Vendors, aka Grow a Spine

The #1 hardest thing for me in the whole planning process was dealing with vendors.  I don't like talking to people I don't know, I am bad about asking for things, and hate being a bother.  With vendors, you absolutely have to talk to them, ask for things, and contact them constantly.  There's no real good way to get around that!

I didn't clarify things enough with the caterer until it was fairly late, I didn't tell the DJ I wanted him to stick to the timeline no matter what, and I didn't ask our photographer where the photos were until over a week (maybe 2?) after she had finished editing them (we had seen them all online, but want the actual copies without watermarks!).  I also had an issue with my dress, it wasn't getting fixed like I wanted until I started crying a couple days before the wedding in the dress shop.  These are all pretty much my own fault.  And I wish I had been better about making sure we were all on the same page and telling everyone what I expected (ideally in a calm, cool, and collected manner, not after letting it all build up and come out with tears...).  But I am also pretty lucky in that I didn't have anything really majorly go wrong in the end, in fact it went really well.

So basically I think planning a wedding with vendors is 60% communication, 30% trust, and 10% luck.

I feel like I still have a long ways to go with standing up for myself with people, but planning the wedding definitely helped me work on it a bit.

See - I totally have a spine somewhere in there!  Photo by Jenny GG

I keep thinking if I could do it all over again, I would be so much more assertive, but it honestly did go really well.  Or I would have hired a planner/DOC who would have been assertive for me.  That might have been a better plan...!