Weddingbee boards

Okay, I need to vent....

We are having an outdoor wedding at a local metropark. It's so pretty there and we are praying for beautiful weather. However, bad weather happens sometimes, so to be safe we reserved our home church as a back up location. I talked to the church administrator, cleared everything (she said we didn't have to pay until we knew if we were actually going to use it), and we were good to go. Recently they also told us we could borrow their portable sound system and chairs (I have a wonderful, generous church :-D).

Well, I just now got a call from one of the ladies at the church. There is a prominent member of the church who is dying of cancer and they are trying to plan a memorial for him. She'd seen that our wedding was on the calendar for next Saturday but knew that we were planning on having it at the park, so she called me to clarify what was going on (the church administrator is on vacation for the next few weeks). I explained that yes, we are planning on having it at the park, but if it rains we'd set to have it at our church (we've been watching the weather and it's going back and forth between sunny and thunderstorms, so it's still too early to really tell). Her response? "Well, could you just find another back up location?" Oh, and by the way, now she's calling around to see who we talked to about chairs and the sound system because they might need those, she's not sure....

"Well, we'll have the secretary let you know either way by Wednesday [hello! we get married on SATURDAY of that same week!]. But don't worry, it'll be a nice sunny day like this weekend, right?"

WHAT?!?!

I just said "Okay, bye" because I didn't even know what to say to that. But now I'm trying to figure out if I should call back.

Okay, chairs we could rent last minute. We actually have some set aside at a place for us just in case (reserved before we knew we could borrow chairs from the church), we just have to work out details of picking them up. The sound system.....that would be hard to find an alternate for (we had a hard time finding one in the first place), but in a pinch I guess we could do without. We'd still be married, even if no one else could hear what was being said or sung. But a back up location? This late? No way.

And what peeves me the most is that we set this all up months ago so we wouldn't have to worry about it. It was all set. It's on the calendar. I know this is a funeral/memorial service thing and that's important, too, and it was just a back up location so if the weather's nice it won't be an issue, but seriously? Can they do that? A week before the wedding?

So yeah, I'm stressing a little bit now. So what would you do? Would you call back and lay down the law? :-P Or would you just let it go and make alternate arrangements as much as possible?

When is the coordinator coming back?

Call her back and tell her what you said here. You have had this planned for months and while you understand that this other thing is important, that is not the point. Talk with her about timing. Neither your wedding or this memorial will take the entire day. See if they can have it after your wedding (so no decorations get messed up!).

I would be frustrated too. This is not something you should have to deal with a week before your wedding when you have already made proper plans!

Oh never mind about the coordinator. I see that you said she is coming back in a few weeks. Is there anyone else at the church you can talk to? Your wedding is clearly on the books and they cannot just push you out!

We called back and they told us basically the same thing: it'll only be an issue if he dies this week. If they go ahead with it, the memorial will be at 2:00 and they'll be cleared out by our wedding at 6:30 (though we probably wouldn't be able to get in for decorating or pictures or anything). We called our pastor, too, and he was sympathetic and says he doesn't think the guy will die this week, but if he does, they'll make sure they have people there to help clean up so we can get in on time. He doesn't know about the sound system or chairs, but he said he'll call us back on Monday. Unfortunatley, he's out of town this weekend, too.

Part of the issue is that the guy the memorial service is for is a very prominent member of the community (apparently his family owns a good portion of Toledo) and they expect 500 people for the memorial, which is why they're trying to plan ahead.

We'll get married, though, regardless, even if we have to do it in a back alley in the rain, but still :-P. We're looking into alternates for sound system and chairs, too, just to be safe. NOT what I planned to be working on this final week, though.

I would be very upset to. I would hope to get ahold of the cordinater and that he could sort it out. I know my preacher would.

How does this none dead guy feel about them planning a memorial before he is dead geesh

Yeah, it is a little weird that they're planning the memorial before he's dead. They must be pretty sure that it's going to be soon (though our pastor said, "Don't worry, I don't think he's going to die this week" :-P). I have no idea how he feels about all this. I guess he did talk with his wife about funeral arrangements a few weeks ago so he could express what he wanted while he was still in good enough shape to talk about it. I guess I can't imagine what a person feels knowing they're that close to death in general. He and his wife are incredibly nice people, though, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't choose to push our wedding aside if they knew, but I think there are other people taking care of the planning of those details for them.

We're hoping that once the secretary is back on Monday, we can figure out what's going on since we've talked to her about some of the arrangements and she probably has a better idea of what's going on. I'm definitely less stressed about it today than i was yesterday :-).

I agree, it's not good that they're trying to move your reservation, and it's kind of morbid that they're scheduling his funeral before he dies.  But look at it from the other point of view: a very prominent community member is dying, and the church seems to be the only place his funeral can be.  You aren't even sure if you'll use the church, so it's entirely possible that he could die and the church would just stand empty.  IDK I'd be seeing if they had other backup ideas for you.