Did you have any crazy vendor stories? Either one you hired or one you just talked to in the early stages of planning? Share them with me!
My story involves officiants. I had no idea it would be so hard to decide on one. We went back & forth on asking a groomsmen, and ended up asking one. He was so honored & happy, until his wife told him "you'll embarrass them and yourself, I won't go if you do it". What?! His wife literally said that. So we totally understood, his confidence was shot and he obviously didn't want to do it anymore, and choose to go on vendor search. By the way, he RSVPed recently and his wife STILL ISN'T GOING. So regardless, she wasn't going to go. She "doesn't like people" which I can't believe is an actual sentence that came out of an adult's mouth.
So I talked to about 15 officiants, I was super picky in what we wanted & had already wrote a rough draft of the entire script assuming the groomsmen would do it. I wanted the professional to read it & understand the feeling we were going for, even if they changed the script. My fiance and I worked on it for over a month so it was pretty much the tone & length & right amount of religion for us. On TWO separate occasions, we had officiants ("professionals") refuse to sign contracts. One had the nerve to say "We aren't a 'vendor', we are doing this for God." but then still require a deposit and payment, with no contract whatsoever. It was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. The second got offended I wanted them to sign the contract, not just us. Without them signing it, it isn't legally binding! Our coordinator (who also did vendor contract review) was floored by both and said she had never even heard of that before. I must have just had back luck!
We finally found one, a pastor that does weddings on the side, but doesn't have a huge business from just doing weddings & not being involved in a church at all. He was so kind and even laughed on the phone when I explained what the two other officiants did. He sent us his own contract he requires both parties to sign (which put us at ease even more), and he charged LESS than the other two that didn't want to sign contracts. He had great reviews, we actually found him on Thumbtack, and we meet in person this Saturday to discuss our ceremony.
In the end, we found the officiant meant for us and that fit us the best. But still, it was a crazy journey that took over 12 months to complete. Out of all our vendors, officiant was by far the hardest to find!
