u/JSRO1521

Hi Everyone! I wanted to post about my wedding yesterday (yay!) I wanted to break down the wins and the losses at my wedding.

First the vision: A 30 minute ceremony with 1.5hr cocktail reception at my churches hall. All the bells and whistles but a shorter event as I am already legally married (eloped) but wanted to have a celebration with my friends and family at church. I also baked 2500 cookies over the past month for a cookie table that was eat and take home as a gift to all of the people I love. Its long but bare with me:

Wins:

• We had a beautiful day. It was 90% predicted cold and rainy all day, but it was warm and rain showers on and off but mainly off for the important parts.
• My hair and make up artist came though. My mom, sister and I looked FABULOUS
• The flowers were absolutely STUNNING.
• My ceremony space and reception hall were beautifully decorated by my mom, a decorating team, and myself and it was breathtaking.
• The cookies were delicious. It was the first time having all of them together and I am so happy my friends and family enjoyed and took home cookies.

Losses:

• The first and not the biggest one: the photographer I hired was not who showed up. It was weird having a stranger at my hotel who I've never spoken to (I had 3 meetings with another photographer) and I felt blindsided. I did not even know the guys name! HOWEVER, the photographer was even more amazing and the photos so far are BEAUTIFUL so its not the biggest loss but definitely weird.
• The biggest one: catering never showed up. They never even made the food. My mom found out after the ceremony literally 10 minutes before the reception and when she called, they claimed there was no catering order and they had no food prepared. Mind you, she had called all week confirming the menu, time, location, etc. The manager said they "misplaced our order paperwork" and forgot to follow order procedure in place to make sure all orders get fufilled. Today my mom called the owner who was mortified and was not even made aware that they did not fufill a wedding order yesterday. We made the best of it- the original vision was to only have cookies and coffee reception like a coffee hour at church but I wanted to add some apps considering some people were driving far away. We chose our timing to be between lunch and dinner but still guest started leaving a bit earlier than I would've liked (40-50 mins in so halfway through) but I completely understand. I am also blessed that friends and family completely understood and no one complained and were just happy to be there.
• The servers my mom hired for my wedding SUCKED. In the beginning they did great food set up. However, they did not replenish any of my cookies till I mentioned it and also left 1,000 cookies untouched. Considering there was no other food except cupcakes, cookies, and charcuterie cups (which were displayed properly) there was no reason they could not have replenish and check the food every 15 minutes. They said it was a "judgment call" but I could not imagine having 90 guest outside and leaving so many cookies untouched and the table empty. The only reason I found out was the table was almost empty and I went to see what was left. My heart shattered. I asked why they sat around and did nothing considering no other food was there.
• Lastly, the coordinator let me down. I hired her specifically to handle the vendors and setup, tackle any issues if they arose, and take care of my needs. I even wrote a whole timeline breakdown for her for all delivery times AND gave her everyone's contact. I am going to get more details from her but she apparently did not tell my mom or myself catering never arrived on time. In fact, I only found out today she went up to my brother during the ceremony (he was an usher) and told him that the catering never showed and she needed their number to call. I gave her the number, I gave her the names to contact. So, while I cant go back and change anything, I wonder had they been called at 1:15/1:30 seeing if they were running late, if maybe they could've brought something. Even platters of fruits and veggies and wraps (they also are a deli). She was also not aggressive enough with the waitstaff. She runs her own bar and waitstaff company as well so she knows what to do and it wasn't handled. She also did not get tips out to all the vendors and we are currently working to get that back from her. She otherwise helped me so much but def irritated and annoyed most about how the cookies were handled.

My advice for other brides who are diy-ing: Make sure you stay on top of your vendors. Reach out to them morning of. We reached out day before because who is contacting vendors while getting hair and make up and photos done. However, for any event going forward I will be reaching out day of to just make sure we are all on the same page. And yes these were all highly rated vendors we paid a lot of money for. It was just our luck for the day.

At the end of the day, I am married to the love of my life and my guest had a wonderful time regardless. My hubby and I have our crazy wedding story now lol.