Meeting with Mr. No

The Q: I love reading your blog and really appreciate the inspiration that I get from it.  The issue that I’m having though is that I’m getting  married in a relatively small town and I’ve found that the vendors that work in weddings here aren’t as inclined to take my ideas.  I’ve been told more than once about ideas for our reception that “that isn’t the way that things are done”.  How can you have a creative or unique wedding if you can’t get your vendors on board?

The A: I completely know what you are talking about… I used to call these kinds of reactions a meeting with Mr. or Ms. No. They seem like meetings from the twilight zone because everything that is brought up that is mildly “outside the box” (if that box had been manufactured in 1995) is seen as “impossible” or “not the way that things are done”.  For every amazing vendor out there always looking to push the envelope and go the extra mile for their clients, there are probably 2 vendors that really see this is as a formulaic job.  Perhaps it’s laziness, perhaps it’s a love of tradition, perhaps its simply habit from doing things the same way over and over again. Whatever the reason,  for the bride or groom (especially someone working without the help of a planner to help showcase how simple things that seem difficult can be) these kinds of negative meetings can be disheartening, because a) I think most couples are a little bit afraid of “doing something wrong” with their wedding and b) because the vendor appears as an “expert” in the situation, they usually get their way and opt to NOT go the extra mile.

Often, this is when normal brides either throw their hands up in the air OR, opting to go in another direction, get Bridezilla on the vendor.  This other route tends to not really be the most effective, since if you read this blog regularly, you know that you can get more wedding flies with honey than with vinegar.

My first suggestion for a meeting with a Mr. or Ms. No, is to never start it with “So, we had this idea and we were wondering if…”  I’ve found that in my dealings as a wedding planner, I always like to explain the raison d’etre for an idea, detail or request.  If I am asking for a banquet facility to skip the wedding cake and bring in a croquembouche, I might start out with “So, Bill and Sara have a huge affinity for things French. They met there while studying abroad and Sara’s family spends summers there.  It would really mean a lot to them to have a Croquembouche vs. a traditional American wedding cake.”  It is much harder to shoot down an idea when it is presented as more than something that you saw in a magazine that inspired you, and the real reason it inspired you.

Sometimes Mr. or Ms. No tells you that what you want to do (like dance with your mother instead of your father, or not dance between courses) is “just not the way that things are done”.  I always like to answer that one with a smile and “Well, I’ve never been that interested in what other people are doing”.    Seriously though, I think again, if you want to veer away from tradition, give your vendor some insight into WHY.  Not only will this usually make them less argumentative, but often it will make this detail stand out in their mind on your wedding day.  Your band leader, photographer, banquet manager is much less inclined to forget a detail of your day that strikes them as unusual, especially if they know it’s unusual for a specific reason.