Change is inevitable

As sure as the Sam Mitchell will fiddle with the Raptors starting lineup, wedding plans are bound to change. As much as we expected the unexpected, I don’t think we expected EVERYTHING to change.

This past summer we made a special trip out west to scout out venues for the big day. We went to a bunch of hotels in Calgary, checked out a few in Banff, drove all the way to Kelowna BC to see a winery and finally ended our search at the Silver Tip Golf Club in Canmore. As soon as we saw the place and the phenomenal view, we knew that this was the place we wanted to get married. It appeared to fit the bill perfectly. We met with the person in charge of weddings at Silver Tip (her name was Jessie, but I think I’ll give her the name “Yessie”) .

So, since there was a lot of construction going on at Silver Tip, we had a lot of questions and Yessie was very attentive to our concerns and gave us a ton of reassurances about everything. We had questions about the size of our party, where the ceremony would be in case of bad weather, where people could hang out for cocktails…and Yessie had answers for everything. Will this building that is far from finished be ready by next June in case of bad weather for our ceremony? YES! Is this room big enough for possibly up to 200 guests? YES! Can that gawdawful gazebo on the “10th” hole where our outdoor ceremony was to take place be moved? YES! Wow, how sweet, how easy was this wedding planning going to be…we we’re all hooked up…and Yessie had us convinced that Silver Tip was the place for LeviAndNaama- 2007!

Can you guess what happened a few short months after our meeting with Yessie? Yup, sure enough, things changed. When we contacted Silver Tip last month, Yessie had moved on to a new role at the organization and we had a new person in charge (let’s call her Naoway even though I think her real name is Shelly).  Well, after Naama’s first call with Naoway, the once rosey outlook we had with Yessie was quickly darkening.  The indoor option was highly unlikely to be finished in time, there weren’t enough chairs for our outdoor ceremony and new ones wouldn’t arrive in time, there wasn’t enough space in the reception area for dancing after dinner without shifting things around, and on top of all that the costs for everything increased.  As you can imagine, the panic started to set in, albeit a controlled panic, because in reality our wedding was still 7 months away, but we really needed to get the location sorted out asap.

Westjet to the rescue!  Luckily, some last minute deals on flights were available and Naama took it upon herself to jet to Calgary to get this all sorted out.  Within a few days, everything changed, but we think its all for the better.   So the location has changed, its now the beautiful Rimrock Resort in Banff, the date has changed, it’s now a week later -June 24th (coincidentally the same day as Gay Pride and Jenn Kicis’ birthday!).  Nams and I are happy that we are now dealing with seasoned pro’s at the Rimrock and we are hoping there will be no drastic surprises like a Yessie turning into an Naoway.  Little surprises I think we can handle.