wedding drama

No, no. No. Not my wedding.

I'm the wedding coordinator (not to be confused with wedding planner, which would mean that I'd get paid lots more money) at a church downtown. The church's sanctuary is part of the oldest part of the building which was completed in 1928, making it over 80 years old. It has a total of eight beautiful arch-shaped stained glass windows: one in the front in the chancel, one in the back, and six on each side. In spring 2010 one of the church's long-time members passed away and left money to the church to have the last three stained glass windows removed, cleaned and restored, and reinstalled. They were supposed to be reinstalled in November 2010, but a painter who was doing some prep work discovered some deterioration in the window casings. That discovery was the straw that broke the camel's back, spurring the Property Committee to contract an architectural engineering firm to do an extensive building study. Various sensors to monitor temperature, moisture, movement, etc. were installed during the month of February 2011. In order to cause the least amount of visual disruption possible, the sensors were installed in the back half of the sanctuary.

I did not find out about this project until late January when the congregation voted at the annual meeting to approve the study. As soon as I found out, I asked for permission to write and send a letter to all the wedding couples who had contracted to use the church facilities during 2011. The letter stressed that the impact on weddings, if any, would be minimal. Two brides asked for follow-up pictures, which I sent to them.

the east wall, looking from the front

east wall, even closer look

the west wall, seen from the back

the ceiling in the back of the sanctuary on the west side

the sanctuary from the back looking toward the front

One groom was apparently not impressed with the above pictures and the YouTube video that I shot (with a friend's FlipCam... add that nifty little gadget to the list of expensive toys I want but don't need), so he went to the church to see for his own eyes. Right around then was when the drama started, which has become more or less a source of amusement to me.

Groom writes:

Bride and I did make it to the church and walked around yesterday. We appreciate that you notified of us of the changes instead of letting us find out in August. However, we are disappointed with the appearance.

A couple questions:

- Is there any plan to cover or mask the missing sections and wiring? It seems that it may be difficult since there is no room between the pews and the side walls.

- Are the three large stained windows still going to be missing in August? Are other sections due for cleaning/repair as well?

Although we do not want to cancel yet, I will be completely honest with you and let you know that we are looking at other churches and chapels.

(This bride and groom are having their reception downtown. When I read his last sentence I said to myself good luck finding another downtown church that is close to your reception venue, has your date open, and will allow you to use your own minister instead of having the church's own minister officiate.)

I replied:

In answer to your questions:

I can check with someone from the Property Committee to be sure (or put you in touch with someone, so you can ask questions to your heart's content), but I do not think the church has plans to "cover up" the sensors, wires, and areas where the plaster has been removed. Like you said, I don't know how exactly that would be accomplished.

The three clerestory stained glass windows in the southeast part of the sanctuary will most likely still be missing in August. They were removed to be cleaned and restored and I am not sure about where progress on that project stands. I have a feeling that they cannot be reinstalled until after the probes and sensors have been removed, because that movement/vibration would mess up the data that is being collected. However, I do know that they were the last three windows to be removed; all the other windows have already been removed, cleaned, restored, and reinstalled. (They were done in three-window increments as the work could be afforded, with the back window done separately.)

I am sorry that this is causing difficulty for you and Bride. Please know that there was never any malice intended. The Property Committee has to do what is best for the church building in the long-term. My sense is that the number of little problems cropping up here and there with this aging historical structure finally reached "critical mass" for them to determine that it was time to do something besides just applying "band-aids" when something went wrong.

Please let me know if you have other questions or if I can do anything else to help you.

Groom:

Thank you for your quick reply.

Of course we do not believe any malice was intended. We understand that you must do what is best for your church. It is just disappointing that when we visited and signed the contract in October, we were under the belief that the stained glass windows would be cleaned and installed, and did not expect the missing sections and exposed wiring.

I will keep you updated with our plans.

(In October when I met with them and gave them The Wedding Tour no one, including yours truly, had any idea of what would be discovered in November. I believed just like everyone else that the windows would be reinstalled and that would be the end of it. What am I, clairvoyant?)

Me:

Last October everyone was operating under the same assumption I was, which was that the cleaning and re-installation of the windows would certainly be done by August 2011. After all, they had been removed in the spring after one of our long-time members passed away and left money to the church for the purpose of cleaning and refurbishing those last three windows. True, they are large, but when we had other sets of windows done the work was completed and the windows were reinstalled within six to nine months.

