STORYTIME: A Horse Drawn NIGHTMARE Wedding

Well, hello, lovely humans, and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer, and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is actually a audio recording of one of my most popular YouTube videos. I don't know about you, but sometimes I just need to sit down and. And be able to process through the audio without the distraction of a video. So we decided to take this sweet little nugget and turn it into a podcast for you. I hope you find this helpful, my friends. All right, ladies and germs, we are back for yet another story time because y' all seem to really enjoy those, and this one is definitely like a top five wedding tale to tell because so much happened at this event. So before we get started. Hi, my name is Jaime Wolfer. I'm your online wedding planner. Every single week, I bring you tips and tricks for how to plan your wedding. You should subscribe. And as a general disclaimer, if you missed any of my other storytime videos, as with all of my other storytimes, this is a wedding that happened a long, long time ago, back in the early days of my career, where I didn't know as much as I do now. But I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happened at a wedding. You know, nowadays. Any hoodles? This is meant to be bright. It's meant to add some levity to the situation and, you know, also serve as a cautionary tale should you choose to have a horse drawn carriage at your event. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Okay, let me set the scene for you, because the scene is Gorgesica. It's this quaint little town in the mountains of Southern California called Julian. And this town is known for its homemade apple pies. Like, literally, it's like the apple pie town of California. It's so freaking cute. I get on a call with the bride and she says, hey, this is my name. I'm getting married to so and so. His mom owns one of the pie shops here in town, and we want to get married right outside of it. We think it'd be really special, fun Fun fact date is in 12 weeks and we've planned next to nothing. Do you think you can help us? And I said, hold my cerveza, senorita, let me see what I can do. And I threw myself body and soul into helping them plan this wedding. They had like such an immense community around them. Pretty sure she bought a used dress. She had friends and family members that were gonna work on the florals together that they were gonna source from the mountainside. They wanted to have their reception in a lavender field next to one of the pie shops and even wanted to serve dinner in their cute little pie tins as like a nod to like, you know, the. And what the mother in law does. And there's so much about this that is just absolutely chef's kiss romantic, right? But there's an extra layer to this story that I haven't quite introduced yet. See, let's rewind a few steps, shall we? There was another event that we had several months previously where we ended up having two weddings on that date. One of them was a fantastic couple getting married in a location in San Diego. The other one was a fantastic couple getting married in a location in Fallbrook. And the Fallbrook location it was actually the owner of the property was getting married on his property and wanted to develop a relationship with a wedding planner moving forward as he continued to host and grow his wedding venue business. And so when it came time to assign planners for the big day, I had selected to work at the wedding venue to build and develop this relationship and had another lead planner of mine work at the other San Diego couple wedding. Now, again, we're not talking about the Julian wedding yet. I'm just setting a little bit of a scene for you. Okay? So let's just chat about the San Diego wedding for just un segundo, okay? The couple gets really frustrated that I will not be working it. In fact, the bride went as far to say that she was convinced that I promised I would be present at her wedding day, which is not a promise I've ever made to any couple at all whatsoever, because I know how life works. Plus, with the wedding couple at their own venue, I had done long term planning service with them. And this client was day of coordination, or month of coordination as we like to call it. Not that they receive subpar service or anything, but we didn't do any long term planning services together. So it didn't make sense for me to assign myself on their wedding day. But we go to do their walkthrough and the bride is clearly frustrated with me, not speaking with me, not making direct eye contact, not even speaking with the other lead planner that I brought with me because I was aware that there was some tension. So I offered to go along and try to smooth things over. And it's not going great. It's not going great. And then that lead planner who went with me for the walkthrough, the final walkthrough to get all the details about the event gets injured and can no longer make it to the event. So then after introducing them to a new planner, I have to introduce them to a third planner. And they're already mad and they, they're, they're ticked and they're frustrated. And look, I get it. I threw a discount at them. I added extra hours. I did everything in my power to make sure that they would be as contented as possible on their wedding day. There was some sort of miscommunication that happened. Even my contract, it says, I can't guarantee I'm going to be there on your wedding day. Hi, editing Jamie here. Because I know how the Internet works. To clarify, in the beginning of my career, I was really, really hard to build out a team. And I was also doing multiple weekends where I had double booked events to grow up other lead planners. So in my contract from the very