This Will Be Our Year: Vendor FAIL

I can be a bit of a worrier at times, and like Miss Cola, I allay some of my anxiety by making back-up plans. This came in handy when I had to find a new DJ with less than two weeks to go before the wedding, because I had a list of phone numbers ready, our ceremony music all burned to a disc, and most of our other songs already downloaded should an iPod reception become a necessity (though where I would get the speakers, I hadn't figured out yet). Luckily, I didn't have to, because we found another DJ within two days who only charged a little more than our original, and who we trusted to show up (at that point, we hoped for little else).

Thanks to the-until-recently-Miss Rainbow, I taught myself how to do somewhat decent wedding makeup—more than I would normally wear, but still not enough to totally save my face from disappearing due to camera flashes—and had most of the necessary tools in my big makeup bag. But for whatever reason, the worrier in me decided to relax—maybe I thought the DJ fiasco would be my only wedding crisis?—and I left the big bag at home—I only packed my everyday makeup, what I would need for the honeymoon (a "kit" that includes only tinted moisturizer, bronzer and mascara). After all, I'd confirmed the location and arrival time the night before with the artist I had found on Craigslist who did my makeup for my bridal shower, and even though I didn't fall all over myself about the job she did, I felt at ease since she'd been so accessible and I could see my eyelashes in the pictures with the help of the fakies she applied.

What in the world was I thinking?

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I woke up at 7:45 on Saturday and hopped in the shower while waiting for breakfast to be delivered to the room for me, BM-Noe, and MOH-S (my other bridesmaids planned to meet us later in the morning). When it arrived at 8:30, I decided take a quick look at my cell phone just to make sure there were no last minute questions from my vendors that I needed to refer to my Day-of-Coordinator. What I found instead was a text message from my make-up artist's "neighbor":

This is [No-show]'s neighbor. No-show was just taken to the hospital with a fever of 104 and is covered in a rash. She gave me your number so I could contact you and let you know she's not going to be able to do your wedding. She was literally more concerned about that than herself but she is very sick.

Funny how No-show's neighbor was able to send me a text message from No-show's phone, isn't it? Or how No-show was able to post new ads on Craigslist and continue to post to Facebook and Twitter, but not respond to my phone calls in the following weeks about returning my deposit for a month and a half afterward?

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When I finished reading the message, I definitely started to panic. I barely had any makeup with me; what was I going to do? I'll tell you! I was going to sit back and let my amazing bridesmaids save the day!

MOH-S got right on the phone with her mother, who lived near the hotel where we were staying and had the number of all kinds of salons. She started calling them as soon as they opened, while BM-Noe talked me through our other options, like heading to the drug store to pick up the (many) items I was missing, or calling up the nearest MAC counter at a mall a few minutes away and getting us all in for some emergency wedding make-up. She also called my most stylish bridesmaid, BM-Y, to stop by a little earlier either to help us with our application (seriously, yo, we are clueless), or to make some phone calls herself since she had friends in beauty school (some training > no training!).

Many, many (many) phone calls were placed in the span of a half-hour... but did we find our miracle worker?

Were you stood up by a vendor? Were you able to resolve it?

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