#337: update to post #332.

i finally heard back from my contact earlier this week and as they say, all's well that ends well.

but there's also no harm in telling you what happened, right? so here it is from the beginning.

• "the venue" is a privately owned residence with an amazing backyard; the owners want to start renting it out (very slowly...) for events and parties.

• "my contact" (let's call her Ella) is a wedding planner who 1) knows the owners personally and 2) is associated with a catering company that has catered several events at the property.

Ella, with her experience of working the property and knowing the owners, responded to my questions (cost? availability? layout?) and helped arrange my initial visit to the property. she was responsive and never left me hanging. not once.

after i met the property owners, toured the grounds, and expressed my delight (i think i might have even squealed, actually), Ella said "Let's chat a bit tomorrow so I can get a better idea of your vision and how we can make your money stretch for the things most important to you."

love, right?

and we did just that. we spoke for 45 minutes after which i emailed a rather lengthy list of follow-up questions as i'd promised i would.

and that's when she disappeared.

perhaps i'm just really demanding (who me? demanding? what?). or maybe it was Ella's responsiveness up until her disappearance that forced me to try to make sense of what didn't make sense (where the eff did she go?) by writing about it.

many commenters suggested that i don't wait around for an email/call from Ella after 2 weeks of silencio and to contact 'the vendor' or 'the caterer'. unfortunately, therein was my problem...the fact that there was no vendor or caterer to contact. Ella was my contact and my contact was Ella. period. she wasn't representing the catering company; she was representing herself as a wedding planner with personal ties to the property owners. i didn't want to contact the catering company because i hadn't decided to use them and they didn't have an exclusive contract with the property owners (yet, anyways). and lastly, there was NO WAY i was going to contact the property owners directly (not at all professional, in my opinion).

so after i vented some of the frustration (see post #332), i did what i thought was right. which was to simply wait it out. truth be told, Ella was great...and i figured i owed her at least the benefit of the doubt. well...that and i'm also a huge believer of 'what's meant to be will be' (especially when it keeps me from having a major freakout, know what i mean?).

i was more than a little bummed when the weeks started adding up and Ella was nowhere to be found. luckily, and as you know, i had 'real work' to distract me. and what do you know. when i came back, i had an email from Ella describing a family emergency situation (which is now contained) and another email answering all of the questions i had posed to her a few weeks back.

so. all this means is that the venue is back on my list of possibilities. which makes me quite happy, to say the least.

and i'm stashing away any red flags i might have waved around earlier. for now.