Why in the heck is he bringing a crew of 6 guys?!?

Before I start, let me just say - for the first time, with 3 days to go, I am feeling really excited about our wedding!  'Bout time!  Though I may get nervous again, the anxiety seems to be gone and the joy and giddiness of anticipation is finally starting to set in.  I am SO happy that I have everything done.  I pick up my gown tonight and then head off for a 90 minute massage and facial!  Then tomorrow is my last day at work...so crazy and exciting!

Anyway, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty controlling, detailed and anal when it comes to organization and planning things.  Needless to say, I definitely met with every single one of my vendors in person after interviewing at least 3 to 4 people in each area of service.  Once I booked a vendor, I had several follow up meetings with them to go over the plans, details and terms of our agreement.

I was able to negotiate almost every one of my services with the vendors we hired.  And for things like the DJ, photographer, videographer, coordinator, etc I asked for an additional assistant to be working at our wedding.  So we have two photogs for example.

The one vendor that I have not met in person yet is our videographer, Gary Freedline of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills.  I loved their web site as they have tons of samples of videos from past weddings they've done.  But they were all the way up in Bev Hills.  So after interviewing 2 or 3 other videographers in person, I settled for a phone meeting with Gary.  I was also really happy when I happened to be watching Get Married one day last year and Gary was a featured vendor they were using for a spot on new videography options and techniques!

So I asked Gary for an additional shooter on the day of the wedding so we could be sure to capture different angles of events.  Like when we do the toasts, I want one camera on the person giving the toast and one on the guests' reactions to the toast.  :)  But for the deal he was giving us, he said he couldn't guarantee a second person in our package.  However, he did indicate that April is typically a slow month and that if they weren't fully booked, they'd try to surprise us with some extra equipment and an extra person if possible (at no additional charge of course).  I was happy with that - and hopeful.

Well, along the way, we've had some lengthy e-mail conversations but with just a few months to go before the wedding we hadn't really communicated much.  Gary was busy with personal family related issues and the responses I got from the e-mails I sent him were very short and didn't seem like they covered everything I was wondering about.  But I had total faith in Gary.

This past week, I actually phoned him instead of e-mail to confirm our details and final payment.  During the conversation, he asked me how many vendor meals we were providing him?  I told him I had allowed for two in case he was able to bring an extra person with him.  To which he responded, "Well, there's probably going to be six of us."  SIX people from my videographer's company?  Is he kidding me?!?  I was so super excited!

He then asked if there was a place where two guys could set up in a room somewhere to be working throughout the day.  I asked him why...were they going to try to do a same day edit on site?  He said "Well, I'm not telling you."

Oh my gosh...I am so excited about all of this.  It sounds like Gary is going to hook us up big time and I cannot wait to see what he is trying to pull off and what our video will look like!  I am looking forward to sharing it with all of you just months from now :)

PS  I also had hired my coordinator for her and 2 assistants but she told me in our meeting this week she's bringing a 4th assistant as well - her hubby :)

Were there any vendors who went over and beyond what you contracted them for in your planning process?