Getting Married in Korea Pt.10 (when things go really, REALLY wrong)

The day before we left for Hong Kong, my husband called our venue to check on a few things since we hadn't heard anything yet.  This was 3 weeks before the wedding.  He had tried calling a few times before, but the manager didn't answer his calls.  She later said she had his number saved in her phone, so, if he had called, she would have answered..hm somebody is not telling the truth here.

Long story short, she finally answered and was surprised to realize that our wedding was scheduled for 5:30pm, the same time as ANOTHER wedding.  She double booked us.  She also didn't have a copy of our contract which was from October 31st.  My husband sent me a message calmly telling me this and asked me to send a copy of the contract to him to verify that the time was indeed 5:30.  At this point, we figured everything was fine because our contract would override the other couple, who must have booked after us.  However, we were told that we could just still have both weddings AT THE SAME TIME.  We had picked this type of place specifically to be the only wedding, unlike the typical wedding hall.



Basically, we were never given a clear answer as to which couple contracted first, which leads me to believe we did.  We were told that we would have to move our wedding and party to a completely different space than we had contracted, which included going up and down stairs, colliding with the other wedding's guests.  We were offered a 500,000 won discount.  UM NO.  Unacceptable.  My husband let her know as much.  The next offer was free drinks, a food upgrade and a 500,000 won discount (not sure if that included alcohol or not), move to a completely different venue and they would help the pay price difference (far away from original), or straight up cancel the contract and they would pay us the money we had contracted to pay them.  It seemed like we were going to just have to suck it up and go with the first option, with the wedding less than 3 weeks away by this point and invitations already out.

When I returned from Hong Kong, my husband told me that the wedding planner had suggested another restaurant that had a nice garden, but the food was Korean.  Our original place was supposed to serve a course steak dinner so I was less than enthused about the option.  For 2 days, I was all over weddingbee and the knot reading about other bride's incidents of double booked venues.  I was convinced we were going to go through with having the wedding at the same time as this other one.  I even found pictures and thought up how we would set everything up in the space we were being allocated.  And then, Sunny Plan to the rescue!!

We visited 하나비원 (Hana Biwon) literally 18 days before our wedding.  The planners came to meet us there and did all the negotiating with the restaurant owner.  The place looked slightly dumpy, but still managed to exceed expectations (I didn't have many).  There was a lovely space with a built in alter for the ceremony and a separate outdoor terrace for the dinner and party.  The fact that we would still be able to have an after party was a major factor.  So, that's how we decided to change our wedding venue at the last possible minute.  We sent out messages to friends and family to let them know the address changed and hoped for the best!  My husband called the original venue and cancelled the contract.  In their defense, he said they seemed very apologetic.  They made a major mistake and paid the price.  We got the full amount we had contracted to pay the day before the wedding.  Essentially, all our food and drinks were paid for!!