Location: Do you WANT our money?

When we had met Amanda at the Doubletree Hotel, I explained up front that we were going to be planning our wedding long distance, first from Ypsilanti and then from New York. She assured me this wasn't going to be a problem between phone calls and e-mails.

I feel rather gullible now, having believed that.

Shortly after we checked out locations I got a job (yaaaaaaaaaaaay) that had me working from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm (boooooooooooo), which meant talking to Amanda on the phone during the week was out, since she kept very similar office hours. After three attempts at e-mailing her, and leaving an after-hours phone message, I finally sent my maid of honor (who was living in Holland at the time) to go check in on Amanda in person and make sure she hadn't disappeared off of the face of the earth.

She hadn't. Turns out she was having "e-mail problems" and she had totally sent me an e-mail! But she would send me another one later that day.

If she did, it never arrived.

Finally giving up on e-mail, Amanda left me a voice mail message during the day that said, if I was available, she would call me around noon on Saturday since she had to do some things in the office then and we would talk and get all of my questions answered.

When Saturday rolled around there was no call at noon. Or at one. At two I finally decided I should make myself some lunch, since she clearly wasn't going to call.

As soon as I pulled my pasta off of the stove my phone rang. Because that's just how my life works!

Once I could finally talk to her, she was very forthcoming and helpful and was helping me figure out what the different pre-made wedding packages could be customized to include, and what we should definitely swap out because really it wasn't a good deal and so on and so forth. While I had been frustrated as all get out trying to get hold of her, I now felt much better and was sure that this was the place we needed to book for our wedding.

So I began e-mailing. And calling. Trying to get some sort of confirmation that yes, our date was still open and we could book the rooms and we could have a contract and how much would the deposit be...it was very frustrating. I took to saving each and every e-mail I sent to her, and her response, as well as documenting any phone calls just in case I needed to take this to someone higher up in the hotel. There were several times I felt like giving up, but every time my laziness and basic faith in people won out. If we chose a different location, that would probably mean going back to Holland to see if there were any other places we could find (we had already booked a photographer and were in the process of booking a DJ for the February 21st date so I didn't feel like bargaining with them to move back to February 28th to go with DeVos). Also, I like to believe that people are basically good and want to help each other, ESPECIALLY when it involves earning large sums of money for your business in the off-season (when we checked out the hotel in January there were maybe five cars in the parking lot. When I went back to visit with my mom to check out the hotel's restaurant in March there were only a few more. West Michigan doesn't get many visitors before Tulip Time in May and then the place, or at least the hotels, is swamped through Labor Day).

So far, while the process has been agonizingly slow and frustrating, everything is working out. In May I finally got a correct contract (I had been sent one in April that wasn't even close to correct. We were being charged for 50 more people than could even fit into our reception space, and the food price was way too much as well) and we sent in our deposit, and then in June I made a trip back to Holland in part so I could meet with Amanda in person and make sure everything had arrived correctly and just figure out all of the details. Like when would our tasting be scheduled. I also took the time to show my mom the ceremony space, since when we had visited in March those rooms had been closed.

So my review so far of Doubletree: it's a great space with lots of options for your ceremony or reception. While Amanda is extremely flaky and hard to get hold of, once you can talk to her she is extremely nice and accommodating. I also found out in June that they had recently hired an assistant for her, so it's possible that some of the communication issues will work themselves out.