Seriously, I haven't had anything related to this wedding go smoothly. This is going to be a novel. Skip to the insurance section for the really good part - and honestly its all a little funny (NOT in a haha way, trust me, but in a wow, this really happened? way).
Hotel: For some reason, even though they knew X amount of guests were showing up the day before the wedding, our hotel did not have ANY of our guests' rooms ready. THey had to wait up to two hours, and everyone was freaking out because they needed to shower before the rehearsal dinner. I think the hotel comp'd them a free drink or something.
My map mistake: Somehow, and I have no idea whether this was my fault or google maps (b/c i copied and pasted), the interstate directions (IE, take I-10 E instead of I-10 W) were wrong on our map inserts. People were sent across the Mississippi river into a different town and were rightfully confused. I'll take the blame for that.
A/C: I've already mentioned this but it's so priceless I have to again. For some reason, our venue decided to clean the windows the day of our wedding (our venue was a multipurpose state owned building with several art galleries, a restaurant, and a terrace where our wedding was). The venue kNOWS that when they clean the windows, the fire alarm goes off. The venue also knows that when the fire alarm goes off, the electricity goes off. Electricity including, AIR CONDITIONING, elevators (our poor caterers had to bring all the food up 4 flights of stairs). This problem was discovered by my SIL at 11:30 am - our reception was at 6:30. SIL contacted everyone who worked at the building (She also works for the state) and the problem still wasn't fixed by 7. Apparently, there is some rule that the fire alarm can't be turned off on the weekends unless it is a bonafide emergency. My SIL spent the entire day contactin people until she finally reached the board of directors of the building who eventually fixed everything at 8:30 or so. So for half of my reception, there was a blaring fire alarm, no mics (So we didn't get to do any of our toasts/announcing the b&g), and worst of all, no AC in 97 degree weather. We did get all of our money back from the venue...but still!
Honeymoon: Our luggage was lost for 4 days. No raingear in IRELAND, no tennis shoes for the two days we were supposed to spend hiking. Also, the Continental customer service was terrible and kept telling us our luggage was available at the dublin airport (so we spent 30 euros taking a bus out there) when it wasn't there. oh, and we got a flat tire in our rental car in the midle of nowhere.
insurance: heres the deal - I work at a medical school/hospital where my FIL also works. H is a student there. Before we were married, he had health insurance through his dad, as a student. We went to change this situation in the specified time period after the wedding. All was well - he was now on my insurance.
FIL gets a call from the insurance office, saying that we had just missed a pay cycle (or something) and it would be easier to just continue taking the money out of FILs paycheck until September. FIne with me, fine with him. H is still covered on his dad's insurance.
2 weeks ago, H goes to the opthalmologist for a checkup. The next day he gets a calls aying he owes $400 for the appt bc he has no insurance. wtf, right? we go to the insurance office. turns out that the woman in the office decided it would be easier on her and us if she didn't switch H's insurance from his parents. (wtf?) However, at the same time as she decided this, she also sent in our marriage license. Now, I would expect the average person - LET ALONE SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN INSURANCE - to know that when you're married you can't. be. on. your. parents. insurance. So, he wasn't covered for 2 months. She admitted it was her mistake, but had the nerve to suggest that WE pay retroactively for Cobra. We told her absolutely not - this was her mistake. Then there was the issue of H not being able to be covered when it came time for him to switch to my policy because he hadn't had continuing coverage for the past 2 months. Luckily, FIL knows the head of benefits and was able to get us out of this mess and get h retroactively covered.
In the midst of this, i realize that my name has still not been changed, even though I brought the benefits office my new SS and marriage license (obviously) and they made copies of it all. Apparently, they lost these copies, so they call employee records to get them since i also brought them there. I get a call from employee records - they have ALSO lost my marriage license copy and SS card copy. How do two entirely different departments lose my stuff??
Registry:
1. Something from our amazon registry shows that it was purchased, but never arrived. Trying to not involve the gift giver, I called amazon to see if they could figure out the problem. Customer service agent 1 says, i see the problem, we will resend. We receive the package - it is a duplicate of something we received in April from a friend named Rebecca. i call amazon and ask how to return a duplicate order.
Customer Service guy 2: , you can't return your gift without contacting the buyer, rebecca.
Me: This makes absolutely no sense to me ((I can't return a gift without telling the giver that I'm returning it?)