In November 2010 the church had hired a painter to do some work on the outside of the building in preparation for the windows to be reinstalled. He noticed that some shifting had occurred in the arch-shaped window surrounds on the outside of the building, and brought it to the attention of the Property Committee. That, as I understand it, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. After that discovery the Property Committee decided that the church should have a study done on the sanctuary structure, but because of the cost they could not go ahead with the study until the congregation approved it at the congregational meeting at the end of January. So now here we are. The probes need to be in place and gathering data for at least six months so they get data during all four seasons, and the windows can't go back in until the study is done and the Property Committee has determined what needs to be done with the building and the shifting in the window surrounds has been repaired.

It's like health care. I have a friend whose daughter had nine ear infections in the past year. After repeated trips to the pediatrician to get prescription medication for the infections, my friend and the pediatrician finally decided to consult a pediatric ear/nose/throat specialist to see if the daughter needed tubes to drain fluid from her ears to prevent future infections. That's basically what the Property Committee is doing with the church building. After years of dealing with problems in a reactionary way, they are undertaking this study so they can hopefully get to the root causes of at least some of the problems and deal with those causes in a proactive way instead.

Again, my apologies. In October when I met with you and Bride no one had any idea that what is happening now would need to occur. I myself didn't become aware of the study and the need for it until the congregational meeting at the end of January, at which point I asked for permission to write a letter to all the wedding couples to let you know about the work that was going to take place. It's an unfortunate sequence of events that no one planned on, but here we are.

Groom (the next week):

Due to the all of the changes (missing stained glass windows, missing plaster, tarp in ceiling, exposed wires/data recorders, etc.) we are going to cancel and request a refund of our $200 deposit that we made in October. We understand that no malice was intended and you must do what is best for your church. However, the changes are too much for us to continue with our August plans.

Please let us know when we can expect to receive the refund.

(At this point I should point out that the contract they signed in October 2010 clearly states that the $200 deposit is non-refundable.)

Me:

I'm sorry, but the $200 deposit is non-refundable. If you have further questions about that you can take up the matter with the church's bookkeeper/office manager. I have CC'd her on this email so she will know what is going on.

I wish you the best of luck with your alternate plans, and I'm sorry things had to turn out this way.

Groom (in response to both me and the office manager):

I believe we are entitled to a refund due to the changes from the time we signed the contract to now. In October, there were no issues and we were told the stained glass windows would be put back in with plenty of time for our wedding. Now, we are told the windows will NOT be in, leaving ¾ of the right side windows bare. Also, there is now a tarp in the ceiling, missing plaster in numerous sections, and exposed wires and data recorders. It does not look like it did in October. Not close.

To tell us that the deposit is non-refundable is unfair due to these circumstances. We already have enough stress having to alter our plans. We wanted to get married in your church. It was beautiful when we visited in October. But these changes make it impossible. Also, we would never have signed the contract if you had indicated that there was a chance the windows would not be back in. But you didn’t. You said they would be back in.

All things considered, I believe we are due a refund and find you short response unprofessional and unacceptable due to the circumstances.

Office Manager chimes in:

The contract you signed clearly states that the deposit is non-refundable. At the time that you signed your contract, we believed that the three windows (which make up 1/2 of the east side of the sanctuary proper) would be completed and reinstalled. Circumstances beyond our control prevented that from happening. No misrepresentations were made and we notified all of our wedding parties as soon as we knew what was going to take place.

The entire front half of the sanctuary, where the congregation will be facing, is unchanged. The monitoring equipment was placed to be as unobtrusive as possible, and honestly I had to go in to the sanctuary and spend time looking at the ceiling to determine what "tarp" you were referring to -- it is barely noticeable unless you're looking for it. Every attempt has been made to keep the sanctuary in a state that is as close to normal as possible. I'm sorry that you feel that you cannot hold your ceremony in our sanctuary, but our policy must stand.

I wish you the best in your future together!

Groom:

I am stunned and do not know what to say. I would expect to get this sort of treatment from Best Buy on a defective product, not a church.

And I disagree with your assessment on items being barely noticeable. The tarp is very noticeable. The sensors and wires are very noticeable. The windows are extremely noticeable.

How is this morally and ethically fair? Do you believe this is truly fair?

