Armed with my delightfully foolproof plan, my good friend and I head over for my first venture through an event rental warehouse. I have no idea what I am in for.
We are met by an awkwardly giddy woman who seems all too eager to parade me in front of their vast selection of stemware. I don't want wine glasses. I don't even want to be here. I just need linens and chairs.
I smile and nod, and we finally make our way out to a sea of tablecloths covered in plastic. I start to get nauseous.
"I would like linen colored tablecloths, please."
She looks irritated but continues to grin while showing me a few choices.
"Okay. These are nice... but I'm looking for something more... linen. Like, in between ivory and beige?" If you show me one more damask print I'm going to gouge out my eyeballs and run blindly from this warehouse.
She starts to giggle. That is absurd. In the fourteen years she's worked here she has never had a request for such an odd colored tablecloth. It's so blah. Why not just go with white?
My eye starts to twitch.
She snatches the plans out of my hands and flips through the pages sighing. She disagrees. White is much more fitting. And why not a plastic chair? What is all this? What am I trying to achieve here? If it were her she would do this...
I graciously take my papers back and wonder why we didn't just elope. At this point I'm feeling personally insulted and want to pummel her for thinking the plans are anything less than genius. I'm tempted to lie and tell her Chelsea has arms the size Hulk Hogan and would totally kick her ass. Then I snicker at the thought of Chelsea putting this lady in a headlock with Hulk Hogan biceps and forget for a minute why I'm so annoyed.
She runs us by napkins and aisles of metal chairs. She talks- a lot. Have I considered chargers? Damask? If I put down a deposit now I can get a great deal on delivery.My brain is screaming. My friend eyes me suspiciously then leads us towards the door before I do something rash. Thanks, we'll be in touch. Not.
We drown my misery in margaritas then I go home and drunkenly call my mom and attempt to explain what garlands are.
I still need supplies but fear for my mental health if I return to another rental warehouse. Maybe next time I can go armed with a taser? That way I can zap anyone that tries to pawn a satin napkin or aisle runner off on me. Or I can just zap them for fun. Nothin' like a good old fashioned tase to bring back the wedding spirit.
In the famous words of East Side, f* this.
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15 comments:
Sounds excruciatingly painful. I hate it when people try to shove their own ideas on you. Hello, you're the Bride! It's just rude and I can't stand rudeness. At least the margaritas were yummy right?!?
I think wedding planning would be less stressful and a lot more fun if everyone were a lot more supportive of decisions brides and grooms want to make :) I think linen sounds so nice and will be really pretty with your location too :)
Yikes! We should make these people sign a waiver before going into those places. "This is our wedding not yours so shut it. If you want f*in' damask napkins plan your own f*in' wedding. Thank you."
Um... i think that lady needs to shove it. i mean you obviously have your ideas of what you want... if she can't provide, instead of being rude about her ideas, she should just sit quietly... girl you get what you want... and don't let anyone try to impose their own ideas on you!
I called a different rental warehouse today.
"Hi, I am looking for a linen colored tablecloth and was hoping you could help me."
"Oh, of course! We have a lovely linen colored tablecloth. And, if that one is a little too pricey, we do have a very similar beige one that's more budget friendly."
THANK YOU!
I think I can leave my taser at home this time.
Thank goodness for the 2nd, more normal sounding, warehouse. That experience sounded painful! Good on you for leaving without making a scene...
Ouch. Actually I'm thinking more like a curse, but I'll spare you my potty mouth.
That would have drove me up the freaking wall. What a pain is the a**?!
I hate when "professionals" think they know it all. If you wanted to look for stemware you would have asked for it. The nerve.
I wouldn't give up on retal warehouses. Just obviously not that one. There has to be one that talks less and gives you what you actually came in there for.
O, and I agree with Amy. 100%, she needs to shove it!
You just made my afternoon - I am sitting at work, hungover, and wishing I could rant about something...like how I wish I had a door to my office so I could take a little nap... nothing to do with wedding business. .....
When I thought I wanted to use terracotta colored tablecloths, I kind of had the same problems. There were only one or two places that carried that color - everyone else had this irridescent bright orange.
What I did was some internet research - and then I called different places on the phone. Generally, they should be able to tell you yes or no on a certain color (be very specific), that way you only have to visit the ones that supposedly have that color (or one similar). It'll save you a lot of time and a little bit of your sanity.
The other option would be to go to a fabric warehouse/outlet like place and price out linen, or fabric in that color. You could make (or have made) large toppers that you could put over other linens.
Yes, rental warehouses are kind of scary. Just stick to your plan and f* them. ;-)
Ooops! Just saw your response about calling a different place.
In my planning, I found that calling and emailing people really saved me a lot of legwork.
Ooh this sounds like a nightmare! But you crack me up too in the way that you tell the story. Maybe you can take consolation in the fact that you made us giggle?
And unless the plastic chairs she was suggesting were Starck's Louis Ghost chairs, then this woman is seriously delusional!
That's very bizarre! It's like some people just don't get it! I hope this new place worked out for you though.
A taser would have made the whole wedding planning thing much easier.
F*cking Damask. I really, really do not understand the damask obsession. Gah! It's going to look so super dated in about 12 minutes. Thankfully, our caterer seems to have good taste, and the rest we're doing our d*mn selves, so we've had relatively little of THAT brand of nonsense to deal with ;)
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