beginning, it has always said, if you hire us for a month of coordination, your lead planner will be assigned to you 8 to 12 weeks in advance or whatever the date happened to be. Our contract has since changed. So that was always in my language, that was always in what I said when I spoke with clients. So that's why this was like a really unique situation because I would never promise that. Cause I was actively trying to build out and a team. So to be clear, there was no bait and switch. There was just a really big misunderstanding. This was actually also when I walked through the proposal and the contract with clients to let them know, like I literally would walk them through it. So that's why this thing is just a little bit, a little extra preposterous. Because I was actively pushing for other team members to work events so we could grow out the team in general. And I was not claiming that I would be at every single event, even if they were the person that talked to me. And this is before YouTube days, by the way. So it's not like they need my face from the Internet and they really wanted to work with me. It was just a misunderstanding. Also to be clear, I've never missed a wedding day ever. If I've assigned myself to a wedding. I've always showed up to it. So it's not like I have that clause in there so I could swap someone in the last minute because that's not cool. That's, that's. That in my opinion, is not okay unless something actually happens. And that's why that contingency isn't there. Anyways, carry on. While their wedding day is literally picture perfect, it is so absolutely wonderful. The lead planner who ran the day is magnificent at what she does. And the photos from this event, I kid you not, are just angelic. It was at this high end boutique hotel in San Diego with very much like that ole Hansen vibe, if you know what I'm talking about, if you're familiar with Southern California architecture. And it's so good, it's so good. It's so good that it gets featured on Style Me Pretty. And I was like, this is it. This is incredible. The photographers called me up, they're like, guess what? This event that we did together is going to be featured on Style Me Pretty. And I said, you shut your face. I have dreamt of this day to finally be featured on a website like Soundmy Pretty. And here we are, and it's happening. And here we go, people. It's time to party. Fast forward a day, a whole day later, and the photographer calls me up and says, hey, I got some bad news. The brides asked for you to be removed from the listing on Style Me Pretty and does not want you to be featured because they were dissatisfied with your services. K no complaints from the actual wedding day. Nothing went wrong. Everything was smooth as pie. If pie could be smooth. I guess most pies are chunky unless it's a pumpkin pie. So let's smooth as pumpkin pie. And when I tell you that I was devastated, devastated because we worked really hard on this day and it came together beautifully. And sure, there was little hiccups throughout the day, but we did our job and we did it well. But sometimes you just can't please everybody. So a couple of weeks later, maybe a month or so, whether at a pity or some other reason, the photographer from that event contacts me and says, hey, I've got a girlfriend who's getting married. It's going to be a really tight turnaround. Are you available to take on an event of this capacity in this time frame? And I said, yes, absolutely. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions to. And you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually, yeah, that. That makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these questions. Guess what? You need to join the master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the master plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me, and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferandco.com tmp that's wolferandco.com tmp Listen, wedding budgets suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision, and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to Wedding priorities dot com. Enter in all the information I've already given you. And while it was a relatively short turnaround, they seemed to have a lot of things covered. They had photography. They had a friend who was a chef who'd be cooking the meal. They had friends that were servers that would be serving the meal and bartending. I think they had already secured rentals at that point. The only things they were looking for was ideally an efficient and a videographer. And they asked me if I had any suggestions for either. And lo and behold, I did. The efficient just so happened to be my dad. My dad. If you, if you heard any of my story times, then you've heard about, you've heard about Robin. But let me introduce you to Doug. Doug is a salt of the earth dude. Doug's the kind of guy that you want helping out on moving day. Doug's the kind of guy that shows up and makes magic happen. He's kind, he's intentional, he's fantastic. He's really smart. And I'm honestly really honored that I get to call him my dad. He also happens to be a pastor by trade. So conveniently, when we had a situation where I needed an officiant, I was able to introduce them to him and said, no hard feelings if this doesn't work out. But I know a guy. I know a guy who happens to be Pretty good at this. So they had a call together also saw how incredible he was and decided to book him. And I thought, this is gonna be great. I actually have not worked an event with my dad, and this is gonna be so special. Boy, was it. I also happened to find a videographer for them that worked with their cost. It ended up being a relative of another vendor that I know. And so it worked perfectly. And everything