My wedding was Sunday. We had amazingly beautiful weather, and ended up having the ceremony outdoors. I was so happy! Everything seemed to go well until the reception.
Before the reception I had been e-mailing my venue's contact person (their on-site event coordinator) all the details--seating chart, etc. I had to send him a revised seating chart the week of the wedding. He did not use it! Our parents and other "VIPS" ended up sitting far away from the bridal table. What REALLY made me mad was that someone (I'm assuming it was the event coordinator) put new table numbers on the outside of my escort cards. When our guests arrived they were confused--the inside of the card had the correct table they were supposed to sit at (assigned by me) and the outside had an incorrect number. What baffles me is why they did this! Each table had the required minimum number of people sitting there. It was like someone at the venue decided at the last minute that they didn't like so-and-so sitting with each other, so they took the liberty of putting them where they pleased. NOT cool!
I spent hours working on the seating chart. Ours was especially difficult because we have family members who are on the outs with some people, and they did not want to be seated at the same table as these people.
Of course I noticed all of this at the reception, but did not want to confront the event coordinator because I did not want to make a scene, and I did not want to ruin our reception. Some guests assured me that I was the only one who noticed this, yet some guests told me later it was total confusion when they all went to sit down and noticed two numbers on their escort cards.
Also, yesterday my brother-in-law told me he saw the event coordinator interviewing two prospective clients (brides and grooms) within the hour before our wedding. There was much confusion on the part of our bridal party as to where they should be standing/moving, etc. in that hour before the ceremony started because of the last-minute change to have the wedding outdoors. I know people need to get new business, but I think the coordinator's priority in the hour before a wedding starts is to make sure they wedding they are currently runing is going smoothly.
I am going to write a vendor review of this establishment to tell future brides in my area about this. I want to complain to the venue about this too, in a "polite" way, if possible. Practically everything else went well--the food and wait staff were excellent. It's just that this event coordinator seemed to screw everything up.
I guess I am just venting at this point, but didn't know if anyone else had a similar problem and how they handled it after the fact. I am trying to remember only the fun, positive aspects of the day, but confusing our guess was not part of our plan!