Wedding Planning Pt.6

Image courtesy of the internet

Suppliers are interesting creatures: planning the wedding has highlighted how interesting they are and how some of them spout about ‘supporting small businesses’ and yet reject your money as and when they feel like it.

In September, I commissioned some accessories for my bridesmaids and myself, for an amount of money which I wasn’t overly comfortable with but felt would reflect the artist’s work and my appreciation to my bridesmaids for their friendship over the years. The artist accepted and started talking to me about the commissions, we sent various emails over time discussing it. Then in November I received an email explaining that they hadn’t felt particularly well but wouldn’t let me down and would focus on my commissions once they had gotten their Christmas orders out of the way.

Understanding this, I sent some clarifying emails for each bridesmaid: inclusive of a photo of them, the dresses and colours they were wearing, any and all social media (so the artist could gauge their personalities) and how adventurous they were when it came to accessorising: this was accepted.

Just after Christmas, I received another email explaining that they would rather focus on their special offers range, instead of my commission and that I could have first refusal of those, which would be ready at the end of January. I understood this, however wasn’t overly happy with it; I started looking through their website to see if there were some items I could buy and adjust accordingly for the girls. Upon speaking to Ro about it, he said ‘if they don’t want your money, don’t give it to them. You are extremely talented and creative and can make them yourself. You are already making the jewellery, just make this gift too’. I was hesitant but he (the real creative in our duo) said he’d help me if I got stuck, so I set about finding the pieces I needed and cancelled my commission.

This is just an unfortunate situation, and thankfully not all of our suppliers have been like this…

Our jeweller, Johnny Rocket, has been incredible, going above and beyond, creating our wedding rings within 10 days, even getting them hallmarked, and making us feel welcome by just being the fucking legend that he is.

Our caterers once again: wonderful, wonderful people. Ever so accommodating – answering every question, regardless of how stupid. Having time to talk to me whenever. Being very relaxed and willing to readjust the invoice a week before the wedding, due to people dropping out. They’ve helped when we considered the need to get a marquee to fit everyone in, luckily we haven’t had to do this. And they do not have a corkage fee, and have no problems with us having a local craft beeron the tables. If I could marry them, I might do so.

However, as with above, not all have been this great:

I ordered the fizz and red wine from Majestic Wines and they cancelled my order without notifying me of the matter. I chased them and received a terribly written response (bad grammar and spellings) telling me that “due to stick issues, they’d cancelled it”. I responded with a larger complaint explaining that I wouldn’t be purchasing from them again, and they ignored this, responding with another terribly written email and a 10% off code. I have since donated this code to my colleague’s school board to use.

And then again, on the other end of the scale, I commissioned a cartoon from a friend of mine,Ginger Rainbow, and she had created it and posted it to me within 48 hours. I guess the rule of thumb is trial and error. Some suppliers are professional and courteous and others don’t want your business, no matter what.