I don't even have a funny title for this one.

This was my Facebook status two nights ago:

How is it that people can afford to blow you off when you're trying to give them money?

I was blown off by a vendor. AGAIN.

A few months ago, Josh's brother told us that the woman that had done the flowers for his wedding was great. Not only was she great, but the flowers were beautiful. I found her number and called her. She let me know that she was very busy the weekend that we were in town, but she would be more than happy to look at any inspiration photos I could send her via email and she would send me a quote. I checked an item off of my list, confident that we had found our florist.

Fast forward to a week later: I sent her an email with details of the wedding, the colors that we were using, and this little inspiration board I made:

I'm a bad blogger. I didn't save the sources for these!

Being the impatient person that I've already admitted that I am, I checked my inbox frequently over the next couple of days. A week went by. I checked my spam and junk folders. Two weeks went by. Still nothing. I started looking for another florist.

Really, I think I lucked out on this because I ended up booking a wonderful and super-talented lady who was named one of the top florists in the country by Elegant Brides Magazine. I'll go into more detail about her in a later post, but she was quick to respond to all of my emails (not just the first one) and she's been a pleasure to work with ever since.

My second experience started a few days ago. I'm well aware that we're cutting it close and these things should be booked out about a year in advance, but we weren't too sure until recently that we'd even be able to afford a decent photographer. I was extremely stressed out at the idea that we wouldn't have beautiful pictures to remember the day, so we've made cuts in other areas to make this very important detail happen.

I started to contact several photographers in the Santa Fe area and the quotes I was getting back were terrifying. Almost everyone wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars for their base package. A third of our budget! Even my most creative math couldn't make room for this. We still have to feed our guests. 

The other vendors that didn't require the selling of internal organs for bookings left me underwhelmed. I started to think that maybe having friends take pictures wouldn't be such a bad thing. Then, I stumbled across a photographer's very gorgeous blog. Her portfolio was dreamy and while she was still on the pricey side, the cost didn't make me do the nervous choke-y laugh I do when I feel like I'm going to die of shock. I sent her an email to see if we could make this official. It's been a few days and I still haven't heard anything!

In defense of both of these vendors that didn't contact me, they both seem to be amazing at what they do and have both gotten great reviews from all of the couples that they've worked with. But really now, I'm willing to spend my hard earned money in exchange for your services and you can't just send me a message? At least a "thanks, but no thanks"? 

Please tell me I'm not alone in getting the vendor brush-off.