Weddingbee boards

This is a vent more than anything else. So I booked our venue and we're going to have an outdoor wedding under a tent. Our venue wanted us to use this one vendor but they were pretty small and some of their stuff was dated. I sweet talked the owner of our venue to let us use another vendor who I met at a wedding show who had more of what we needed, could take down the tent earlier (Sunday rather than Monday, thereby allowing our venue to have the space available for public use again a day earlier), and was a bit more expensive but I had built a great relationship with. I don't mind paying a bit more if I feel like I'm getting great quality and service.

So I had been talking to this sales rep "C" and he was really really really helpful. Loved him. He gave me a 15% discount since I had found them at the wedding show and because of that discount I was actually going to spend MORE money upgrading my chairs.

THEN a new sales rep, we'll call him "J", went to my venue to meet with the owner, measure the site, etc. He is now in control of all the accounts for my venue and I now have to talk to him regarding my wedding. Okay fine. So I called him to start finalizing our tent booking. I asked him to simplify our booking and just put on our bare basics and I'd fill in the gaps in the coming month or so. So he sent me an invoice (that started with "Dear client" and was full of spelling mistakes) for our tent, lights, chandeliers and the portable toilet we need. Umm lights and chandeliers?! I asked him again to remove the extra items and I noticed that my 15% discount I was supposed to get had disappeared. He then offered me a 5% discount and basically told me to be happy with it. When FI came home I was fuming about our tent rental for the second night in a row. He's very good at talking me down ;)

So this morning I called and spoke to C and asked if he could please be back in control of our account which he agreed to and reinstated our 15% discount. What I didn't know is that C is in charge of that entire branch/office and was happy to have the feedback about sales rep J. I felt terrible calling and saying "Hey I don't like this guy, but you're awesome, can I have you back please?! Oh and I'd like some money off!" but he was so nice about it. I did, after all, put them in touch with a new venue for them where I'm sure they'll get lots of bookings from, so I think he was happy to keep me happy, otherwise he knew I could easily go back to booking with the venue's original preferred vendor.

So what have I learned today? Don't be scared of being called a bridezilla. If you're going to be spending a boatload of cash at a place (or even a little cash, it's your hard earned money!), speak up and ask for what you want even if it makes you feel bad doing it. It's business.

Whew. I feel so much better! LOL!

Sales rep J told me the 15% discount expired February 28th and when I looked it did, but seriously, it was like 3 days past. You can't cut me a little slack considering I'm spending minimum $5000-7000 with your company and brought you a new venue?! Sales rep C saw it my way and said that they have to put an expiry on the invoice, but that they're always more than willing to extend it to the actual purchase date. It's more just to keep the client than to put pressure on anyone. I sort of hope he tore a strip off J, but I really did feel bad being like "ummm I think my personality just isn't meshing with this guy.... Can I have you back?!". I'm going in Monday to meet with C and pick out my chairs, etc. Yay!