Cynthia Keeley is author of Cyn’s Spin and contributor to The MOB Blog.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to read your vendor contracts thoroughly and to understand what you’re signing. Anything that gives you cause for concern needs to be addressed immediately and clarified, before you find yourself stuck with someone who isn’t willing to make changes should you need them to do so. Fortunately, all of the vendors we secured for the B&B wedding at the shore were willing to either refund our deposits or to keep them on Hold until we made new plans. Since it was possible that the wedding wouldn’t take place for at least another year, we opted for the refunds. Then we just waited to see how their relationship would weather the storm, and all took a few steps back from anything wedding related.

Just a few months later, my husband and I got yet another shocking boyfriend ‘visit’ from Quinn’s older sister’s boyfriend of 6 years.  Nick was planning on proposing to Brooke on the night of her birthday. Thinking she’d never expect it in front of all their friends while celebrating in their favorite restaurant, he had his plan in motion already by the time he asked us for her hand. It would have been very obvious if we were there, so we all decided that this one was one we’d have to miss being a part of  but we were OK with it. Another engagement was in the works, while the younger sister was busy trying to get her life back on track after canceling her wedding. It was a bittersweet time for all of us.

To confuse our lives just a bit more, my husband’s boss approached him about offering us one of his properties in Cancun if we wanted to have Quinn’s ‘rescheduled’ wedding there. It was an all-inclusive resort that had weddings just about every day, so he thought it might be something Quinn would enjoy, and it was some place where none of us had been before. We were almost afraid to even bring it up to them, since it had only been a few months since everything was canceled. The property was available to us at only certain times, because of events it was already being used for with the company. We decided to broach the subject with Quinn and Graham, and see where it went. We were going from the Jersey Shore to Mexico?

Quinn was excited at the possibility of a true destination wedding, but Graham was less than thrilled. Of course! Was anything going to be right for these two? Once we brought it up and explained how it might work, all the negatives about having it there began to surface. Two of the biggest things that were an immediate problem were that neither Graham’s Grandmother nor my Father would fly, resulting in them being absent from the wedding. Adding up the expense for other family members to even attend was another drawback. Many would have to get Passports, and adding up the cost of the flights and hotel rooms to have everyone in one place for several days, made it cost prohibitive for a lot of them. The decision had to be made whether to have just a small wedding in Mexico with limited guests, or to look elsewhere where more people would be likely to attend.

They began researching less expensive destination wedding locations and considered the Dominican Republic as well as Key West. Once I got involved in the search, I found that having everyone fly to Key West might be a better choice, but I wasn’t willing to book a wedding long distance without at least seeing the area first. I booked a long weekend trip to Key West for Quinn, my husband and I so we could figure out if this was something we could do easily. I contacted a few wedding planners (none were available to meet with us then) and some possible venue sites to explore, booked our flights, a room, and rented a car and we were off!

Many people find Key West to be fabulous, but I was honestly less than impressed. The resort we were most interested in turned out to be a terrible place, where the website pictures had to have been taken twenty years earlier. We actually drove in and drove right out again. We found that’s what we did at several of venues, and only one was what I’d have picked, but cost wise it was way more than we wanted to spend. Our guests would have felt the same, so again, we’d have had a compromised guest list. I’m glad we went, if only to eliminate Key West as a possible area for their wedding, but we were still left with no plans.NOW WHAT?

NOW WHAT was my husband’s boss withdrawing his Mexico offer to us even before we could tell him it wasn’t possible for us to accept it! The whole thing was beginning to feel like a bad joke, as we were all over the place in trying to get this wedding planned again! Factor in the fact that Brooke and Nick were trying to set THEIR date and get started with visiting venues, we were dealing with one big MESS.

NOW WHAT became switching back to having it at the Jersey shore again, if we could find a place that was a bit more casual than the B&B. Still no date was set again, but I did find a hotel that was right on the beach and a possibility, but it was a little farther away than our preferred area. I made an appointment with the banquet manager and we headed down to look. It was a great place and they had many weddings there, so were more familiar with the logistics of the sand and surf interfering. Electricity was also allowed for their vows and to have some music, and they had a path leading directly from their private pool/bar area directly onto the beach. (Something else to consider when planning a beach wedding, is that it will NOT be closed to the public that day or any day, so be prepared to have pictures in the background of beach umbrellas and sunbathers in their swimsuits!) They were excited, we did a LOT of talking as we sipped our Margaritas, and it was decided to book this place before we left that day. The check was written (and I made her SWEAR this was it before I signed it!), I made sure we could get a refund if something changed, and was assured it was not a big deal to them as they’d NEVER had a wedding canceled before. DONE.

Until EBay.

Quinn decided that it wasn’t fair of her to make Brooke do nothing while she floundered about, so Brooke & Nick set a date finally, of May 21,2010. Brooke was a planner and an organizer, so she already had several ideas in mind. We got together to figure things out, pick some colors to work with, bookmark some wedding gowns to try on, and get their guest list started. They decided on a Ballroom event, but nothing large, nothing quite so ‘wedding-ish’, and were going more for a big party atmosphere.

While searching around the internet for things for Brooke’s wedding (more specifically, linens), I followed a link to EBay. Of course under the Wedding category there were a million listings, so I began scrolling through to see what was out there. I came upon a listing that stated “Have the Wedding of Your Dreams at the Sheraton”, so of course I had to read it. It was an auction for an all-inclusive wedding for 150 at the Sheraton in Eatontown, NJ. I remember laughing out loud at the thought, and as a joke, I forwarded it to both my daughters with a note saying ‘Could you do this?!’ Brooke wrote back immediately and said she could, but it was too soon for her (it was in 3 months), but how neat it would be to say you won your wedding on EBay! I never heard from Quinn, so I figured maybe she hadn’t read it or deleted it.

Early in the morning, about a week later, I got a phone call from Quinn asking if I was serious about the EBay listing. I’d forgotten about it, but asked her why? She said she and Graham would do it in a heartbeat, if we were serious about it. They thought it might be a scam, so I told them to take a drive to see it and ask around about it without letting on they were there because of the internet listing. Then I had to tell my husband, who had no clue I’d even found this opportunity let alone sent it to the girls.

Can you guess what happened? They drove up there that afternoon, fell in love with the venue, spoke with the banquet manager and chef and called me from the parking lot. It was NOT a scam, but rather a canceled wedding they were trying to auction off rather than leave a Saturday time slot open in the most popular wedding month of June. The date and time couldn’t be changed, but the menu was open, the cake could be selected from one of their preferred vendors, full top shelf bar was included as were all the linens, bartenders and servers, and the only additional costs to us were the centerpieces and chair covers.

I ‘won’ an EBay wedding for just $10,000; it was scheduled for June 20th,2009! Three months wasn’t very long to pull it all together, but within 24 hours I had to switch gears and re-plan a wedding that had nothing to do with the beach or sand, and keep my fingers crossed that we were ALL doing the right thing. YAY!! Deep breath, Cynthia. You can DO this!!