was lining up to be a smack dab, fantastic wedding day. Now, because where we live, we were in just outside Temecula at the time, it was close that I thought, you know what would be fun? What if I brought my family out with me and we got an Airbnb and they got to stay in this cutie little town while I worked. And then I could be there with them Friday night after the rehearsal for dinner, and then Saturday they could do whatever they wanted with their whole day. And then Sunday we could go have brunch or breakfast or whatever, if anything was open, because it's cutie little town, and then drive home because I think it was maybe an hour and a half. So it really wasn't bad. I also happened to be exclusively breastfeeding my son at that point, so it just felt like a win, win, win all the way around. Wedding weekend comes up, and I decide to head up earlier than everybody else to be there in time for the rehear. And my husband and kids would follow in a separate vehicle at another time. So I pack up my little Subaru Forester with my emergency kit and my walkie talkies and everything I might need for the weekend, and I'm feeling prepared, I'm feeling ready. And take these super cute little back roads through the hills and the mountains to go to the venue. Now, while I might not define myself as a car girly, I appreciate cars, but pop the hood and I have no idea what's going on. Unfortunately, my sweet little Subi was built during that time frame where super Foresters had a rampant amount of head gasket issues that I didn't find out about until my car broke down on the side of the road. And that should have been a sign to just turn around and head home and just stay there. Literally breaks down, stops working, can't figure out what's going on. End up calling a couple saying, hey, I don't know what's going on with my car. I'm not gonna be able to make it. And walk them through the rehearsal on the phone while I'm waiting for my husband and three children to come Pick me up to go to the rest of the way to this cutie little Airbnb experience for the rest of the weekend. We get a tow truck out there, my husband and kids show up. We finally get to moving on this weekend vacation experience that's honestly already set off on. Not the great of notes, but I really want to redeem myself in the eyes of these photographers because also, not only do they frequently get shown in style. Me pretty, by the way, but like, they also had a really, really big following at the time and I had nothing. And so I really wanted to be featured on their page and I really wanted things to go well with them because I wanted to develop a continued relationship and I had practically nothing in the eyes of social media. So feature on their page or continue developing a relationship with them, to me at that time sounded like a golden ticket opportunity. So I was not gonna let this get me down on that. I've been working really closely with this bride for the last 12 weeks, and I sure as heck was not about to let her down. We pull up to the Airbnb and it's not looking like the photos. It looks like the photos six months previously when it was still under someone's care. And now it looks like it's been potentially neglected for an extended period of time. By potentially, I mean most definitely. We walk into this Airbnb and immediately all I can think of is the Shining. That is the only vibe that is going through my head. The kids think it's great. Okay. The twins are just off running. They think it's fantastic. There's so many bedrooms. My husband and I are like, what's that stain on the carpet? And the baby, honestly, is just crying, nursing, wants to be fed, and probably needs to go to bed for the evening because we are now in the depths of night in a very strange house with very strange smells and unexplained substances marking the floors. But we don't let that get us down. We soldier on. I go to bed. I wake up the next morning in a bedroom that looks like something out of the Godfather and start getting ready, ready for the day. My assistant drives down. We jump in the car together and drive to the venue. Now the ceremony is happening in an empty field where they had hand hewn log benches that, like, a friend of theirs made and set up in this field. It's stunning. I'm. I'll throw a picture up on the screen. I can't even describe this. And of course, I had some, like, little, like, yellow flag moments early on going, okay, a friend's making the benches. You got friends and family doing the florals. We got a chef friend that's doing the meal and servers that you know that are going to come in and do service for them. Like, that's a lot of friends happening. Okay, it's a lot of friends. But most of them, I was assured, were professionals in their own right. And they just happened to be doing this as a favor to the couple, which made me feel a little bit better. So when I showed up at the ceremony site and the log benches are stunning and the greenery and the florals are absolutely immaculate, I began to think, okay, maybe I was stressing out about this just a little too much. Meet up with photography and videography as they're getting ready to get detail shots of the ceremony space and the heavens open up and proceed to dump rain on us so very aggressively. In fact, it's so bad, I mean, there's only one lane in and one lane out. So there wasn't really a parking lot here. So they'd walked from the reception space where they were able to park. I'm ushering them into my vehicle saying, save your gear, get in here quickly. Like, we just, let's just get you out of the rain. We knew there was a chance of pocket storms throughout the day, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but it definitely felt like it started dumping out of nowhere. We