Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Wedding Party Bus (aka Amy is going insane)

There are still 2 things left I need to post about under “A Weekend of Achievement” but I need to pause from that for a second and throw this post in because I AM GOING INSANE! Wedding cars are killing us.

Ages ago we got heap of quotes for wedding cars. We almost died when we saw the cost of them. Because we are doing a first look and also need transport between the ceremony and the reception, in total we need cars for 4.5 hours… which is expensive.

The solution we had was that we were going to book two Audi A4’s from Europcar. The Dad’s were going to drive them and then we were going to use our ‘contacts’ to try and leave them at a house up by the reception so that the Dad’s could drink. We were going to catch a taxi home and go back the next morning and pick them up. Perfect right? I wish.

So today I called up Europcar to ask a few questions before booking. The lady said straight up that she wouldn’t recommend booking through them for a wedding. She said in one instance there was couple that booked an Audi for their wedding and something happened (I think maybe someone crashed it the week before) and they ended up getting downgraded to a yellow Hyundai Getz because that was the only car available. There are also logistical issues. For starters the A4 is a ‘prestige’ vehicle so the driver needs TWO credit cards in their name to book it. I’m not sure about Justin’s parents, but I’m 99% sure that my parents only have one credit card. I asked if ours could be the second credit card and she said no, it had to be the driver. Next I asked about additional drivers. If we were to be additional drivers would be need to be there at the time of rental? The answer was a big fat yes. We can’t do it the day before or anything. That is an issue because I can not be at Europcar and at my house with the hairdresser at the same time. We could hire them for 2 days but that is starting to get expensive.

So with Europcar ruled out I started thinking of other ideas. Basically the only ones that I think are feasible are either;
  • Use our own cars (we don’t know anyone with awesome cars)
  • Hire a mini bus. Kinda like a limo… but lamer and cheaper.
So far in my mind the last option is winning. We could crank up some sweet tunes to get in the party mood and call it ‘The Wedding Party Bus’ (get it… it’d be like a party bus, but it would transport the bridal party too).Okay, I have officially gone insane. HELP! Any ideas/thoughts would be appreciated.

8 comments:

  1. You do sound like you're going slightly nuts. Breathe, breathe...

    I don't know the logistical details, but have a suggestion or two.

    1. People you know have cars. Surely even your parents' car, given a valet and a clean with some ribbon on it and flowers on the parcel shelf, could look cute.

    2. If you still want a car that looks nice, think about which bit you need it for (arrival at ceremony? Arrival at venue?) which will guarantee it appearing in pictures if that matters to you, and the rest of the time, use a family car that is decorated up. Because at the end of the day, it's just a means of getting from one place to the other.

    I'm quite looking forward to seeing our battered old bright red VW Polo done up with ribbons. Love that little car!

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  2. Calm calm calm!

    I agree with Claire, do you maybe know someone who has a car you could borrow?

    The party bus could be fun though! Are there any cheaper wedding alternative cars; we could have gone with merc which were a massive amount cheaper than ours.

    We went for old classic cars and since we needed 3 it cost £925!!!!! But they do look fab in the photos and its something G totally wanted from the beginning!

    We did have quite a long journey both ways so I didnt mind so much and they look fab in the pics. Over here you just pay one price for the day so it doesnt really matter how long you need it for.

    But that isnt really helping you sorry, I prob agree with the hire car place too though just in case they swap it or someone doesnt bring it back etc; and the whole hassle of getting it sounds a nightmare!

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  3. I have a feeling I'm going to be in the same position as you - I thought your idea of hiring cars great, pity it didn't work out so I can't steal it! The party bus sounds pretty fun, if not so photogenic. I want to hire a scooter, but that probably isn't the best idea if you have a big dress/long drive/delicate hairstyle =/

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  4. Hi there!

    We're in a similar situation, except we only need the cars to take us from our hotel to the venue which is a 1 minute drive away. I think a mini bus would be fine! I think I'm going to ask some family members to drive us - so unless you want photos with the cars that should be fine right?

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  5. Thanks for all of the advice. I have calmed down a bit now and we have three options that we would be happy with. Claire asked what the important bit that we needed it to look nice for were and I realised that neither of us want the cars in photos and that the guests probably won’t even see them anyhow.
    So now we have;
    - Use our own cars. Hell, I would love an excuse to get our car properly valet cleaned.
    - Hire a mini bus. You can drive a 12 seater on a normal car licence and I think this option could be really fun, which is what we want our whole wedding to be.
    - Go through another hire company with different cars. I checked out Hertz and they don’t seem to have anal credit card and additional driver policies… but we’d still be running the risk of a potential downgrade if some douche crashed it the week before.

    We’ll think about it over the weekend and hopefully make a decision next week. My maid of honour is also going to ask her Dad’s opinion/advice over the weekend (he’s got contacts in that industry so would have a better idea). Will let you know what we decide!

    Chisa – Love the scooters idea. Wouldn’t work for us, but it would make my day if I saw a bride hooning down the road on a scooter!

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  6. Downgrade isn't that much of a risk if your backup plan is option #1: use your own.

    Have you got any friends with cars that are just fun? Old minis or something?

    I know there's an antique fire engine somewhere around that people hire for hen's nights ;)

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  7. Yeah, it is true that downgrade isn’t too risky.
    Unfortunately no one we know really even has a fun car. It’s pretty much all boring, run of the mill, several year old corollas and things like that. In fact, I just looked through our guest list and about half of the guests own either corollas or camrys.
    I did actually think about that awesome fire engine but I looked at their website and even for extended hire it’s $200/hr… which would end up coming in at just under $1,000 for how long we need it.

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  8. Did you know Lydia used that fire engine for one of her School Ball transports? A bit breezy for done hair though

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