CS guy 2: "i hate to be coy with you, but i'm looking at rebeccas account right now and action was taken on her part to have this gift sent" -- basically he insinuated that Rebecca sent me the gift again. (which she didn't. rebecca knows I got the gift back in april, we discussed it).
CS GUY 2: You have to contact Rebecca and ASK HER IF IT'S OKAY TO RETURN HER GIFT.
Me: That's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard - this is AMAZON's mistake, if she indeed needs to be contacted, YOU call her.
CS Guy 2: Okay, we will check with her and call you back at 9 tonight.
9 pm, CS guy #3 calls: Ma'am, you've been given some wrong information... all you need to do is go to customer service and print a "extra item" label. I don't know WHY this guy called rebecca.
really?! so they end up giving us a 20$ gift card for our trouble, but i am told the wrong way to use it THREE MORE TIMES. I end up having to call them 4 times until someone who knows what they're talking about can help me.
2. Macy's. This happened today and sparked this post
We receive two Griddlers. I return one. We are sent a gift card for its value.
I try to order a vacuum online with that gift card and a few others. It doesn't work (the website keeps deleting my gift card numbers).
I call customer service and set up an order for this vacuum. When I give her my gift card numbers, she tells me that the gift card we received for the griddler is not in their system (this GC was the bulk of how we were going to pay for the vacuum - we don't have the money to spend on it outside of a gift card). We spend about an hour on the phone and finally she says they will send a new gift card (she cant do it over the phone for some reason) which will take 7-10 days but she'll hold my order so we can keep the sale price of the vacuum and a curent free shipping promo. she gives me an order number.
New gc comes in yesterday. I call macys today. Give the guy my old order number for the vacuum and gc numbers and address - all that good stuff. We're about to finish, and he says "alright maam your GRIDDLER should arrive on monday" WTF. The lady from last time saved an order for a griddler (???) and not a vacuum... which means we lost the original price (its now 75 dollars more expensive pLUS no free shipping). after arguing/searching through records for about an hour, we finally agree on a price that is fair. I literally cannot be on the phone with someone for less than an hour!!
Ketubah:
Basically, we drop off our ketubah (which is a v. important document in a jewish wedding) and don't get it back for 2 months. we call three times - the first time they forgot to order the matting, the second time the frame hasn't come in, the third time "no order by that name was placed, we'll look for it and call you back". Finally we called them back and they had found it, apparently the frame STILL hadn't come in -- they'll call us when it does. This was two weeks ago. Finally, yesterday, we call and ask WTF is going on. The girl says - It's been ready for two weeks. NO ONE CALLED US?!!?
Ugh, and honestly that's just half the stuff, just the BIG things. Nothing can work smoothly for me.
Thanks for reading (ha... like anyone made it through all of that). i feel a little better...anyone else have chronic bad luck?
Re: My luck. LONG.
HomemadebyHolman
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Holy hell woman. Did you break a mirror or twenty recently? I'm sorry that everything seems so complicated!
Lucy Elizabeth 10.27.12
Lucy Elizabeth 10.27.12
Dude - your post stressed me out!
However - it is pretty cool that you keep getting money back for things. Getting the money back from anything we spent on the wedding would be a amazing.
October 2013 February Siggy Challenge: Valentine's Day Fail
EDD 10/3/13
haha I'm glad you all A) actually read it and
don't think I'm overreacting/exaggerating. And sorry to stress you all out, haha.
mamie, it took me wayyyy too long to get cheeses sliced. and yes - this has been happening to me forever. I was that kid whose dog actually DID eat her homework(ok, that didn't really happen) and whose computer had several meltdowns the night before college papers were due(that really did happen). No one ever believed me - "this kind of thing is always happening to you, therefore you must be making it up."
Lucy Elizabeth 10.27.12
wowwww. i'm so sorry about all of the crap youve had to deal with! i also tend to be prone to bad luck, so i sort of understand your pain...
and i actually did have my cat eat my physics homework in HS once. not the whole thing, but took a pretty good chunk out of it. It was still legible for the most part, unfortunately (i sucked at physics).
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Wow...just wow. I'm so sorry you're dealing with all of that. I hate talking to customer service agent after customer service agent - I've done that with a few companies over the past couple of months and it's so aggravating!!
Things have to get better if they're that annoying/frustrating though, right?