get in the car, get to a safe location, and we find ourselves just laughing. Luckily, we have very short burst. My assistant and I were able to get our hands on some towels, dry off the log seat for the guests that would be arriving later, head over to the reception space and kind of just start getting a lay of the land now because we had a little extra work to do and everything was really spread out and there wasn't a lot of convenient parking with the different locations that we had. Because again, it's a tiny little mountain town. It was best to park the reception space and then kind of walk over to where the bride was getting ready or where the groom was getting ready and down to the ceremony space as well, which isn't exactly ideal. But luckily the bride was going to come in on a horse drawn carriage, so I was pretty excited about it, which meant she wouldn't have to be walking from the location that she was getting ready at to the ceremony space. So after photo and video do their thing, I say, hey, do me a favor, could you just leave the walkie talkie with the horse drawn carriage so I can Radio them so we can be prepared to kick off the ceremony when the time comes for that. It's about this time that the guests start arriving at the reception location and we start to usher them over the ceremony space. And we have to kind of give verbal directions because it's not super convenient to get to. And everyone's walking and I start to notice something really weird. There are multiple dogs, like multiple guests with dogs walking in wedding attire. So not just random people out for a stroll in their Sunday best, but actual guests parking, getting their dogs out of the vehicle and walking to ceremony space with them. And I think that's weird. And frankly, in my opinion, actually, if I'm being totally honest, I think, wow, that's tacky. Like, who brings their dog to someone else's wedding ceremony? I mean, there's a pug, there's a German shepherd that is very clearly like a puppy and bouncy and all over the place. And I think two different mixed breeds. So it's not just like, it's like one dog, it's multiple People brought their dogs to this event. And so I thought, you know what? Not my monkey, not my circus. Okay? I just, we're just gonna do the best that we can. So at this point, I do a little radio check in with the horse and carriage driver, who again is a friend of the couple to say, hey, how you doing? How's it going? What's progress look like? And she's says, it's great. They're getting in the carriage, we're heading to you. And this is probably like a. I mean, if I said it was a square mile that we were in, that would be an exaggeration. I mean, probably a 10 minute walk to where the bride was getting ready. Again, we didn't really do a lot of back and forth there because parking was really difficult. But we knew where she was, we got the signal. So with the bride loading up, we figured we got about a 10 minute window. We can start ushering guests their seats or start trying to remember one road in, one road out. And the roads here, like, I'll do it. Like, like, okay, the roads here, the aisles here, and then like the arch that they're getting married in front of is right here. Okay, so road, the bride is gonna come in horse drawn carriage from here. And I'm standing here to receive her and there's no coverage. Like, there's no tree for me to hide behind. I'm not really loving how exposed I feel at the moment. Usually I like to hide a Little bit. I don't really want people to see me. Me. But I'm standing there at the back on this dirt road, and we. As my assistant starts to encourage guests to take their seats. And there's one particular person who's just not sitting down. Sorry. One particular person, One particular dog who are not sitting down. It's the dude with the German shepherd puppy. And the dog is like, don't give me. Okay. You guys know I love my animals. I have four dogs myself. Three of them are border collies. One is a great Pyrenees. I am no stranger to high energy working dogs. Dogs. I get it. This is no shade on the breed. Might be a little bit of shade on the owner. Okay. Might be. Prepare yourselves. So I called him. Hey, sir. Hi. We are actually getting guests seated for the ceremony. The bride is probably just a handful of minutes away. I think we're looking at about five minutes away now. So if you wouldn't mind, go ahead and take your seat with your dog, and we will get things started in just a few minutes. And he goes, I know. I'm gonna stay back here. Hey. Okay, you can't. You can't do that. You need to go. You need to go sit. Because now we're just standing here like bumps on a log. And it's, like, awkward because I'm already standing here and I don't want to be here, but it doesn't make sense for you to be here either. Plus, it's really weird, and your dog's a lot, and you just need to, like, go. So you're not gonna be in the photos with your dog six feet in the air because it keeps jumping like it's on a trampoline, but it's not. That's just genetics. And again, he goes, no, I'm gonna stay right here. Okay. So I radio the carriage and say, how are we doing? We doing good? Carriage driver says, yep, doing great. Just Jazzy said, okay, cool. And casually mentioned, we got one guy left who's. I'm just, like. With his dog that I'm trying to get to sit down. And the carriage driver goes, his what? And I went, oh, you're not all in on this dog conspiracy. Yeah, there's, like, a lot of them. She goes, oh, what? And she's responding as if I just told her the reception venue is on fire. Mike. No, there's. There's a. Don't worry. We're just getting people to sit. I don't know. I don't even know why I brought up the dog. I Just said it in passing, probably because I was irritated, but it