Weddingbee Blog

Some people second guess their dress. Not me. I second guess my venue, or so it seems.

When Mr. Lox and I first got engaged and our favorite restaurant offered themselves up as an affordable venue for both ceremony and reception, we were thrilled. It was a no-brainer. We know the owner and trust him. We know the bartender. We know the chef. And we know the sommelier. It seemed perfect. We had an initial discussion with the owner about very high-level details and then cleared our date with him. He didn’t want a deposit or a contract because he said it’s bad luck. We trusted him, so it wasn’t a big deal. And done!

Of course, if that were the extent of this, it wouldn’t be a problem. But as time passed, our lack of contract started to freak me out. I felt like that plus the lack of details was becoming a giant problem. I started to panic. So we began to try to contact the owner to talk and ease my fear. He didn’t answer e-mails. He was never around to pick up the phone. Finally, we showed up there for dinner and he talked with us. I started to feel better.

That is, right up until we talked about the ceremony setup. That was the one piece that was not how I had envisioned it. The setup he outlined had no real aisle for me to walk down and a half-wall between the ceremony and our seated guests. I tried to be cool about it. I tried not to think about it. We moved on.

Now *this* is an aisle.

Then my day of coordinator asked for copies of all my contracts, and I had to explain the venue issue again. It bothered both of us, and she saw possible legal complications for her. Mr. Lox and I decided to go back to the owner and ask for a contract without a deposit if he didn’t want to take one. But in the meantime, I was getting more anxious about the ceremony and the entire thing. The owner was difficult to contact. The ceremony wasn’t what I wanted. I felt trapped.

And so it was that Mr. Lox and I hit the streets to compare our restaurant to other venues. And so it was that we found a place comparable in price but significantly farther away. And to be honest, Mr. Lox called them right away to set up an appointment for us to see the place and talk this over.

I felt guilty and bad for cheating on our venue. But I felt uneasy about it, and I wanted to at least investigate an option. I didn’t really know what was going to happen, but I needed to see it through. And since we didn’t have a contract to break at the time, I felt like I wasn’t doing anything too too wrong. Maybe.

Did you ever second guess one of your vendors or end up changing midstream? I’d love to hear your stories.