As my cousin’s wedding rolled around, the planner was the furthest thing from my mind, really. But when I got to meet her, that quickly changed. Planner was tiny, young-ish (30s), blond (bottle), and drawn, with all the misery of the truly unhappy oozing from her pert little pores. She ran the rehearsal with all the joy of a drill sergeant–albeit a completely inefficient one–and has been reported to me, barked out orders, being rude and mean to not only the family of the bride and groom, but the happy couple themselves. As for myself, I only casually observed this – I got enough of a whiff of her attitude to keep myself as well away as possible even then. What I did see is the cars of non-rehearsal dinner guests (the dinner was on the roof of a parking garage to best view the July 4th fireworks) starting to park in the supposed-be-be-closed garage and her doing absolutely nothing about it. At the end of the night, my dealings with her had been fairly cold and brusque, as she ran around looking alternately miserable and completely in over her head.
It should have come as no surprise to me, then, that by the actual wedding day she was a royal bitch. But yet, it did. That morning, my cousin gave me Planner’s number to call and ask about/remind her of a couple of things. I got the voice mail and left a message, which wasn’t returned for hours. When it was returned, I was immediately chastised by Ms. Thang because I had called her office phone and not her cell. Obviously, as MOH, I should have known that my cousin would try to trick me and give me the wrong number.
After we got to the venue, Planner put us into the getting-ready suite and promptly disappeared. No, “I will be in to check on you,” or “The photographer will arrive at x, then we will have to be ready at y,” or even a, “Do you need anything?” Just gone.
Meanwhile, the bridesmaids started asking me questions, assuming that as MOH, I should know what is going on. “What time are the parents getting here?” We don’t know. “Are we going to take pictures with them beforehand?” We don’t know. And we didn’t know the answer to the questions, because the planner should have known them. “Where should we put our things?” But the questions they are asking are all wedding planner questions, and she of course was gone, baby, gone. Periodically I would ask my cousin, who, as any about-to-be-married-in-an-hour-bride would be, was growing tense and could only give me an, “I don’t know,” and “Planner knows.”
At some point the photographer came in and we went to take some pictures. Of course, Planner was nowhere to be seen. The photographer was interested in getting good shots, not watching the clock, which meant that the guests started arriving while we were doing photos and the bridesmaids and I had to patrol getting my cousin back into her suite. Not that that helped; Planner had helpfully posted a large “Restroom” sign in front of the suite, which meant that every other minute a poor hapless aunt or uncle would throw the door open to what they thought was the bathroom, only to be greeted by six shocked bridesmaids and a distressed cousin. We would try to lock the door, but then the people who did need to come and go would get locked in/out. And it quickly started getting too hot in the room, which meant one marvelous thing–a sweaty bride.
Read Part One of Revenge of the Wedding Planner
Finally, my cousin couldn’t take the pile of neglected flowers that were obviously supposed to be assigned, handed me a batch, and sent me over to the groom’s room to hand out the flowers to him and the groomsmen. I knocked on the door, and was greeted by the bride’s slightly crazed looking brother. Several sets of desperate eyes peered out at me from behind him. “I come bearing flow–”
Planner rushed over and all but body blocked me. “THOSE ARE NOT FOR THEM!!” she shouted, daintily, while barely taking a second away from the cell phone plastered to her head. “Oh, I’m sorry. The bride said they were…’ I tried. “WELL THEY’RE NOT!” she snapped, snatched the flowers away from me, and returned to her VERY IMPORTANT phone call. Perhaps the person on the other end was explaining to her why she was wearing shorts and sandals while she was working at a wedding. The groomsmen looked helplessly at me and closed the door. Later I would find out she was basically holding them hostage in there, where they were surely melting as were we. But in addition when the groom and the bride’s family asked her if she could perhaps bring them some wine to pass the time/cut the nerves, she refused. Oh, did I mention the wedding was at a vineyard?
Enough was enough. “OH YEAH? WELL THE BRIDE WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU,” I fired back. At this point, I’d been snapped at by several people–most of whom were nervous because they were either getting married in a few minutes or were part of the wedding. It was hard enough taking it from them, and I love them. Planner was pushing it too far.
I stormed back to the bride’s side of the suite, reported as politely as I could to my cousin that evidently Planner thought those were not the right flowers, and then proceeded to drip venom about Planner to the other bridesmaids as quietly as possible. They didn’t quite share my vitriol, but seconds later one of the groom’s sisters came in and, God bless her, she did.
“Oh, I thought the bathroom was in here,” she said. “It is a bathroom for everyone after the wedding, but for right now it’s just the bride’s suite. I’d take down the sign out there, but I don’t want to incur the wrath of the planner anymore.”
“Oh she’s horrible. I’ll take it down. I’m not from here. I don’t care if she thinks I’m a bitch,” said the groom’s sister, whom I was quickly growing to love.
The wedding came and went, without any major upset, despite Planner’s evidently best efforts. I thought perhaps we were in the clear, but Planner had one more trick up her sleeveless shirt. “Can you get these people together for me?” she asked as she thrust the two-page list of people the bride and groom wanted for their photographs into my hands, smiling evilly. “You’ll know who they are better than I will.”
I looked at the list, thought about killing her, and then ran around like a maniac trying to get a bunch of elderly wedding guests down stairs for the photos–many of which, mind you, I was supposed to be in. Wasn’t my main job supposed to be standing near my cousin, asking her if she wanted some water/wine, and spreading out her dress for the pictures? Apparently not in Planner’s eyes. Two of the groomsmen and my husband–all of whom were supposed to also be in many of the pictures–stepped up to help as well. Planner got to shirk her duty onto four people instead of doing it herself! Score!
In the end, the wedding was a beautiful one–but undoubtedly that is due entirely to my cousin’s good taste and judgment, and not for any of the planner’s “hard work.” We all enjoyed a good post-game discussion agreeing how horrid Planner was, I emailed Frank and reminded him again how thankful we were for him, and we all decompressed. But I have yet to tell my cousin. Let her enjoy the afterglow. A good MOH’s work is never done. Unlike a bad planner’s.
Comments
Jackie
August 3rd, 2009 - 12:55:51 PM
wow, that sounds dreadful. for my wedding we had a wedding planner, and it was great! or at least from my side - maybe my maid of honor has similar secrets! ha i wonder, though, there's got to be some good resource out there that can help you pick the good wedding planners from the bad ones. something like Yelp, where you can rank / review your experiences, except it'd be for weddings not businesses. anyone know something like that? with how big the wedding business is, you'd think someone would be on that.