Ken and I just returned from a weekend getaway to Oregon, where we visited our wedding venue with my aunt Julie. Julie was with me when I first saw it, but Ken has only seen photos and a word-document map I created, that is to no recognizable scale. I told Ken to dress up a little, because people respect you more when you look nice and I think it is important for the event planner at the venue to take us seriously.
This was Ken's third morning on the west coast, and he was still overtired from packing, traveling and jet lag. Per my request, he wore nice jeans, shirt and shoes, but fell asleep in the car on the way to the site so when he was was still pretty groggy when he was introduced to the coordinator.
Julie and I had already seen the venue, so we didn't have a lot of questions. This was really for Ken. We showed him the various spaces, and he zombie walked through them.
"So, what do you think of this?" I asked in the reception space. "Cool," he said. "Cool-Cool."
"Isn't this beautiful?" I asked, standing on the balcony that overlooked the fields of lavender, olive trees, and grapes. "It's cool," he answered.
There are two levels to the reception space, so we had wondered whether we would split guests up, and where we might want the band and dance floor. Though I had described the set up, I knew it would make it easier for him to actually see it. Now that we were here, we could come to some conclusions. "So, what do you think about where guests will sit for dinner? We could have the dancing up here, on the balcony, and split the guests, or have the dancing below and everyone together." To this he responded with a shrug.
For 20 minutes, all he could say was "Cool" or "Cool-Cool". Ken is normally so animated and talkative, but the event planner must have thought he was completely uninterested and probably didn't want to get married. If I hadn't seen him sleeping, I would have thought the same thing.
Ken finally woke up at the tail end of our tour and started joking about how we had a guest count of about 500 or 600 (the venue won't hold many over 150), but even so, I don't think we impressed anyone with our fancy attire.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a good reminder for me, as I go off to look at wedding venues with my fiancee this weekend, to be as communicative as possible.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am dressing fancier for the site visits than I normally would over a weekend. I'm also prepared to casually mention Carnegie Hall, as that occasionally impresses people. Every little bit helps.
-Chris