Office Manager:

I'm really sorry that you feel that way, but, yes I do think this is fair and ethical. We require the non-refundable deposit to protect our interests in case someone reserves a date and then doesn't follow through with the wedding. Once a reservation is made on a certain date, we must turn away anyone else who requests that date (and the potential income for the church that they would bring). If a wedding that is reserved is subsequently cancelled, especially less than six months prior to the date, we lose that income. We have done everything in our power to assure that the sanctuary is completely usable (we use it every week for worship) and any anomalies are restricted to the rear half of the space, so that pictures taken of the chancel area (where the wedding party stands) are not affected. The view from most of the pews is not affected, either. We feel that we have acted in good faith at every step of the process and must follow our policy on cancellations.

After that message from the office manager, we have not heard anything else from Groom. I have a feeling that the next we hear from them might just be when the church gets served with papers for a small claims suit. For some reason that strikes me as funny.

the road not taken

Last week Friday I was late coming home from work because I stayed late to finish up some work on the computer. A few blocks away from my house is a four-way stop near a cemetery through which I pass twice a day, once on my way to work in the morning and again on my way home. It was dark and rainy as I approached that four-way stop on Friday evening, and I smelled natural gas. The smell was so strong that it was as if I had an open tank in the passenger seat. When I got home, I called the Consumers Energy 1-800 number for reporting gas leaks and downed power lines. The operator took down my name and phone number as well as the information about the location of the smell and said someone would be sent out within 60 minutes.

The next day Dad went to the bank in the morning and called home on his cell to report that the fire department had the entire area blocked off. On his way home he stopped and talked to one of the fire fighters who said that they had been there since 8-something in the morning. Apparently a six-inch line had blown on Friday, but Consumers Energy couldn't find the leak until Saturday morning when it was bubbling out of the ground. (I'm not sure why the leak could not be found on Friday evening. Yes, there is a filling station a quarter mile or so to the west where the smell gets put into the natural gas, but this smell was so strong I don't know how anyone could assume it was anything but a gas leak. Perhaps the technician didn't feel much like working after 8pm on a Friday night...) By the evening when I went to the supermarket the area was open to traffic again, although Consumers Energy workers were still there with digging equipment.

Today is Wednesday and there's still a partially-filled hole marked off with orange cones in the front yard of someone's house.

All this makes me think about the difference one person or one action can make. If I hadn't called Consumers Energy on Friday night... If the technician had been able to find the leak the first time... If the leak had been worse and someone got hurt or died... (If the leak had been worse on Friday night and my car's engine had ignited the gas as I drove past...!) On the TV show Fringe, the main characters live in one reality and have physically identical counterparts in an alternate universe that is like ours in some ways and drastically different in others. Some of those drastic differences were caused by a single action: After the death of his own son Peter, Dr. Bishop traveled to the alternate world to save the life of his alternate self's son. To save that boy's life, Dr. Bishop brought him to our world and was subsequently unable to take him back. Sometimes I think it would be interesting to travel to an alternate reality like in that TV show, or to be like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, and be able to see what the world would be like but for lack of one person

Article from the local CBS affiliate:

Roads are re-opened and families are back in their homes after a pipe started leaking gas in [name of county]. The gas leak was reported to 9-1-1 dispatchers around 8:30 a.m. Saturday. The area between [street names] was blocked by the Fire Department and two homes were evacuated until around 2:00 p.m. because of the gas leak. Consumer Energy Spokesperson Chris Thelen says the gas was leaking from a two inch steel gas pipe which is part of a distribution line. Crews had to shut down the gas service to the evacuated homes before they could start repairing the line. Consumer's Energy expects to have the line repaired sometime Saturday evening.

From the local NBC affiliate, updated Sunday:

A gas leak that closed a road and caused the evacuation of some county residents was repaired. Fire crews told us they received calls around 8:40 a.m. Saturday on the strong odor of gas in the area. Crews determined there was a gas leak. Officials asked the residents of two homes to evacuate. They were able to return to their homes by mid-afternoon. Fire crews from three area townships worked with Consumers Energy crews to fix the problem.

And from the local FOX affiliate:

Surrounding residences were evacuated as Consumers Energy repaired a gas leak in the western part of the county on Saturday.

The first call reporting a smell of natural gas just west of the city came in to the Fire Department at 8:40 a.m. Saturday. While Consumers Energy attempted to find the source of the leak, firefighters asked residents in the general vicinity of the leak to leave their homes.

The leak was eventually located in a 6-inch high-pressure pipe. The Fire Department told us that it would take crews the rest of Saturday afternoon to repair the leak. However, the leak was repaired, residents returned to their homes and the roadway was re-opened by mid-afternoon Saturday.