HELP! My WC Never Writes Me Back!!

[La Romana Stacey]

I’m getting worried and need advice!

 

So as some of you know I’m getting married at the Dreams La Romana, hopefully on April 22, 2010. I say hopefully because no matter how hard I’ve tried, I cannot get my WC to confirm my date! A few weeks ago when we decided we wanted to get married at the Dreams La Romana we emailed the WC. She replied within two days! We thought “Okay she going to be good and on top of things!”.

 

Since then the emails have been few and far between. All I want is for her to confirm my date! I’ve been writing her every week. Two weeks ago I faxed her my credit card info to put down the $500 deposit. I still didn’t hear from her. So I called and her assistant took a message. She wrote me back the next day to tell me she received my credit info, but that she would have to wait for the accounting department to get back to her to confirm the payment went through. That was May 18th!

 

After emailing her again a few days ago and hearing nothing I finally called today. At this point I didn’t even want to tell her who I was because of all of the bugging I’ve been doing. I definitely don’t want her to be annoyed with me. I want her to like me so she will want to do a good job on my wedding

 

So I told her who I was and she looked in the computer for 5 minutes, which made me even more anxious! Then she found me and told me she was still waiting for accounting to confirm my payment. Seriously how long does it take to swipe my card and take $500 from it! I’ve never worked this hard to pay for something!

 

She told me she would email me tomorrow at 10am. I feel hopeful but now I’m worried that every step of this wedding is going to be like pulling teeth.

 

So I want to know if others have had this much trouble communicating with their WC? Any advice on how to handle it?

[EDSROSA]

I feel your pain! I was in your shoes for the past two months until I FINALLY got confirmation from my resort (today actually). My WC told me she has been busy with brides who have changed location from Mexico. Just like you I did not want to become a burden for them so I would just sugar coat my daily emails as much as possible! Good Luck!

[damaris]

Hi Stacey, I think many of us know that feeling

Anyway I'm getting married next July and I was going through issues with my WC similar to yours. I went on a site visit in April and met my WC face to face and this is what I learned.

1. Weddings are a business to them. On one day I saw 4 weddings back to back. This is the height of their busy time so usually Mondays are best for them to answer back.

2. Unlike most of us that can't function without checking our emails every 2 minutes, they barely sit at their desks and they don't have PDA's

3. I have noticed and it was confirmed by my WC that they don't really focus too much on us 2010ers because to them the dates are far off and we brides bombard them with numerous emails.

 

I will say that after my site visit and meeting her face to face she is a doll and gets back to me a lot faster then before and I also now understand her hectic schedule. At the beginning they will only do the necessary paperwork and as your date gets closer you will most likely see more of a response. I have found this site to answer pretty accurately most of the same questions I asked my WC on my site visit. Good Luck

[dolfinluck]

Hi Stacey,

I'm booked at dreams la romana as well but for 5/15/10. In general Tiara is very quick to respond to me for questions i had, there was only one or twice it took a couple of days. When i sent her the info to book the date that took a little bit longer. She received it on April 21 and the 28th i emailed her to see what the status was and she also said she was waiting on the accounting dept. On May 5th I emailed her again because I checked by credit card statement online and the charge went thru on April 23 so I emailed Tiara and two days later she sent me the the confirmation.

I would check to see if the charge went thru and if so let her know. Who knows it could be the Accounting dept that is the problem.

[vivrant_thing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by damaris Hi Stacey, I think many of us know that feeling Anyway I'm getting married next July and I was going through issues with my WC similar to yours. I went on a site visit in April and met my WC face to face and this is what I learned. 1. Weddings are a business to them. On one day I saw 4 weddings back to back. This is the height of their busy time so usually Mondays are best for them to answer back. 2. Unlike most of us that can't function without checking our emails every 2 minutes, they barely sit at their desks and they don't have PDA's 3. I have noticed and it was confirmed by my WC that they don't really focus too much on us 2010ers because to them the dates are far off and we brides bombard them with numerous emails. I will say that after my site visit and meeting her face to face she is a doll and gets back to me a lot faster then before and I also now understand her hectic schedule. At the beginning they will only do the necessary paperwork and as your date gets closer you will most likely see more of a response. I have found this site to answer pretty accurately most of the same questions I asked my WC on my site visit. Good Luck

thanks for the helpful points to remember! will keep that in mind next time i get anxious about the same thing
ETA: Especially the 2nd point about them not having PDA's... LOL its true i do check mine like every 5 mins and wonder why others dont do the same

[La Romana Stacey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dolfinluck Hi Stacey, I'm booked at dreams la romana as well but for 5/15/10. In general Tiara is very quick to respond to me for questions i had, there was only one or twice it took a couple of days. When i sent her the info to book the date that took a little bit longer. She received it on April 21 and the 28th i emailed her to see what the status was and she also said she was waiting on the accounting dept. On May 5th I emailed her again because I checked by credit card statement online and the charge went thru on April 23 so I emailed Tiara and two days later she sent me the the confirmation. I would check to see if the charge went thru and if so let her know. Who knows it could be the Accounting dept that is the problem.

