(My, my, she's got a foul mouth when she feels defeated...)
The end to one of the bits of the story from yesterday is that I got a call from Ms. Stutterbutt this morning and she was VERY apologetic for her error and wants to give me flowers when she sees me next. She's from Seattle and promised special attention because of our shared city. Apparently, my contract went straight to bookkeeping, as it should have, but it didn't cross her desk first because the whole rentals office was being switched over to her from the other lady the same week I was finalizing everything. So, they'll honor the contract and I can bring in whichever caterer I want, although she was very helpful and gave me some names of affordable caterers that she's had good experiences with.
Also, to sweeten the pot a bit, she's offered the up the "shitty uninteresting room" upstairs again. When I described it that way, I was being, admittedly, a bit dramatic. Its actually one of the few conventionally elegant places in the museum. Its set up as an homage to all the beautiful old buildings that have been torn down and turned into parking lots (st louis has no sense of history whatsoever). So they've a lot of old gargoyles and edifices of buildings and a huge display of amazing glass and brass doorknobs. It's up on the third floor and is more private. She was really hyping it because: (1) they obviously really still would like to open the rest of the museum to the public that night, and (2) a few weeks after we visited in late December, they've completely expanded it and are trying to make it another viable party venue. Its more of a wide open space, which would be good in some ways, but there aren't any caves or slides and no place to hide up in the ceiling. However, she said the guests would be welcome to explore these areas whenever they wished.
Hmmm. Veeeery interestink.
This seems to be the best of both worlds, however, if my guests are anything like me, they'll spend a few minutes getting their food on and their drink on and then head down the two very large flights of stairs to the main level to play (this building is huge...an old shoe factory). It would be pretty scattered and, although I certainly wouldn't try to lock them all up for the night, one of the cool things about this party was supposed to be the SEEING of the people we love the most.
So. I said we'd still like the original space with the caves and the plants and the fishes. She said she won't rent out the upstairs room for that date, anyway, just in case. I don't actually believe this (she is still a flaky woman), but it won't even be available for rental till late april and it doesn't sound like a lot of people know about it as an option...so it might stay open long enough for us to see it early this summer and switch over if we choose.
Regardless, the wedding will be there. And all was right with the world (if you don't count all the other problems, which I'm too relieved to do...)
