I've never started a new thread but feel compelled to share my story with other brides.
My wedding is in 2 and a half months. September 5. Only 73 days to go! Should be ecstatic, should be having my tasting this weekend. Instead of my tasting however, I have to look at a new venue. I called 6 times on Monday to try to get a hold of the catering manager so I could confirm my appointment. No luck in getting a hold of her, no return calls from her so I sent an email. Her response to my email was to tell me she was "delighted to inform me," that the hotel where I had booked my wedding had been sold and will be closing August 6th for extensive renovations. Oh and by the way, we won't open back up in time for your wedding. We have to move it. I get this news BY EMAIL!!! (I was going to quote it here for you but it will make this post extremely long.)
So I proceeded to have a meltdown. The kind of meltdown where you have the ugly cry. There is the pretty cry, single tear while watching a sad movie. And there is the ugly cry like when you watch Steel Magnolias. At work, no less. So now I have no venue, and by the way no invitations because the ones I worked on and assembled and bought on sale months ago now have the WRONG address on them. So we set everyone into action. Soon to be Dad-in-law helped us negotiate our initial contract and he goes into work mode, pulls it out and starts making phone calls. The now sold hotel catering manager has actually coordinated with three other hotels who are willing to honor my contract. (In her defense she found out on Monday and spent that day looking for locations that would honor our contract. She was just as surprised as we were. Her only crime was communicating that information by email instead of calling me back.)
If there is a take away/moral of the story in this it is this: BE VERY CAREFUL WITH YOUR CONTRACTS! When we initially received the "standard" contract that the hotel management company used for all of their events, there was verbaige in there that basically indemnified the hotel in the event that it was sold. It said that they only had to notify us 30 days prior to our event about the sale of the property. I don't remember if the original wording contained anything about them having to help us out. My DIL caught that, said it was not good enough and demanded that they change it to 180 days. They went back forth about it so much that they ended up removing the wording altogether. (Which, in retrospect, leads me to believe that the negotiations for the sale of the property were underway when we first signed our contract in February.)
The end result will be good. We are actually going to end up with a MUCH nicer property for our wedding, an indoor wedding, new invitations, all significantly upscale compared to our original venue. Had it not been for our contract, my AMAZING Dad in law, and God's sweet mercy, I may still be rocking myself back and forth under my desk.
BUYER, BEWARE!