Weddingbee Blog

The wedding-venue hunt, or WVH for short, can be one of the hardest parts of planning. For many brides there are SO many options they become overwhelmed with the pros and cons of all of them. Lucky for me, I am not one of those brides. Both Mr. Aardvark and I are Catholic. That did a lot of venue limiting for us. We knew we wanted the ceremony in a church. However, being relatively new to Wisconsin and having family and friends all over God’s green earth, we were not sure which city or even which state would be the best place for us to tie the knot.

After a little bit of discussion, we decided that my home state of Michigan would be best. If you are not familiar with the shape of this lovely state, it looks like this:

Image via Google Maps

1. At the time the priest was the only one I knew in any of my childhood parishes.
2. The location would be fairly central for all of our guests.
3. The church was quaint and small.
4. Our cottage was within walking distance of the church.
5. There was a really nice American Legion just a few blocks from the church.

That pretty much sums it up. Note, there is nothing in there about cliffs, beaches, outdoor weddings, or the pier. (We already had April in mind at this point. Michigan + April ≠ “beachy.”)

I called up the parish office a few days after getting engaged and asked about availability. I was told they are very selective about who they let get married at their parish due to its beautiful location and high demand for weddings. Fair enough.

I thought, “Well, we’re Catholic, my family attends this church on a pretty regular basis, they are friends with the priest, and one of my parents is an alumni of the parish school, so this should not be a problem.” I thought wrong. The priest (who had been nothing but pleasant in the past) would not discuss our potential wedding on the phone. He had to meet us in person. He also informed us that it would be quite impossible to meet on a weekend.

OK then. At this point I should have seen the big red flag flying in front of my eyeballs. I should have realized this was not the person or place I wanted for our wedding.

However, in the mania that is wedding planning my brain had one thought process: “MUST BOOK VENUE!!! MUSTBOOKMUST BOOK BOOOK VENUE!!!” or something like that. So Mr. Aardvark and I both took time off of work to make the five-plus hour drive to meet with this priest. Our appointment was in the morning, and I had dreams of scoping out reception venues (by that I just mean stalking the American Legion) nearby, calling caterers, and finally asking my lovely ladies to be bridesmaids. (I wanted to have a firm date before I asked—is that weird?) The rest of the weekend would be wedding-planning bliss!

Well, we pulled into the parking lot at approximately 9:47 AM EST. I will not get into the details, but by 9:58 we were on our way back to my parents’ house! That’s right—the meeting that could not happen on the phone, or on a weekend, had taken about seven (7) minutes. What went on in that seven minutes? I will tell you. We were asked to write a letter. Yup! A letter. A letter explaining why we felt we deserved to be married there. Clearly, this would be an impossible request to make over the phone!! If you cannot tell, I.was.livid. For the first time in our month-long engagement I cried.

I knew at that point that I did not want to get married there. As fate would have it there was another, better opportunity right around the corner. The weekend ended up being a nice chance to see my family and celebrate our new engagement.

Epilogue:

I did write the letter. I even refrained from using massive amounts of profanity. It was sappy and flowery and everything I could imagine a curmudgeonly old priest would want to hear. A month and a half later, I got a call from the priest saying he was “leaning towards” letting us get married at his church, and that we would need to come in and meet with him again (on a weekday, of course!).

I was polite. I thanked him for his time and told him that we had already made other arrangements.

It was on to “plan B.” (B is for better!)

Did any of your wedding plans not work out the way you originally imagined? Did they turn out for the better?