Blush + Bashful

We’re in the Sun Times today. Isn’t that fun? Here’s the article, by Stephanie Gladley:

It takes months, often more than a year, of planning. You sacrifice sleep, money and your social life just to make sure things come off perfectly. Yet every woman fears something will go wrong on her wedding day. And something usually does. Whether it’s a small thing like the flower girl refusing to walk down the aisle or a big thing like the kitchen of the reception hall catching fire, things happen — despite the best-laid plans. A few Chicago area wedding coordinators shared some nuptial disasters with us. (Brides-to-be: Try not to stress too much — these stories mostly had happy endings!)

Melissa Phillips of Simply Perfect by Melissa (simplyperfectbymelissa. com) was working on a wedding about three years ago in Michigan when a blackout hit the East Coast and parts of the Midwest. Obviously, this created major problems for the event. For starters, the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner was being held had no electricity. The chef had to get creative by preparing cold appetizers, salads and anything that had been cooked before the power outage. The entire dinner was lit by candles, creating an unintended but welcoming romantic atmosphere. However, at least one participant was not seeing the bright side.”The bride stood in the corner and bawled her eyes out! She was devastated. Eighteen months of planning and over $75,000 spent and her day may not happen,” Phillips said.

As the eve of the wedding progressed, Phillips and the other vendors realized just how large the problem was. Without electricity, the cake and the flowers couldn’t be kept cool, the bride’s dress couldn’t be pressed and the food for the reception couldn’t be prepared. As if that weren’t enough, many of the guests’ flights were canceled.

“We quickly began scrambling. The florist moved all the flowers to the basement; the baker moved the cake to a walk-in freezer and kept the door shut; the reception hall began ordering portable toilets for the guests, buying bottled water, and planning to cook the food at another hall not affected about 50 miles away. We were calling hotels in Indiana trying to get a hotel room so she could have her hair done, anything that could be done to pull off her dream wedding,” Phillips said.

And just as Plan B began to come together, the electricity slowly trickled on, starting with the reception hall. By the morning of the wedding, almost all the power was back on and the wedding went on as originally planned.

“I have never seen two people so exceptionally happy and thankful on their wedding day!” Phillips said.

Ironically, the couple had been weighing their options with wedding insurance and had just decided not to get it because, as Phillips said, they thought “What are the chances of everything shutting down and not having the wedding happen?”

There once was a bride wearing a beautiful Vera Wang gown, and that bride had a friend with a lovely glass of red wine. It’s easy to guess what wedding coordinator Meghann VanderBaan of blush+bashful events (blushandbashfulevents.com) was about to recount:The bride’s friend joked with the bride about how surprised she was that the bride let her stand so close to the Vera Wang gown with her glass of wine. They had a good laugh and then the friend held the glass over the bride’s dress to show just how careful she was.

“At that exact moment, someone bumped into them and the whole glass of wine spilled down the front of the bride’s beautiful gown,” VanderBaan said.

Much like the stain, the incident became a memory that won’t soon fade.

Misse Daniel from Honeybee Weddings (misse@honeybeeweddings.com) was helping Bob and Shena plan their wedding on Bob’s family ranch. Since the location was unusual, transportation was a concern. The bridal party used SUVs to go from the groom’s parents’ house to the ceremony site. Due to a little miscommunication, the bride was left at the house.”It wasn’t until everyone but the bride arrived that we realized the problem. The bride had tried to call her bridal party, but everyone had already turned off their phones!” Daniel said.

A friend quickly left the ceremony to get the bride and the rest of the evening went smoothly.