Bride-to-be Blogger Alyse: Dealing With Unexpected Change


St. Monica's in Berwyn, where Alyse and Kevin will be married.

The six-months-to-go mark came with two curve balls that have me reflecting on our ceremony and reception locations. First, it was announced that the grade school where Kevin and I met, which is next to the church where the ceremony is taking place, was one of the 44 Catholic grade schools closed by the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Second, the owners of our reception venue notified us that they would be changing the venue name from Peche to Pomme. Dear Radnor Hotel, Never change. I’m serious. Sincerely, Alyse.

In reality, the closing of St. Monica School is something that just makes me generally sad and upset, rather than being a wedding-related development. It will be bittersweet to have our wedding there only a few weeks after the school closes, but the church will remain and there shouldn’t be any issues. My thoughts are with the school’s teachers, some of whom taught Kevin and I fifteen to twenty years ago and are still there. We had always planned to open the invitation to our ceremony to our former teachers and classmates and now it seems even more appropriate to reach out.

Regarding the venue name change, the reason they’re doing it is to avoid confusion with the other Peche in Sherman Mills, which I totally understand. I mentioned before that when choosing the Venue Formerly Known as Peche Radnor, I had to weigh the risks against the benefits when choosing a brand new, not-yet-opened venue. A name change must be one of those risks. From what I hear, the venue looks great and those risks will be more than worth it. I cannot wait to make a trip to see it.

Thankfully, I didn’t put the old name of our venue on anything permanent. The save-the-dates (which I can’t wait to tell you about next week!) only include St. Monica Church. They do, however, mention that we met at the school in first grade—which no school closing or new venue name can change.

We chose St. Monica Church as the ceremony location and Pomme as the reception location for two very different reasons, and I couldn’t be happier with my choices. Through these developments, I’ve learned that you can choose a location because it has been a second home to an entire community of people and has significant meaning to you—or you can choose a location because being one of the first people ever to make a memory there really excites you. Either way, there are no guarantees.

Did anything unexpected come up during planning that made you reflect on why you made certain choices? How did you handle it?

 

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