Wedding Planner Rescue: Mudslide
In my 10 years as a planner there are many times whereby I have to ‘fix an emergency’ (sometimes) without the bride & groom or guests knowing. In this series I am sharing some of those circumstances with you in short snippets once a month.
Regulars to my blog will know I specialise in marquees, I actually love the logistics involved in organising a marquee function but there are some things beyond my control, namely the weather! Problems occur when we have had serious downpours over a few months meaning the ground is literally waterlogged.
One such occasion was July in 2012 where the marquee was pitched next to a watermill in a beautiful setting. The days leading up to the wedding were wet, the ground was waterlogged in places. I therefore had to put some contingency plans into action:
- I had to instruct all suppliers there was a particular route they needed to take to avoid the worse hit areas. Guests were ok as they were parking up a slight hill thus the ground was hard. But I knew suppliers needed to get close. The owner had a small tractor with trailer so actually helped transport the chairs into the marquee as we all decided the lorry shouldn’t go onto the field for fear it would sink!
- The marquee company laid down a walkway from the gravel driveway into the marquee itself so shoes were safe
- On the day despite our well laid plans, the poor mobile bar van was so heavy it literally sunk. We tried towing it with a land rover but the van wasn’t moving, in the meantime the guest arrival time was fast approaching. The van contents were unloaded onto the land rover after a few shuttle runs meaning the van was now lighter. I knocked on the owners door to see if we could use his mini tractor, he was able to tow the van out literally 10 minutes before the guests arrived. Yes the field was a total mess, but at least we didn’t have a van parked in front of the marquee anymore! And the sun did come out for the drink reception and amazingly guests were able to walk on the lawn.
Photo Credit: