Tuesday, December 14, 2010

When is it time to cut my losses?

I have held out hope for nearly 6 months, but I'm starting to think it's probably time to move on.


As I've mentioned once or twice, we want to have steel drums at our wedding as a nod to my dad's heritage.  I was so excited when we started to put this surprise into action, but now I'm more upset than anything else.  I first contacted the steel drum player back in December of last year and everything was great.  We spoke on the phone, he was quick to respond via email, and we even drove to his home studio to hear him play.  I probably would have booked him that day, but Mama E was wise and suggested that we go and see him in action during one of his spring or summer gigs so we could see a performance that was not hindered by his sleeping fiancĂ©e in the next room (as it was when we went to his house).

As the months passed, he continued to contact me about his gigs which unfortunately did not work with my schedule.  Finally as June rolled around, I made the decision that I didn't want to lose this vendor so I asked to have the contract sent to me.  That was 6 months, 6 emails, 2 phone calls and 1 voice message ago.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt because the summer was his busy season and he had his own wedding and honeymoon at the end of September.  Every time I emailed for a follow up, he would apologize and say that he would get it out as soon as possible.

If this was any other vendor I would have dropped them long ago, but unfortunately there is not a huge pool of steel drummers in the Dallas area.  I keep holding out hope that he will get back to me, but in the mean time I have done some additional research and found one other steel drum duo in the area.  I know that the holidays are busy, but I'm crossing my fingers that this one will work out quickly and I can just drop the first vendor.  I don't want to write any "good riddance" emails until I have the 2nd vendor confirmed in writing.

Did you have any unresponsive vendors?  How long would you give them before dropping them and continuing on your search?

1 comment:

Mrs. Pancakes said...

Hopefully something else comes out for you...