Mike and I are about six-months out from our wedding and I'm starting to feel the stress. We were sitting pretty after we got a bunch of stuff accomplished in October but the holidays flew by and we are up against deadlines again. My sister jokingly asked the other day if I would be mad if she eloped and I told her I hoped she did!
Okay... half kidding - but as fun as it is to pick the venue, dress, and stationary there are just as many frustrating aspects of getting the big day to come together. For any of you who just got engaged, I thought I'd share.
1//
Vendors Not Getting Back to You - or even more frustrating, not getting back to you with information you requested. A lot of websites don't have their prices explicitly stated on their website but rather ask you to email them for more info. I assumed most vendors have a packet they send you upon request with options and pricing but was surprised to get responses like "the price depends on what you want."
My take on this is if they are too busy/disorganized to get back to you within a week or with a response that doesn't directly addresses your questions then you probably won't get the attention and quality you want for your big day anyway. The vendors that have won our business were all quick to respond, upfront, and interested in helping us figure out what we wanted for our wedding.
2//
Finding Hotel Accommodations - this one is on me. I should have started asking around about blocking out rooms in hotels a few months ago but didn't realize it would be this difficult. July is high season in Tahoe (especially around the lake) and hotels are either unwilling to reserve rooms or limit the number of reservations to one wedding a weekend. Since our venue doesn't have parking, it means we are most likely going to have to pay for a fleet of vans to pick people up instead of just doing one large bus from a central location.
Other situations to be aware of are hotels that ask you to put down a deposit on the rooms and/or charge you a percentage of any rooms not reserved which could end up costing you money in the end. Most large chains don't do this but instead you make an agreement to release the unreserved rooms at a given date before the wedding which is much more reasonable.
3//
Guests Not Looking at the Wedding Website - We're not at this point yet but was a recent complaint of a friend getting married in a few months who put a lot of time into making their website only to have people call to ask for details or miss the deadline for booking rooms because they failed to look at the website.
I understand not all people are internet savvy but with so much on your plate already, answering the who/what/when/why of Aunts and Uncles is not easy. Some good advice I recently heard is to designate a bridesmaid or a friend you trust to be the 'go-to' person -- especially for questions the week of the wedding.
How about any of you married readers? Have any other tips for things to watch out for while planning a wedding and how to deal with them? I promise
if Mike and I don't throw in the towel and sneak off to the courthouse that all my wedding posts from now on will be things I am excited about!