Thank you so much! I'm glad I'm not the only one who is going through this. The charge actually went through today! I'll wait another day or so before I email her again. Yes...one step closer

[La Romana Stacey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by damaris Hi Stacey, I think many of us know that feeling Anyway I'm getting married next July and I was going through issues with my WC similar to yours. I went on a site visit in April and met my WC face to face and this is what I learned. 1. Weddings are a business to them. On one day I saw 4 weddings back to back. This is the height of their busy time so usually Mondays are best for them to answer back. 2. Unlike most of us that can't function without checking our emails every 2 minutes, they barely sit at their desks and they don't have PDA's 3. I have noticed and it was confirmed by my WC that they don't really focus too much on us 2010ers because to them the dates are far off and we brides bombard them with numerous emails. I will say that after my site visit and meeting her face to face she is a doll and gets back to me a lot faster then before and I also now understand her hectic schedule. At the beginning they will only do the necessary paperwork and as your date gets closer you will most likely see more of a response. I have found this site to answer pretty accurately most of the same questions I asked my WC on my site visit. Good Luck

Thanks for the feedback. You are right, she probably has some much to do for other people's weddings that she isn't in front of the copumter all day like we are. I'm going to try calm down a bit. My worst fear is turning into Bridezilla!

[BillysBride]

Trust me, you are not alone.

 

I'll pass along something useful my TA just told me last night when responding to an email I'd sent her voicing some frustration. Now, I should preface this by saying that I was/am frustrated because the WC sent ME an UNSOLICITED email promising wedding package info on a certain date. Out of the blue, and after several emails I'd sent had gone without response for weeks at a time. When the date (which was the following Monday) came and went, I emailed her to touch base, and again..haven't heard anything since. THAT pissed me off because I wasn't hounding her, trying to be patient and if she wasn't going to follow through on a promise SHE extended without pressure from me, then she shouldn't have made it as far as I'm concerned.

 

Now, I dont' think my TA would mind my sharing a snippet of her email. Here goes:

 

I am not sure if you are aware of this, but many of the “wedding coordinators†that are the first contact,

such as ***** ******** are not all located at the resorts.

There is usually a first point of contact, then after submitting a form/contract they assign a local coordinator to you.

I just had 2 last month that began in spring of 2008 for planning and this is how both were handled.

One was at an Iberostar Resort and another at a Riu property. This is standard in the industry, BUT you should be getting a least an email.

This is also a cultural difference I have found. In the U.S., we expect everything immediately. In other cultures, if there is nothing new, they sometimes don’t stay in contact as much as we would like.

 

These are not things that came as a complete suprise, but I was glad to be reminded and reassured that the lack of communication is COMPLETELY normal and just the way it is in some regions.

 

The thing we have to remember as 2010 brides; our dates are the last ones they are worried about. Sounds terrible, but it's true when they have couples coming into the resorts every weekend, getting married NOW. We are typical eager brides, ready and wanting to seal the deal so we can take our daydreaming to the next level and feel secure that all those dreams are going to come true. To them, we probably seem worried for nothing with dates anywhere from eleven months to more than a year out! That's a long time, and they figure we have plenty of time and if we weren't sure we wanted to use their resort, we wouldn't be so insistently contacting them. Should we be treated with a bit more courtesy? ABSOLUTELY. I think it's unprofessional to not at least drop a one or two line email saying "Just wanted you to know that I did receive your last correspondence. We are working on ___ and will contact you as soon as possible." How long does that take? I'm sure they get dozens per day...still no excuse in my book, but I do think my TA was right..it's just a different mentality down there. Add that to us being over anxious brides (for good reason) and it's just a bad mix. lol

[joshfrommontreal]

I would like to add my agreement with what has been said above. Business is just done differently in the DR. If you go to any of the markets there you will automatically see a difference. You feel intimidated, not what we are used to. I assume it is like this with all areas of business that it just isn't the same.

I know this last little while has been crazy for WC's in the Dominican because of how many swine brides have been asking for dates asap. I have worked with WC's who have 3 weddings per day and this was before all the new bookings.

 

As was mentioned to about technology. The internet is painfully slow there and mobile internet is nonexistent. They use cell phones a lot but on a really old and bad network. It's definitely not the same as having an iPhone here.