I met her!

((((sigh)))) I knew it would be incredible and it was. I know that many of my readers also read With This Ring, a blog written by a bride in the planning stages of her Fall wedding. Go check it out if you haven't already! It's a fun read and Darci has amazing design ideas along with just about one of the best creative flairs for writing I've ever read.

If you haven't guessed already, I got to meet Darci yesterday. In person. With her fiance and her family! And they are all just the best. Ok, so I only spent 90 minutes with them, but I'm a pretty good judge and they all were just so friendly and nice. And Darci....well, I love her.

You see, way back when Darci inquired with me about Day of Coordination wedding services. I had the date open, I liked our email exchanges, etc....and she booked! But Darci lives out of town and scheduling a consultation meeting just wasn't an option in the small window of time we had. So, she booked with not having met me and vice versa obviously. It's something I rarely do since I feel it is important to meet with the couple first to determine their needs, get to know each other, and most importantly make sure that our personalities are a match. However, with out of town brides sometimes this just isn't possible.

Darci & Brad are getting married at The Abbey Resort in Fontana, WI. There have been some changes in the resort's events department with coordinators leaving, not having a coordinator, a new one hired that hasn't started yet....see where I'm going with this? Darci needed some solid answers, needed to feel like someone was on top of everything, that all wedding bells were in a row so to speak. So, she scheduled a meeting with a catering manager there and asked if I would be able to join this meeting just to have someone else there to ask questions and get answers if need be.

I won't bore you with the details of the meeting since they only make sense if you know this wedding, but I will say that it was an interesting meeting to say the least. I will also say that I am 100% certain that if Darci and I lived in the same city, we'd be best friends. We shared numerous glances, raised eyebrows, and then a near childlike laughing fit at one point. Slightly unprofessional? Some would say yes. But Darci and I were on the same page with this meeting and trust me, all of the above were warranted.

The end result is Darci got the meeting she wanted and felt so much better after it. We were able to view the linens (and received proof that just because the name of a linen is 'olive' doesn't mean it's not the color you've been picturing forever!), start a rough timeline of the day, make some food & beverage decisions, and really map out the details that may have been lost in translation over the last few months. It was a success and we all have plenty of notes to back that up. Oh, and we were able to see what the table runners that her mother is sewing (she's a saint, I tell ya) will look like on that olive linen. AMAZING.

The other end result and the icing on the cake (for me at least) is that I got to meet Darci! I'm still a bit tickled about it all. I get excited to meet all my brides obviously, but I've been reading Darci's blog for a long time now so I already felt this strange connection courtesy of the Internet. There's a little piece of me that is now complete. :)

P.S.---Wanna know why else Darci rocks? She brought me a copy of The Knot 2008 Best of Weddings issue. The one that my award is listed in. I was touched more than I'm sure I verbalized to her. I just thought it was the sweetest thing ever. See?...Darci's that kind of person.