed down in my hometown, we had some severe storms in areas of [...]
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Mrs. Hydrangea, Dallas
Age and Occupation: 26, Administrative Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Network Analyst
Engagement Date: June 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: January 14, 2008
Venue: Catholic Church and Reception at The W Hotel
About Me: Mr. H and I come from very different cultures and backgrounds so I'm excited to plan our wedding with a balance of both traditions. My mom has always been a DIY queen, and I'm just now starting to get into it with a new house and a wedding to plan!
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