Little Wedding Stories

We were meeting with a couple for a Sunday afternoon tour for their wedding eight months away. It is actually pretty normal for a couple to secure their location at least one year in advance but for our little chapel we were more accustomed to couples scheduling a wedding one week to three months away so we were not expecting this couple to book today as their wedding but we nonetheless were looking forward to meeting with them.

Tony and Barbara arrived promptly and were such a lovely couple. We gave them the full tour of the chapel and they were so thrilled with what they saw. Barbara was happy with the ceremonial parlor and bridal dressing room and Tony was happy as long as Barbara was happy. It is always heart warming when a couple tours our location and after meeting with us light up.

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We met with a couple of young girls who were very eager to tour our location. Most of our tours call in advance, which gives us the opportunity to “qualify” them with respect to their wedding date, how many guests they were considering, and so on.

We were not expecting these young ladies; they just stopped by out of the blue. Luckily for them, we did have a few minutes to chat and show them around.  The girls really liked the look and feel of the chapel, and were most interested in our wedding arch and ceremonial parlor setup. The chapel wedding arch was very beautiful, adorned with lots of floral swags, twinkling lights, and bows. Each side of the arch was flanked with an antique, lace-covered table and glorious flower basket full of roses and lilies. It was never a wonder that most folks were indeed pleased with what they saw.

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A few days later, we met with another couple that also wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day. Fortunately for them, the Red Handprint Marauder’s mother and fiancée had cancelled, and we had an opening. It seemed the original group found a larger location to accommodate their event (and, one hopes, a location with access to a thorough cleaning service).

Our scheduled couple, though, was running late. Most couples never bothered to cancel their tours if they weren’t going to make it, nor would they call to let us know that they were running late. Many times, we found ourselves patiently waiting for tours that never showed.  That’s part of the business, however frustrating it may be. Soon, though, the chapel doorbell rang, and our potential clients had arrived.

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Tours of our location were scheduled either at our couples’ convenience, or ours, if we had a wedding to officiate or coordinate. On busy tour days, we could meet with many couples and their families. Some tours wouldn’t take very long, while others might extend on for hours for one reason or another.

February 14^th, Valentine’s Day, was fast approaching, and we had nearly every possible timeslot booked with weddings. We did have room for one smaller wedding due to a late cancelation, and a couple had expressed an interest in touring the Chapel. They turned out to be very indecisive. We met with the bride-to-be and her child, fiancée, mother, and father. It was a weekday and close to eight o’clock in the evening when they arrived. Everyone came into the chapel where we started them on the full tour. Ending gathered in the reception parlor to chat. The couple was ready to book the location, but the parents felt that it was a little small for the large number of guests they planned to invite. The parents also felt that we should provide brand new linens on the tables and new lace curtains on the windows, as they didn’t want their daughter to have to use the same ones as our other wedding parties. Gary and I kept the chapel at the highest possible standard of cleanliness, with regularly scheduled cleanings, painting, linen laundering, and carpet cleaning, not to mention weekly landscaping services for the grounds. We assured the group that everything would be clean and ready for their event.

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Our final wedding of the day was for Kelly and Patrick, and they were bringing around twenty-five guests. They were a young couple in their mid-twenties, and we had chatted with them a few times prior to a tour. During our tour with this couple, Patrick came across as very religious and had a specific style of ceremony in mind. Furthermore, only Gary would be able to marry them. Both Kelly and Patrick loved the location and thought it was so cute and clean.

Gary and I, of course, did our best to keep the space spotless by re-painting the interiors yearly, and we always kept fresh pressed linens on the tables. Out front, we maintained a beautiful, fragrant rose garden, with forever-blooming wisteria on the porch. Presentation is of the highest importance.

Patrick communicated with us all the way up until the day of his wedding. He and Gary went back and forth many times on the particulars of the wedding services and vows. The couple had hired a professional photographer to take their photos, compliments of their families. Patrick and Kelly were going to say their own vows, and appreciated Gary’s guidance in crafting them.

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