was none of my business to say it like it didn't matter. It didn't matter. And the gal goes, no, we need the dog to sit. Like we need the dog to not be there because of the horse. Hey, can you tell him that? Because I've already tried. Just kidding. So I go, roger that. You just keep coming. I'm gonna do my best to shepherd the shepherd and his owner like to to a seat. So I go up to the gentleman and I say, hey, we've got the bride coming in on a horse run. Carriage. The carriage driver has requested all dogs are off the roadway for the carriage horse to come down. And he goes, it's a carriage horse. And I was like, yes, I just said that. And now you're saying it. We've both used that. That term together. Great. He goes, it shouldn't be afraid of dogs. They went, sir, I can understand that thought, but I'm 90% positive you don't actually have a dog there. You have a Mexican jumping bean in a German shepherd coat. All I know is that the carriage driver has requested that you move. It's a carriage horse. It should be okay with dogs. Again, I appreciate your fervor on this. I can't speak to that in either direction. Unfortunately, we can't have the carriage come down with you standing in the only road option for this horse to walk down. So I don't know what magical combination of words I finally put together for this gentleman to understand that, like, he did indeed need to move his person and his dog off the roadway. So he does. And I radio back, crisis averted. Dogs out of the roadway. Ready whenever you are. She says, okay, we're at the corner. And I go, okay, now remember, I'd already done this walk, so I knew that there was like one corner here and one corner here, and then they'd be coming down the driveway. And it had been about seven minutes since our first radio communication. So I said, okay, cool, I'll go ahead and get the groom going. And the efficient going, AKA Doug, my dad. Okay, we'll get that happening. We got the friend who's playing music over here on the keyboard. It's gonna be great. Okay, so we've got about three minutes. Let's kick off this music. Actually, no, the guy was already playing music. We got about three minutes. Let's get everybody lined up, Wedding party, etc, to get ready to walk down. I give it another two minutes or so. Radio, how we doing? We're Almost there. Glorious. Now, it's a pretty decently long driveway, but I think she says she's almost here. Great. At this point, it's been about 10, maybe 11 minutes since first radio communication. I'm watching my watch like a hawk. Okay. And also, I really just want to get this going because I want to be nowhere near this man and this German shepherd any longer because I, I, I'm not happy. But my focus is on getting the ceremony kicked off without any more hitches. So I cue the officiant and the groom and the wedding party, and everyone's standing and we're waiting. I'm staring at the top of the road and I'm thinking, where are they? Where is the bride? She said she was almost here. What is happening? Like, I personally walked this route. I know how long this is. I don't understand. So I radio the carriage driver and I say, hey, where are you? She goes, we're almost there. And I was like, what does that mean? We already had this exchange and I thought almost there meant almost there. And now we've been standing here for three minutes and I don't see you. She's like, we're at the corner. Like, which corner? There's a turn here, a turn here, and then you'd be at the top of the road. So, like, I don't understand. I thought you were at the second corner right here several minutes ago when we spoke last. And I might get the timeline confused just a little bit here, but like, bear with me, I like, turn, turn, driveway to come down. Okay. The driver. And so I think, okay, well, nothing I can do. We'll just kind of keep it going. And so I, I cue my dad with one of those little moves. And so he said, ladies and gentlemen, we are just waiting on the bride, waiting on the bride for a special entrance. And the guy's playing the music. And then another 10 minutes goes by and I am sweating. There is no coverage. Everyone's staring at me and I'm thinking, what's happening? And I don't want to obnoxiously radio this gal repeatedly, but I can't seem to figure out what is going on because it's a 10 minute walk and it's a horse. And I know it's probably not trotting or any sort of faster pacing to get there, but it's at least walking at the same pace as a human. Right? Right. Right. Now we own two horses. They're both in their 20s. They're actually kill pen rescues, and we love them. So Very much. And they're older and they're not in the best shape, but I, I know how quickly they can walk. Okay, so I didn't know then. I didn't have horses then, but I do now. And this has just reaffirmed what I know. Especially being that little girl that was like obsessed with horses. I just couldn't figure out what was happening. Another 10 minutes goes by. So we are now like 25 minutes into this waiting process. The guy playing the music has stopped. He stopped. My dad is standing up there next to the groom, the wedding party standing there. And I'm like, I don't, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. Oh, my God. My goodness, y'. All. Wait, we did end up starting a few minutes late. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, hold on. We probably end up starting like a five minutes late, seven minutes late from like the ceremony start time on the invitation. Okay. 45 minutes after the ceremony start time, I see the horse's head at the top of the driveway. I am, I am not kidding, I am not exaggerating. 45 minutes. