When the wedding is called off, it can be a devastating experience. About two years ago, a wedding I was planning was called off with less than a week before the actual wedding day. I published this article with Huffington Post sharing what it’s like from a wedding planner’s perspective.
The Question
One of the questions I typically get when people find out that I am a wedding planner is whether or not I ever had a client that cancelled their wedding. I guess it’s a natural question to ask because it’s hard to guess what happens next. That, and the fact that people love interesting (aka drama-filled) stories and the story behind a called off wedding can likely have reality show potential.
Recently, a wedding I was planning was called off.
When you’re the wedding planner, you’re with a couple for months and sometimes years. You communicate often, you see the arguments, you see the love, you see the tears… you see it all. Everyone else, the photographer, the musicians, the caterer, they all see just a small part because they don’t have the constant connection with the couple. In fact, the most connection anyone else will have will not happen until the wedding day.
But the planner, has a real and much deeper connection.
Me: The Wedding Planner
Personally, I don’t like to work with couples that I don’t like. I just don’t. I have to be able to communicate with my couple and sometimes that involves nagging to get stuff done or busting their chops to get them to laugh or flat out telling them to grab some wine and calm down. Honesty and trust are so essential in my planner-couple relationship and it’s important that my couple knows that I have their back and that they can depend on me. I need a real relationship with them. I have to be able to talk to them and they need to know that they can talk to me and tell me anything.
So I’m not the wedding planner for everyone, and especially not for those that are going to keep a wall up and think that because they are paying me, I’m basically just a personal assistant. I say this at my consultations and I make it clear that it’s totally OK if I’m not everyone’s planner. Because of this, my clients tend to be ones that are going to call me up “just to vent” or cry on my shoulder or confide in me about their mother, sister, brother or whomever.
On the wedding day, there are three moments that get me. The first time I see my bride in her gown is one of them. It’s real then. The next is the moment I send her down the aisle, right after I fix the veil and train and make sure she has tissues tucked in her dress.
The last moment is when I stand with my couple, now married, as they get ready to enter the reception…because that is the moment that I have to let them go.
No matter if we stay in touch after the wedding or not, if we meet up for happy hours or dinner, even if I know that we will always be in each other’s lives, I give away a little piece of my heart when the reception begins. I never get it back. Because it’s over and we’re here and they’re married. We made it through it all. Through the “all” that only a planner gets to see and experience.
When a wedding is called off, we’ve already been through it all.
But the celebration never happens. It is shockingly upsetting.
This is very hard to write.
Her Story
My bride was the one that told me the wedding wouldn’t be happening. Ironically, the phone call happened while I was driving home from a wedding I had just finished. She actually sent me a text that simply read, “I think its called off”. I called her and after she picked up I told her that this is a phone conversation, not a text message.
From there I heard the story, I let her talk, I made her laugh…and then I heard her cry. I waited until we hung up so she didn’t hear me cry.
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