Does this make me a Bridezilla??

In My Humble Opinion
1

So in late February Mr. Stillwell and I finally tied the knot. I’m not a girly girl and absolutely hate all the traditional brouhaha that go along with weddings so I suggested we sneak off to a small chapel and have a simple ceremony, to which he agreed.

It was just us and my 12 year old son. Casual dress ( I wore slacks) and a few snapshots to show the family when we got back.

Since this was a small on-the fly type thing I wanted a way to let everyone know we had finally gotten married. I went down to our local paper a few weeks ago to place a wedding announcement in the Sunday edition.

I filled out the form nice and neat. Printed, not my messy cursive mind you. I double checked. Handed it to the lady. She went over it with me to verify everything, I gave her the photo I wanted to be printed with it, paid my money and off I went.

That Sunday I opened the paper anxious to see our announcement.

:eek:

First of all they got the date wrong. They printed February 6th. I was married on the 25th.
They then proceeded to say that it took place in Nashville Tennessee. I had clearly written Nashville Indiana on the form.
And lastly they spelled my parents last name wrong. I was willing to forgive that because we do have an uncommon spelling, but the date and place mis-information really irked me.

So…I go down there in person and they pull my submission form. I go over it with the lady again and she circles all the mistakes in red and tells me they will be happy to re-run it the following Sunday at no charge.

Here’s me the following Sunday when I open the paper: :eek:

I’ll be damned if it doesn’t still say February 6th.
They had removed the Tennessee reference, but not added the Indiana part. It simply said Nashville. Oh but they did get my parents name corrected :rolleyes:

Here is where I went Bridezilla. I called down there and got the same lady who had gone over the form with me both times. I told her my announcement was butchered two weeks in a row and I wanted my money back. In a very annoyed voice she asks me “What on earth is wrong with it now?”

:dubious: Gee, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you have Helen Keller in charge of printing this stuff??

I won’t elaborate on where the conversation went from there except to say it wasn’t pretty. I did get her to promise me my money back before I slammed the phone down. I am probably the most laid back person I know, it takes a lot to piss me off, and I usually hate the drama queen type. So I’m asking fellow dopers, did I over react or was this a legitimate reason to be this upset? It’s been a few weeks now and I’m still pretty angry. Since we invited no one this was supposed to be our way of letting old friends who we don’t see often know about our marriage. Now when they call to congratulate us I have to explain that everything they read was wrong.

2

Oh and I almost forgot one of the big reasons this was so upsetting was because I now have no keepsake clipping of my announcement. :frowning:

I don’t want one that doesnt have a single fact right. And I’m certainly NOT gonna have them try it again.

3

I don’t think it makes you a Bridezilla, just an annoyed customer. It’s reasonable to want your money back. I don’t know if you’re overreacting; since you were trying to use this as a general announcement, it’s understandable that you’re mad, but possibly it would have been a better idea to send out your own announcements.

I say you should cut out the articles anyway and save them; in a few years, you will get a good laugh out of the way it was botched up.

4

That’s some lousy customer service. They should have made the corrections and refunded your money. You shouldn’t have had to ask.

How about putting the announcement in another paper? Your friends won’t see it, but you’ll have your clipping.

Not Bridezilla at all, in my opinion. Just an irate customer, and rightfully so.

5

As a newspaper they should be accustomed to no-charging ads when they get screwed up that badly. One time, fine, but 2 times with major facts wrong, not good.

I have sold newspaper advertising and in really hones one’s attention to detail.

6

And Gaudere strikes again! :wink:

7

All I can think of is that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode… Just be thankful they didn’t have to write the word “aunt”.

8

I don’t think that this makes you a Bridezilla. They screwed up twice, they didn’t correct it, the woman gave attitude. I’d escalate this to her boss, if at all possible.

9

I vote “no” on Bridezilla behavior.

Any idiot who works in a newspaper should know how to treat customers, edit copy, and if they can’t do either, refund the money. I can’t understand the arrogance. Just because their customers buy their newspapers from machines, or from a stack in the grocery store, doesn’t mean the staff is waived of the responsibility of serving customers properly.

Hell, I worked as an engraver for years. If I made a mistake it was not the customers fault. And even when the customer’s copy was wrong I likely replaced it anyway.

10

Thanks for pointing that out. I was worried about my reputation as a card-carrying anti-frou frou woman who doesn’t care about silly things like weddings. Being a plain old unsatisfied customer doesn’t bother me, being seen as a drama queen does.

Actually we probably will. My husband is from another town and all his family is there, so we may give their local paper a shot at getting it right.

11

If there were a competing paper in your town, you could add a line at the bottom “we apologize for the tardiness of this announcement, as the original in (name of newspaper) was inadequate due to repeated printers’ errors.” :slight_smile:

12

You are NOT a Bridezilla. Really, this has nothing to do with the wedding and everything to do about the PRINTING.

You were just trying to get a product you had paid for, and they were completely in the wrong and should give your money back. I don’t think there’s anything drama queen about insisting on getting what you paid for.

I mean, what if instead of a wedding announcement it had been a classified ad for a used car, and instead of $2500 they had put $500 and gotten your phone number wrong and said the vehicle was a Stratus instead of a Saturn?

13

Yes, I think you overreacted. This situation is worth a good laugh (and a refund, it’s not incompatible). It didn’t have any real-life consequence, so there’s nothing to be upset about.

14

Well… I sure would, and keep all of them…Actually, I would hope they will mess it up again :smiley:

15

Yup, what everyone else has said. What’s the point of making announcements if they can’t get things right? And it is indeed their business to get things right. We might live in a world of “good enough,” but there are some of us out here who are old-fashioned enough to expect a higher degree of accuracy from sources like papers (sure, we’re often disappointed, but it doesn’t stop me from internally cringing every time I see major grammar and spelling errors in print).

16

You might not wanna read too many of my post’s then :stuck_out_tongue:

BUT, I am not in the business of making sure everything I put down is correct. The paper should be. I could have (and did) forgive the first one. It was after personally going over the mistakes with them and still having it wrong that fried my cookies.

17

Well nothing earth shattering, but among one of the many people I had to set straight was a dear friend I grew up with. She now lives in Tennessee and reads our hometown paper online. She emailed me feeling a little hurt that I had been down that way and not contacted her. Of course once I explained to her that we did NOT get married in Tennessee she was fine but little things like that are what make this so irritating.

18

You are not being a Bridezilla. Those are major errors. Twice. And then for you to catch attitude because of their error? Unacceptable.

19

Yes, you deserve a refund, and no you’re not a Bridezilla.

(Honestly though, I think there should be a “dial-a-bitch-slap” service for (ex) friends of bridezillas. Just have some tough older woman, maybe a rollerderby player, come over and slap some sense into her. It would make millions. :smiley: )

20

The only part of this that is slightly Bridezillaish is the comment “Oh and I almost forgot one of the big reasons this was so upsetting was because I now have no keepsake clipping of my announcement.” Because you have TWO. And you can scrapbook them (or whatever you were going to do with them) with a nice tidy commentary about how your paper can’t fact check and probably believes Kerry won the last election and a few other snide remarks on the accuracy of the paper. Clip them both, put them in your scrapbook, or whatever. You know what day you were married on. And you’ll certainly remember it wasn’t in Tennessee. And a note with the clippings will take up any confusions your great grandchildren may have when they are looking for geneology information.