I think we picked crappy vendors. If you haven’t read about the photographer fiasco, check it out here. We are now having a slightly more minor issue with our DJ.
Lilac Dude has been handling Mr. DJ and just recently received an email basically saying this:
Dear Customer,
Per our discussion and as outlined in your contract, we will charge additional for travel out of our county when gas exceeds $3.00 per gallon. As it is nearly $4.00 we will be adding a $35 travel charge to all accounts. If you are paid in full already, we will bill you.
Thank you,
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Is it just me or do you find it extremely annoying when you get bombarded by vendors you’ve never inquired from? For those of you who just got engaged or have not yet, this post will help you save countless voice mails, emails, and phone calls from bombarding vendors.
When I first started wedding planning, I would give out my information to vendors like no other through bridal shows and websites that had listings for music wedding bands. I thought, why not..it doesn’t hurt right? Yea, it doesn’t hurt, but you’ll just end up getting annoyed by so many vendors trying to contact you to get your business. A lot of times, they won’t just contact you once and hope for you to call back…they’ll call you at least 3-4 or more times until you call them back.
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Lilac Dude and I received an email from our photographer letting us know that he had scheduled a wedding on May 27th that was out of town. While he was sure that he’d be able to return in time to shoot our wedding on May 28th, he would have his two assistants available to shoot it in case of delay. It was a generous offer considering that our photography package calls for only one photographer, but it didn’t make me feel any better. How could he book a wedding that may make him miss ours?
I was pretty mad. After a new contract and some back and forth we still have our photographer.
Photo from celebratewithstyle.com
Then in our reception hall search we called a certain place and asked if our date, May 28th was available. Yes, they said, it is available. So we take an evening to visit and talk with the manager. And we asked, are you sure you have our day? He assured us that they did have it available.
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They say you have a year to give a gift for a wedding, but that you should send Thank You’s within a month. What about Thank you notes for your vendors? Is prompt payment and a tip enough? We don’t think so, but unfortunately we’ve left our vendors un-thanked for almost six months. I was great about sending our guests thank you notes within 2-3 weeks of the wedding. For gifts received later, I usually sent the thank you card out the day we got the gift in the mail. We tracked all our gifts and when thank you notes were sent through the WeddingWire feature. But because I was so focused on thanking those that gave us something, our vendors got the short end of the stick. Then I was sending thank you notes for friends helping us move, for housewarming gifts, etc. I kept putting the vendor thank you notes off.
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Ask any Hawaiian bride where she goes for local wedding resources and her answer will likely be The Wedding Cafe. Owned by a husband and wife team, Bryson and Tanna, The Wedding Cafe boutique provides brides-to-be a store full of vendor portfolios, from binders of wedding venues to videographers and photographers to hair and makeup and flowers. In addition to a directory full of resources, they also provide FREE, yes, I said it, FREE workshops that provided me with great wedding tips and introduced us to our favorite wedding photographer, Kris Labang. Oh, and did I mention the delicious spicy tuna caper sandwiches and pumpkin crunch?! After all, it really is a cafe.
Why am I such a big fan of this place? Because The Cafe really has been a great help in our wedding planning…so if any of you are interested in having a destination wedding in Hawaii, I’d check out the website. Also, if you’d like to get more tips and inspiration from local Hawaii brides, check out Tanna’s new book, Wedding Belles.
You can buy the book locally in Hawaii at Borders, Barnes and Nobles, and of course, The Wedding Cafe! It is also available through Watermark Publishing, Booklines Hawaii, and Amazon.com. I checked the book out myself and would recommend it to any bride who just started with their wedding plans. Happy Planning, Buds!