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. That photography company never called me again, ever. Which is not a surprise at this point. But the horse's head pops up and all of a sudden it makes perfect sense why this is taking so long. The carriage driver isn't driving. She's walking next to the H. And I'm going to explain the pace at which they were walking using my fingers as if they are the carriage driver's legs. Okay, ready? Step, step, step, step. I wish I was exaggerating. I wish I was making this up. It took them 45 minutes to take a 10 minute walk. Normal human pace because she was walking next to her horse so unbelievably slowly. You can't plan for this. Now, there had been multiple other communications with the, with the gal over the course of this 45 minute from ceremony start time to the time they actually showed up, where she talked about how she had to guide the horse and that she was nervous about the dog. And I said, the dog's not there anymore. The dog's been moved. The dog's been moved for 25 plus minutes. Like it's not an issue. Where are you? What corner are you on? But she kept saying they were close. So I didn't go pursue them and I probably should have pursued them. So they finally just clip, clop, clip, clop their way down this road. The guy starts playing the Music again. Everything kicks off. Ceremony begins. Bride is fine. Bride has no clue that she's 45 minutes late to her own ceremony. I am sweating. I want to do this job anymore. I want to go home. I just. Everything about this is just making me die inside a little. And of course, I've been communicating with my husband because he has the baby and the kids, and I need to be feeding one of them. And there was just part of me that was just dying, texting him, just being like this. I can't believe this is happening. This is unreal. And he grew up with horses too, so he's like, what? I don't understand. None of us understood. He wasn't lame. He didn't. He didn't have any issues that we knew of or that were communicated to us. She just really wanted to build up that anticipation. You know what I'm saying? Ceremony finishes. We finally send everybody back up the road to go to the reception space. But the rain had held off. We didn't see any more. We have now moved on to what should be the more entertaining portion of the evening for guests. And the bar is there. It's waiting, it's open, it's available with no bartender. Remember the friend that's supposed to be there with the bartending? Not there, not there. So a guest jumps behind the bar and starts serving people. And my dad, who had walked back with us to be like, what happened? Bear in mind, he's done this hundreds of times, and this is also not my first, fifth, or tenth event. So he knows I've done this quite a few times as well. And he's like, what's going on? And I was like, I don't know. Did you see how slow the horse was walking? He said, yes. I said, that's how. That's how slow it walked the entire time. He goes, I get it now. Then when I. I know, I know. But we didn't know what to do, cuz she was super close the whole time. So my dad sees the guest jump behind the bar and goes, I'm going to jump in and help. Because he knows. He knows me. He knows my face, he knows my voice. He knows I'm already, like, having a cutie little minty beat. And he starts serving behind the bar. And I think, okay. The couple's off doing photos. I go to check in on Chef. Hey, Chef, how's it going? Not good. Really? Please tell me why. I'm, like, really excited to hear why. We were told there'd be people here to help us. And there's no one here to help us. So I have myself and then my assistant here, and we're both cooking by ourselves, and there's no one here to help us. And we thought more would be done than is done. And it's not good. And I went, no, that's not good. That's not good at all. But the couple's off and they're doing photos, right off doing photos. So I think, okay, I'll see what I could do. I'll go talk to the mother of the groom. She owns the establishment. Maybe she. She makes pies. Maybe she knows somebody that can jump in and help. Okay, do. Do what? I can go talk with her. I don't remember what happened. That part's blacked out. I don't remember if they got any help. I don't. I don't think they did. I think they just really roughed it through that. That service couple finally shows up after photos and goes straight into their first dance, which super cute. So cute. And because, of course, they're getting married in lavender field, they'd actually taken some of that lavender, dried it, and were allowing guests to throw it into the air while they're dancing. Just super sweet. As, like a grand entrance into their reception space. Except for there was these two kids, their hands on, like, multiple bags of lavender, and they were dancing around the couple. And this is not going to be great for those of you that are, like, considering having kids at your wedding. It's not going to be one of those tales. You're going to be like, yay, that made me feel better. And they just start chucking lavender at the couple as if it was a thousand tiny little baseballs. They're just throwing it, trying to hit some sort of pr. Okay, the bride's hair is just. Just coated in lavender. And no parrot is stepping up to do anything or say anything. Now, a first dance is usually pretty short. We try to keep it under a minute. So if you're ever worried about, like, standing there or swaying for too long, it isn't usually that long of a time period, but no one's doing anything. So about 30 seconds into this charade, I go up to the kids and say, hey, you need to stop. You need, you gotta. You gotta stop. You can't do this. Okay, now remember, I got a ticked off chef. I've got my dad serving booze, kids hucking dead flowers at the couple, and everything is running behind. But hey, at least the kids listened and they