My twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is coming up and I happen to mention it to a coworker.

Coworker: “What are you going to do to celebrate?”

Me: “We are going out for a nice dinner.”

Coworker: “No! You have to have a vow renewal; it’s twenty-five years!”

Me: “I don’t know how to plan anything like that; we got married at city hall. And I would only have a really small budget of $2,500 for everything.”

Coworker: “That’s fine. I’ll take care of everything!”

She is starting a wedding consultant and party planner business and I am to be her first real client. I know she has planned small things at work, so I trust her.

It is only three months before my anniversary, so there’s not a lot of time to get everything done. We aren’t going to have a lot of people, so that helps. She asks me for songs and colors I like and says she is setting up a makeup artist and hairstylist, setting up dress appointments, hiring a DJ, buying favors, etc.

Every time I ask her for an update, she says:

Coworker: “I’m waiting for them to call me back with prices.”

She takes me to one bridal place that is way overpriced for my tiny budget, but I do get the “bride” experience of trying on dresses, so that is nice, even though I can’t buy any. She doesn’t take me anywhere else, only that one bridal place. Red flag number one.

For the venue, she keeps trying to get me to use a park, which would be fine but there are no buildings there we can use if the weather goes bad or if anyone needs to use the bathroom. I’m not sure what she expects everyone to do if they have to pee. Red flag number two.

A month before my anniversary, she says she needs more time and I have to push my renewal out a month, so instead of an August renewal, my actual wedding month, I am having it in September. Red flag number three.

Three weeks before the renewal, I ask her for an update since she’s avoiding me at work. Red flag number four.

Coworker: “I haven’t had time to call the makeup person, the DJ, or the photographer. Here are their numbers; you call them.”

I am floored.

Me: “I put off my renewal — which I didn’t even want to do in the first place — for an additional month because you said you would handle all this. Now I have to call people?”

She actually says to me:

Coworker: “Are you going to be a bridezilla?”

Me: “I’m not being anything. I’m pointing out that you have done nothing to plan for this renewal and I only have three weeks left. I can’t even cancel because I told people about it months ago!”

I walk away and call the people she gave me numbers for. The makeup person is way overpriced and too far away; I’m in Illinois and she is in Wisconsin. The DJ never calls me back, and the photographer says he isn’t interested.

I go back to tell my coworker that.

Coworker: “I can’t do this after all. I’m far too busy.”

I am so very glad I never gave her any money. Another red flag of flakiness. So, for someone who was supposedly creating a new business, she failed miserably right out of the gate.

So, now, with two and a half weeks left to go, I went on eBay and found a wedding dress, shoes, and a veil; I’d never had a wedding dress before, so I really wanted one. I also found a venue that I drive past all the time and popped in to see if they would be available on the day I wanted. They were, and I also picked out my table colors and food. I went on Amazon and found small, pretty gift bags and bought customized treats to fill the bags that had our names on them and our wedding date. I went on Craigslist and found a makeup and hair person a mile away from the venue. Music was on our phones from a list my husband put together, pictures were done by friends with their phones, and the venue had flowers as part of my package. We got the cake from an Italian bakery a block from the venue.

Total cost for all: $2,370 for a vow renewal for forty people with about two weeks to pull it off.

And the coworker? I never spoke to her again, but it didn’t matter much; she quit about three months later.

Despite her totally dropping the ball, and me having to scramble to take care of everything, the vow renewal was a great success, and I have some wonderful pictures to mark the occasion.

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