Weddingbee Blog

While reading this post, you may question my choice of title…but stick it out, OK?

It was an average fall day…one of my final summer Fridays* of the year. The sun was shining and there were just over two hours until I planned to spend my afternoon wandering the Philadelphia streets for a bit. (I really wanted a late lunch from the Guapos Taco truck.)

Where my brain was / Image via design-phan

As I was imagining my delicious Mexican snack, my phone buzzed on the desk, listing “Jen from Kimmel Center” as the caller. I picked up and cheerily said, “Hi Jen—happy Friday!” Her response did not seem as peppy, and when she mentioned that her colleague was with her on the call, I got a strange feeling. However, I did not expect what she said to me:

“Miss Turkey, we’re sorry to tell you that we’re no longer going to be able to hold your wedding at the Kimmel Center on May XX, 2012.”

Cue tires screaching, glass breaking, lightning striking…WHAT???

I felt like how my brother looks in this photo. I think he was just mad about the horribly ’80s couch, though.

The short version is that the Kimmel Center was changing the entire scope of their construction (you know, the construction I was excited about because it would mean we could have a band). Instead of being done in January, they were looking at August for completion now. Surprisingly, despite feeling like someone had punched me in the gut, I remained calm, saying only “So, you’re going to fix this.” (Note this was a statement, not a question.)

I requested a list of replacement venue options by 3 PM, fitting a few key criteria (I knew I couldn’t afford to be too picky—we were, after all, at about six months out from the date): our date of May XX**, in Philadelphia, fitting 200 people.

In the meantime, I decided it was time to call it a day at the office and hit the phones. I started calling all the places I could think of and Googling, too. (Thanks for ability to call and browse, iPhone.) I also called my mom, our photographer, and our event designer to ask for assistance.

Mr. Turkey was working from home, and so when I returned to the apartment I alerted him to the situation. He was shocked (and frankly, so was I) to find me upright, in problem-solving mode, and not losing it. That’s right, there had been NO TEARS.

This was despite the fact that I had heard “NO” from about 20 venues. By 3 PM, I did not have a response from our original venue, so I made a phone call. (What? They had a timeframe!) I spoke to Jen’s colleague, who send he would send over a number of options shortly. Remember how I said I hadn’t cried yet? At approximately 3:04 PM that day, I cried. For about 30 seconds.

The list that was sent to me by the Kimmel Center was absolutely ridiculous, so my tears were merely an initial response to options that were not feasible whatsoever. There were options that were for a different date, ones not in Philadelphia (over 20 miles away), and some that would not fit our 200 guests. The options that did fit the “necessary” criteria were so far outside our consideration set it wasn’t even reasonable. (I can share more details if you’re interested.) I chose to respond to the list by requesting a date to pick up our original deposit. And told them we were disappointed. VERY disappointed.

However, luck must have been on our side, because within the next couple hours we had an option, thanks to Brian from Evantine. He had penciled us in at The Rittenhouse, a boutique hotel right off the main square of the city…on our date!!

Granted, this was not what we had originally intended for our wedding (the whole “off the ballroom path” no longer applied), but we realized how incredibly lucky we were to have such a phenomenal option available. Yes, we still had to go see the space and sign some papers to “make it official,” but by 6 PM that day we were in a LOT better spot than at 11 AM!

Did you hit any snags in your wedding process? Were there tears?

*If you don’t know what summer Fridays are, I’m sorry, because they’re awesome. It’s when the office closes early for employees on Fridays (in our office, it’s 1 PM) in exchange for them shifting their hours earlier in the week.

**I realize we could have found another date, but we had all our vendors, the save the dates were printed, and our honeymoon was booked for the Monday after the wedding. Changing the date would have been an even greater hassle.