I need to blow off some steam about our RD...so I apologize in advance because this is going to be long.
FI's parents asked us to organize the RD as they moved away from the area we are getting married in (Camden) years ago and they basically just want us to be happy and have whatever we want. I'm sure they thought they were being nice by doing this but its become a MASSIVE headache for me.
For those of you that don't know, we are from VA (FI was born in Rockland) so this is a DW for us, so organizing everything from down here isn't exactly easy. We are inviting everyone who is coming to the wedding (a few shy of 50 people) to the RD, as we wanted to have a small wedding so everyone could be included in everything. I am from the UK originally so some of my family are coming from there, and everyone is travelling a long way for us so we thought it would be nice. We also wanted to have everything walking distance from the Inn we've booked for the wedding weekend, so everyone can just relax and abandon their cars etc.
So, we are a group of 50, not easy to accomodate in Camden it seems unless you book out the entire restaurant (expensive). I really wanted to have it at Atlantica but they max out at 40. We settled on Bayview Lobsters and I figured this would be good anyway as most people are from here or the UK and would be totally into the lobster thing. Having said that we have eaten there twice and I have been totally unhappy with everything but the freaking lobster. But we were stuck with numbers so we planned to go with it anyway and hope everyone orders that. We stopped by last time we were up there to try to get it organized and the manager gave us about five mins of his time and then said we could do everything by phone/email as it was Easter Sunday and he had to get ready for a busy day (true but annoying none the less).
For the last three weeks I have been trying to get the manager to get me a proposal so we can have FI's parents send a deposit. They are super excited as its their part of the wedding and keep asking us about it. We call this guy almost daily. He never calls back. Then today he finally emailed me some half assed math of 50 x the prices on the menu that I could have done myself, didn't mention how much the deposit would be, and said soup and salad was included when I specifically told him I didn't want their crappy soup and salad. ARRRGGHHH.
What do I do? Every bone in my body is telling me this is not the place for us but there isn't anywhere else in town that can accomodate us without blowing the budget completely. Should I compromise my idea of people walking along the water to dinner and ship everyone to Rockland or just get over it and deal with this ridiculously annoying man that does not know how to run a business?
FI did say he was going to call him and tell him very clearly that we were seriously unimpressed with them so far and have serious doubts about spending so much money with him based on our experience so far. He thinks its worth one more try.
What do you guys think? Am I just becoming bridezilla? And do any of you local to that area have any other insight or ideas?
Offbeat Brides & September 2011 August Siggys - Pets and Honeymoon Location: Roatan, Honduras!
