Lindsay Landman Events: From the Vault: Ines and Augusto

Since I did weddings long before the days of the blog, I thought I'd pull a few "from the vault" to share with you some of my favorites... and I'll start with one with a good story!

Ines and Augusto were married in September of 2005 at a relatively unknown venue on Long Island - The Nassau County Museum of Art. This is a gorgeous site with a wonderful collection of paintings and sculpture, so for those of you who are New Yorkers, it is definitely a great place for a Saturday drive! In any case, the museum is set on oodles of beautifully manicured acres with spectacular gardens and lawns perfect for a wedding reception. The site is relatively complicated in terms of catering and logistics, so definitely the reason to select this venue is for the gorgeous setting, particularly the facade of the museum building itself. So, lo and behold, when we went for a quick, unscheduled pop-in just 2 days before the wedding, you can imagine the bride's face when we pulled up to the front of the museum covered from top to bottom with scaffolding! Not an inch of the spectacular brick building was visible behind the scaffolding and mesh for a "routine building cleaning." I was told that it had just gone up one day before and was planned to be up for 3 - 4 months! Hmmmm... wouldn't a phone call have been nice?? Well, phone call or no phone call, consoling hysterical Ines was one of the most heart wrenching, challenging moments of my career. Would her wedding have been "ruined" by the scaffolding? Certainly not. But, it would have been far from what she imagined, and that is tough to swallow just 48 hours before her wedding.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am a pretty laid-back, calm gal. But, on this fine day in September, I let that venue manager have it. I mean all-out, don't-mess-with-the-wedding-planner-I-will-kick-your-ass-if-you-make-my-bride-cry-for-one-more-minute HAVE IT. So, the end of my very long story is that first thing the next morning (Friday before the Saturday wedding), workmen ascended upon that scaffolding and took every last piece down. Yup, every last ugly, unseemly piece and all the orange mesh that went with it. I even had my mother-in-law, who lives nearby the museum, sit there and watch them to make sure they didn't cut any corners since I couldn't be there myself.

Anyway.... after all the yelling was done and the scaffolding was gone and the tears were dried, it was a spectacular wedding. It was a sunny, gorgeous day that lead to a warm, late summer night and this Peruvian couple had a sizzling, Latin-flavored celebration that reflected their heritage and their love.

As a side note, once the wedding was underway, I had made my peace with the venue and we even said that we could work together again. I haven't had the opportunity to do another wedding at the museum, but, armed with a slightly tougher contract, I would go back, since, despite the need for the yelling, what needed to get done, got done... and with one or two whole hours to spare!