stopped. And the bride was still somehow in Great spirits. No clue what time it is. And as we start ushering guests to the reception space to, like, sit down, like, after cocktail hour to go sit down to get ready to eat dinner, I get a phone call from my husband. Hey, we're in the parking lot. Remember the, like, exclusively breastfed child? Yeah. This would have been the perfect time if dinner had already been kicked off for them to show up. Why? Because I wrote the timeline. I wrote it. I wrote it myself. I wrote it so it'd be absolutely perfectly timed. And in fact, I timed all of the nursing sessions with him earlier in the day so that would work out really well, and the pacing would be perfect so I could feed him once dinner service had kicked off and it hadn't yet. So I said, I can't make it just yet. Just hold tight. Just like, a cute little minute. Just a cute. Un momentito. Poor favorite. And the chef and assistant are just, like, hanging in there. They bring out the food. They set up a buffet table, and there is not a server to be seen. There's also no plates. Those little pie tins they want to serve them in, there's nothing there. There's nothing set up on the buffet table station. So I run inside, find the pie tins, bring those out, because, again, this is at a pie shop. It's super cute. Like, they wanted to be whimsical and cutesy and whatever. And honestly, like, God bless the chef and assistant at this point, because they jump in and they're serving. Like, they have been cooking by them themselves, and they are now serving everyone, and they're sticking it through. And I'm like, this would have been such a nightmare if they just, like, bailed. So we're probably, like, I don't know, 20, 25 people into service, and I get flagged down by the bride. She goes, where are the plates? And I was like, oh, the pie tens. Don't worry. Like, I couldn't find them at first, but I went. I went in and I found them inside, and they were all stacked. It was great. She goes, no, the plates. And I went, yes. I thought we were using these as plates, remember? Because this is what you wanted, because it was really cute. She goes, no, we rented plates. Plates. No, you didn't. No, you. No, you didn't, because we didn't talk about this. She goes, yeah, it was last minute. Add on. We decided. We decided to add plates. They went, okay, sure you did. So we have the chef and assistant serving because there's no servers. My dad is serving the Alcohol, because there's no bartender. My husband's in the parking lot with a hungry baby and probably some cranky kids, and I'm serving the wrong plates. It's at this time that I get another phone call from my husband. And you can't really hear him talking, though. You can't, because the child. The infant is screaming so loud that it's hard to understand anything at all whatsoever. He says, you gotta get out of here. It's not great. It's not great. I know you don't want me to bring the baby in, but you gotta figure something out because I don't have a bottle to give him, because why would he bring a bottle when I'm right there? And I think there must have been something communicated on my face that made it very clear that I was not a. Okay, now I was off to the side. So it's not like I was in, like, the full hubbub of everything. But the videographer, the friend of another vendor that I knew saw my face and walks up and goes, what do you need? What do you need? I went, okay, I have the wrong plates. Apparently there are plates I thought they wanted to serve at pie tins. I've got my husband with my baby in the parking lot, who needs to nurse, and we don't have servers. And the chef's ticked because they've been, like, shorthanded the entire time. This was supposed to just be a favor to the couple. And I verball just unload on this human, just like, here are all the things that are going wrong right now. And he goes, I'll handle it. I went, you can't handle it. He goes, yes, I can. I'll handle it. Go feed your baby. My wife just had our fourth kid. I understand. We found the plates together. He takes them to the buffet table and proceeds to start serving guests himself. So I make it to the parking lot, feed the screaming baby. My anxiety is here, my husband's anxiety here, our twins anxiety here, because they're just all trapped in the cab of my husband's truck listening to a screaming infant. My husband, as stressed as he is, bless him, goes, what's going on? Talk to me. And I proceed to also emotionally unload on him. The chef's mad the service didn't show up. My dad's serving alcohol. I served it on the pie plates. And I wasn't supposed to preserve it on the pie plates. I was supposed to preserve it on the real plates, but I didn't know the real plates existed. So I was Serving on the pie plates before the first fourth of the guests. And now everyone else is gonna have regular plates. And the first few people had pie plates. And I don't really know what I'm doing and I'm really stressed out. And he goes, you should probably stop talking so loudly. You're gonna make the baby cry again. Wrap things up, pull myself together, pass off the baby, send my husband and kids back to the scene of the crime house and get my booty back in gear to go back to the reception space. It's about this time that it dawns on me that if the servers aren't there, then there's no one there to bus the tables like they're supposed to. And the tables that were rented were through another company that I really wanted to build rapport with because I really enjoyed their work. And they had unique specialty rentals and I thought, shoot, well, I don't want to leave the couple with this mess and I don't want to leave the rental company with the mess on the tables to have to pick up the next day. So I should start busing