y'know who sucks?

Wedding vendors.

The lot of 'em. I'm starting to think that part of the reason any wedding is an extremely joyful time is that the bride and groom both know that they'll never have to deal with prospective caterers/djs/location managers again.

For one thing, they all over-price what they do and gouge you with extra fees and details. If they were a bank, wedding vendors would be the cartoonish evil bank every other bank is trying to tell you they're not in their commercials. I know I've bitched about location prices before, but now we're getting in the meat and potatoes of planning and we're finding that the gouge-a-thon continues.

Some bands want $2000 for 4 hours of music. Some dress shops want to charge $2000 for a dress. Some caterers want to start charging people at $50/plate. Everyone wants freakin' thousands of dollars!

Tonight we met with a completely rude caterer, but rude in an "I'm being rude while smiling in your face"/Lady Elaine Fairchilde kind of way. We said to her "We have $3000 and we're looking to do a fun breakfast-type wedding meal since it's going to be at about 10:30 in the morning." Her response?

"Oh, you can probably find a caterer to work with you for $3000. The food won't be very good and you'll have to have your family help out with the service, but you can do it. Why not cut out someone else like a videographer instead and then put that money towards paying us?"

I mean, seriously. That's some hefty cajones that lady is sporting to tell us that if we go with anyone else, our wedding will bite and that memories of our wedding are less important than an extra thousand bucks for her catering company. But that's what it's like with all of these freakin' a-holes. And whenever you meet them, they all have photobooks full of pictures of past events with hand written testimonials from other clients that always say "Hi, Lady Elaine Fairchilde. Thanks so much for the overpriced gnocchi. It was perfect and everyone loved it." The thing is, I'm getting the feeling that what isn't written on there is the part where the clients say "You were totally the best of four really shitty options with bad attitudes. Thanks for not making me cry anymore than once. It's too bad I can't afford a honeymoon now, but at least I have the memory of some slimey asparagus to keep me company."