Dear Church Venue: NOT COOL

 

Warning:  This is a very rant-tastical post. 

If you read back a little into this blog, you'll find an entry on venue searching for my wedding.  You'll see that we had some trouble finding one to fit the budget.  Though I didn't mention it, we also had trouble finding a church venue that allowed dancing.  Eventually, we found a venue that from what we understood allowed dancing and was within our budget.  As of today, we are 58 days out from our wedding.  Yesterday, I got a call from the wedding coordinator.  It wasn't good news.  I think this ranty letter I wrote on my wedding support site should explain:


Dear A.B. Evangelical Free Church:

I would like to be able to say I appreciate your phone call yesterday.  I really would, but I don't.  Oh sure, we could say I appreciate that it was now, 2 months before the wedding, instead of 2 weeks before.  Either way, it's not ok.

Dancing was one of the first questions we asked you about.  You said that should be fine within reason seeing that this is a church.  Totally ok.   I mentioned the dollar dance/money dance and you got a little nervous since you didn't know what it was.  That's ok. That dance is not a requirement.  We had just started to gather our music yesterday.  Line dances.  Swing music.  Beautiful, sappy slow dances.  And then you call me:

"Talked to the pastor.  You can't do the money dance."
"That's ok."
"Yeah, you can do the First couple dance and the Father-daughter dance, but no other dances."
"So, is line dancing ok?"
"No. There are people at the church that are uncomfortable with it and while they won't be at your wedding, we'd still like to honor that. No group dancing."

You see, there is a reason we picked you for a venue.  Well, two reasons:  1.  You were relatively cheap.  2.  You said dancing would be ok (within reason, e.g. no stripping, bumping, grinding).  In fact, we chose you over a cheaper option, a Baptist church, because they said only the first and father-daughter dancing were acceptable.  We made it clear when checking you out initially that dancing was a priority to us.  There is nothing in the contract we signed about dancing and we've agreed to everything on there.

This is not cool.  Not cool at all.  We are going to have a serious talk, and if we have to, we're leaving.  I'm glad we haven't paid you anything yet, because I'm afraid it might come down to that.  I wish you would have told me earlier because just this week, all of our invitations went out with your address on them. 

We will do what we have to.  You'd better hope I can convince my man not to take you to small claims court for breach of contract. 
Sincerely,
Angry-jilted Bride

Late this morning, my man and I went to talk to the pastor.  We were not impressed.  We sat down, and I explained what we understood and how I was confused by the wedding coordinator's phone call. The pastor responded with what he said to my man's mom (who initially checked the place out for us and understood from him that dancing was ok).  I explained that's not what was communicated to us and that's why we were a little put out.  He answered defensively with, 'I know what I said to her. I know where I said it to her.'  Ah, I see. So you're sure you were absolutely clear and that my man's mom is making stuff up then?

We then talked about the wedding coordinator and what we understood from her.  She never said what we had in mind wasn't allowed.  Though, she never said it was either.  She said she'd check with the pastor.

Next I mentioned that the whole reason we picked them as our venue was that we understood dancing was ok. That the other cheaper baptist church had written into their contract that only these 2 dances were allowed (father/daugher & first couple's).   He said they would change their contract to reflect that for future people.  I said, 'If you're going to just stick with that, with those two dances, we're probably going to find a new venue.'  He said they were. So we said, 'Thank you for your time.'

Uuberly not impressed.  We don't like how we were treated, nor the lack of cooperation and abundance of defensiveness we encountered.  Although I profess to be a Christian, I have to say I REALLY don't understand all the churches around here and their no dancing policies. My man said, 'What do they want, a funeral march?  I thought a wedding was a celebration!'  Don't churches want that business?  That $800 we were going to pay them?  Needless to say we are not happy campers.  Back to the awful, terrible, no good venue search.

One of the comments I received on the mock-letter I posted above on my wedding support site said, "No dancing?  Is this church in the Footloose town?"  That's a good question.  Unfortunately, it seems to be a lot of the churches here! Goodness!