now. Remember Doug? Doug. Daddy Doug. Wonderful, wonderful Doug. Dinner's over. People are off dancing. I think it's a self serve bar at this point because the other guest that was standing there helping him serve the alcohol, she's on the dance floor, everyone's gone. Tables are empty. And my dad sees me bussing the tables with my assistant. But basically it's just the two of us working as quickly as we can to get these tables as cleared off as possible. So he jumps in and starts gathering plates and cups and utensils and just salt of the earth, dude. Like, this is the kind of guy you want by your side in a situation like this. Because not only is he a really incredible helper, but he's also a problem solver. So he looked at all these plates and said, okay, this is, this is a lot for us to be like transporting back and forth. I see this little wheelbarrow right here, so I'm going to go get it. And it was like squared off off, like was the, the. The actual container part of it was made out of plywood. So it was flat on the bottom and flat on the sides, but with a wheelbarrow base. And so he goes and he rolls it over and he said, let's just, let's put the plates in here. And he starts stacking them, and he starts stacking them and I, and I put a few in there. And as I'm about to say, hey dad, we probably shouldn't put too many plates in this because it doesn't seem super steady. So I'm a little worried that was the full sentence that was in my head. Head. But it didn't come all the way out because as I'm saying, hey dad, we should be careful how many plates we. The wheelbarrow starts to tilt, fall over and crash. Because of course it would. Cuz of course my dad's just trying to be a helper. We don't have servers. He grabs a wheelbarrow. We thought it was great. I thought it was a little unsteady. Couldn't even get a full cent of that amount my mouth before we're breaking plates like we're at a big fat Greek wedding. Okay. And at this point, I'm not kidding, I just start laughing. I lose it. Like unprofessional, probably unhinged. Might be crying a little bit, laughing. And who should walk up at this exact moment of the crash but the mother of the groom. Yep, her wheelbarrow. In fact, she was the one that paid for. I think most of the wedding bride's parents weren't involved. And so she's the matron of the event. She's hosting it. It's her property. It's her wheelbarrow. And we just smashed a bunch of plates. And I think the only reason it was okay is she was, she was quite drunk. So I speak with her for a moment. She goes, oh good, you're busing. And I went, yeah, the bussers didn't show up. Up she goes, okay. And just turns around, walks away. And we did go through the plates and double check and it looked like there was only about like 4 broken. We managed to get the rest of the tables bust and my sweet dad stayed with me for the rest of the evening. At a certain point I did have to send my assistant home because she had to drive all the way back to LA that evening. And I thought, I thought this meant. I thought this event was going to be a slam dunk. Super easy. Joke was on me. But I send her off. My dad finishes the night when with us offers to stay with me through the end of the evening to drive me back to the Airbnb location. So once everything's wrapped up, we say goodbye to the couple. I had my, my dad comes and drops me off and I was like, hey, do you want, do you want to stay? Like, I don't want you. Because he was driving back to Orange county. He said, no, it's fine. I Got something to do in the morning anyway, so I gotta get going. I said, thank you so much for staying. Thank you so much for staying. And that's. And that's it. That's the story. That was the wedding. They had wonderful things to say afterwards. They said, thank you so much, you did a great job. And I said, no, I didn't, but I appreciate you. Just kidding. I didn't say the part out loud. Oh. So what are the cautionary tales that we have? What are we, what are we saying? We're saying be careful how many volunteers you have over your event because they might do great florals, but there might be no one there to serve or to bus or to serve alcohol. And guests might get pretty inebriated pretty quickly. Luckily, there wasn't any sort of drama in that scenario. Don't give children, unfortunately, unfettered access to flowers, dried or not, that they could throw or encourage them to throw anything. Don't, don't let kids throw things at a wedding. And if you're gonna have a horse, make sure, make sure it's walking speed is equal to or greater than that of a 75 year old person. Just food for thought. What do I know? So that's what we have for today's video. Guys, thank you so much for watching Jingy. If you like the story times, get on down there and like the video. If you like the video and subscribe to this channel for more tips. Subscribe and tips and tricks for the modern day bride. If you are planning wedding and you need some help, please be sure to join me over in the master plan. I know we're doing a lot of reaction style and story time content here on this channel and a lot of you have come here for education on how to plan your wedding. Please know that I'm always in the master plan guiding you through every single step that you need from point A to wedding day as seamlessly as possible because you deserve to have a stress free wedding day. And until next week. Bye guys. I started this video when it was like full sun out and now the sun is going down. That's how long I've been filming this. Oh my gosh. If you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the master plan community over@themasterplanwed.com I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe, jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time, bye guys.