You know how they say "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is..." I don't know about you ladies, but that keeps happening to me. Everytime I think we can check something off the list, something goes wrong with our vendor, and we have to start all over again.
Ex #1: The place we are having our reception (Club at Shadow Lakes) fired their coordinator a few months after we booked last year. Apparently she was doing many terrible things, including making promises/deals she wasn't authorized to. We of course booked with them under the deals she had promised and had a long fight to get those things despite her no longer bering there....
Ex #2: We looked into doing an "at home" florist, someone who just does this on the side. Well just 2 weeks after booking, she was charged with fraud...good thing we didn't pay her yet!
Ex #3: We made a deal with a nearby hotel who would give our guests discounted rooms, free breakfast, and most importantly free shuttle service to and from the reception. Found out this week the guy we had been working with was fired b/c again he was making promises he couldn't keep....now instead of fighting with them we are simply finding a new hotel.
Despite what you think, this isn't just a rant....but a lesson for all brides out there. DO YOUR RESEARCH and GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING. I have done TONS of research and really think these are all just a string of bad luck b/c every person I picked had references and all that other good stuff. The one thing that has saved us is we have everything in writing. Every little detail has been hammered out into contracts signed and dated by myself and vendors. It's sad to think b/c I'm a pretty trusting person and want to think that everyone out there cares as much about making our big day special as we do, but that's simply not the case.