My first bridal meltdown

[jeg80]

As I sit here crying about this I just need to get it out...
I''m having a very small wedding in early Fall of this year. My fiancé''s father is disabled and cannot travel very far from home. We are trying to keep costs down for the wedding. I e-mailed this local restaurant a month ago to see if they could accommodate a small wedding ceremony (before they opened) and then a lunch for 22 people. I never heard back and sent another message just to check up on the inquiry as this place would be my first choice...close to home, new decor, and on a cute lake.
So when I don''t hear from them I look elsewhere. There is an old inn in a state park about 40 minutes from here that allows you to have the ceremony outside in front of a large set of waterfalls and then a dinner in the inn. This place is very nice and the scenery is great, but is quite a bit more money and has alot of "rules". The ceremony has it''s own fees. Since i hadn''t heard from the original facility I asked to reserve the 2nd one. The director sent a contract and I waited a week, thought it over, talked to everyone involved, and asked tons of questions. We decided to go for it (you had to have it returned with deposit within 10 days for your date to be reserved), signed it and send the $1000 non-refundable deposit THIS MORNING. Jump forward to now...
I JUST got an e-mail from the original place at 5:45pm. She apologized and said my e-mails were in her "junk" e-mail and she doesn''t know why but that she wanted to let me know they could accommodate my wedding and not charge for anything except the lunch.
I just can''t believe my bad luck with this

I''m so distraught as there is nothing I can do to intercept that envelope to the Inn before it goes out tomorrow morning. I don;t really know why I''m writing this except to get my frustrations out I guess. If you got this far, thank you for listening to my meltdown

 

[laughwithme]

If you are positive the original place is everything you want in a venue - and you won''t shoot yourself in the foot by changing your mind later - then I would call the venue to which you just mailed and your check and say you made a huge mistake and something has come up and you cannot reserve the place any longer. Then put a stop payment on your check with the bank so they cannot cash it. You may burn a bridge this way, which is why I say, make 1000% sure you won''t turn around later and want/need to re-reserve this place.

It definitely doesn''t sound like its too late to me, I think the tricky thing is making sure that before you call the venue to which you sent your deposit - that you get all your questions answered at this original place. If the waterfall venue has quality staff and understanding management, hopefully they can understand that "things come up" and they will let you off the hook.

Keep us updated and stay calm, this will work out one way or another.

 

[jeg80]

Thank you laugh for your input ...that really helps and I''ve since calmed down. I called my Mom and she said "remember that everything happens for a reason". She has said this to me with everything I''ve ever gone through (anywhere from tiny issues to huge earth shattering issues) and it has always proven correct so perhaps I should keep going with this plan at the Inn. She said if it were "meant to be", I would have received the e-mail before I mailed out the deposit to the Inn.
Another factor I have to consider would be changing the date entirely if I change to the 1st place and this would mean changing the contract with the photographer and changing my work time off.

 

[JerseyGrl81]

What timing! I the inn you are sending your deposit to sounds lovely. You will have a great wedding there, but as laughwithme said you still have time to cancel your check. Sleep on it tonight and see how you feel in the morning.

 

[CharmyPoo]

I hope everything works out for it. Let there be a lesson learned here - when your email gets no response .. pick up the phone

 

[sonnyjane]

Date: 2/15/2010 9:45:03 PM
Author: CharmyPoo
Let there be a lesson learned here - when your email gets no response .. pick up the phone

This for the future! For this situation, though, the venue that you have already paid for does sound very nice, and I tend to usually follow that "for a reason" school of thought.

 

[jeg80]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts! You are right about the phone call I should have made...I''m SUCH a baby when it comes to talking to and/or in front of people hence the immediate family only wedding

I did decide to stick with the Inn for our wedding and I really appreciate your thoughts and well wishes

This forum is such a nice to place to get outside perspective when things seem to get rough and you need an outsider''s opinion...thanks again!