I don't know when Paula initially thought up the idea of having her birthday party on a boat, but I first became involved with this about thirteen months ago.
At that time I felt that only four weeks was not enough time to properly organise such a large event, and so persuaded her not to attempt it for her last years birthday party, but only did so on the promise that on her following birthday, i.e. this year, I would help her out any way I could.
And, being the man of my word, I set myself a reminder with about three months notice to set about seeing if she still wanted one. Thus it was that back in about June time I asked her and when she said yes, I hunted out all the emails and websites that I could find for hosting a great bash.
Having seen the costs, I was glad that I had forward planned as it was close to £1,000 to hire a boat for four hours in the nighttime, and with only a few companies to chose from, the one we went with was about the only one that seemed to offer a large enough boat on the preferred dates.
Yet from that moment, all the events which transpired afterwards seemed to steadily more and more doom this effort, and now that it is all over I can sit down and fully question if persistence was such a wise course of action.
Such things which hinted at a possible calamity were that :-
the actual boat requested being changed twice by the hire company,
the person who was arranging the invitations to go AWOL right up until the last minute,
the hire company were unhappy with the cheques I sent as the deposit,
one of the two arranged dj's cancelled due to the boat hire actually being a cruise instead of remaining docked,
the stripper cancelling with only two days notice,
the pre-party craft inspection cancelled after we arrived to do it due to them thinking we could do it by torchlight,
the female hire companies organiser being a bitch whenever we needed to speak to her,
the loading dock to be half an hours walk from the nearest tube station,
the time of launch was delayed by half an hour after the invitations had been sent out,
the number of guests allowed on board was reduced after the invitations had been sent out,
Paula's hairdresser was overbooked and delayed for two hours on day,
the lack of any comfortable fitting white shoes in any of the London shops or over the internet,
a serious car accident involving her cousin and best friend occured the night before the party which caused them both minor injured but also ended up costing thousands to repair the vehicle,
the severe traffic problems and unavailability of getting any cabs on the night,
Paula's mobile phone battery dying an hour before launch but before any delays were announced,
the craft arriving an hour late before it even picked up the advanced party decorating guests.
And they are just the ones that I know about, not to mention all the other little pre-party jitters and disappointments that may have occurred which Paula has not chosen to tell me for whatever reason!
But determined not to let everyone down, and because as long as the boat floated, had music and alcohol, the party could still technically go ahead, we held our nerve and carried on regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment