Couple forced to find a new place to be married

To the Editor:

I believe your readers would agree with me when I say that one of the busiest, most important, and possibly the most stressful event of a young couple's life is their wedding.

Planning the perfect wedding is every couple's dream! There's the cake, the wedding dress, the tuxes, the invitations, the flowers ... the list can go on for pages. But what is the one thing that all these other things hinge on? But of course, the big, beautiful church!

So, when it can time for my bride-to-be and I to plan our dream wedding, naturally we began with the grueling task of finding the right church. We called, looked, hunted, and scouted until we found the perfect place to exchange our vows. We called them up and made an appointment to tour the building. The church was beautiful and our wedding date fell a week after a youth festival and a week before an Easter program. Everything seemed to fit together seamlessly. We eagerly reserved the date!

Our wedding plans were coming along without a hitch. With the church booked we then mailed out invitations, picked out decorations, and went about doing all the other things couples planning a wedding do! We could visualize this beautiful wedding as clear as if we were watching it unfold in the plot of a great silver screen romance! But unbeknownst to us, what began as a romance would soon turn into something out of a horror flick!

In the middle of sorting through our RSVP cards and comparing them to the guest list, we received a devastating phone call. The church was calling to inform us that there had been some type of conflict in the scheduling of the church. Our hearts sank deep in our chests! We were asked to come in to discuss the situation. We frantically agreed.

What was only a few days, seemed like weeks as we waited to meet with the church. Once there, it was explained that the youth festival that was scheduled the week before our wedding was now being move up to the week of our wedding. When we asked for an explanation, the answer was dumbfounding. Since the youth festival fell on a week that several of the teens were going to be gone on vacation, the church thought the most logical thing to do was to cancel the single-most important event of our lives to make sure they had a good turnout at their semi-annual teen event!

As most of you could imagine, we were more than a little annoyed! To cancel someone's reservation weeks after it was made is one thing, but to cancel their wedding! Wow! We were definitely in no mood for apologies, but, of course, the church was "very sorry for the inconvenience."

It took some time to settle down enough to figure out what to do next. When we did clear our heads enough to think we knew we had to "re-plan" our wedding!

Fortunately, we have some very good friends who own the beautiful Heritage Hall on North Main Street in Linton, who, on short notice, allowed us to reserve (and by reserve I mean not to schedule anything else in that time-frame!) their building for our wedding. This saved hours of frustration and energy trying to find another church on such short notice. To them we are extremely thankful!

Now all that is left to do is to inform all of our guests of the situation and the change of our wedding location. After everything else is said and done, we just want everyone to realize that this wedding is the most important event in our lives. It's not just some reservation that can be canceled on a whim!!

Greg Sapp

Amber Mowery

Linton