The total for the weekend package was nine thousand six hundred dollars. The deposit to hold the date was twenty-four hundred, due at signing. The remaining seventy-two hundred would be due in two installments: a partial payment sixty days before the wedding and the balance two weeks before.
I was the one holding the pen.
Claire and I had talked about this on the drive up. The arrangement was that I would sign as the client and pay the deposit. The remaining balance was something we would discuss, but my general intention — which I had expressed to Claire but not in writing, not in formal terms — was to cover the remaining amount as my wedding gift. Claire understood this as a gift, not a loan. She was grateful. She hugged me in the car before we went in.
Jordan had us read the contract before signing. I did read it, which is a habit from my project management work: I read contracts. There was a clause I noticed that would become relevant later. The contract specified that the named client had financial responsibility for all scheduled payments, and that any transfer of client status and payment responsibility to another party required the written agreement of Willowmere Hall, the original client, and the incoming new client, with all paperwork completed no later than thirty days before the event.
At the time I read it, I noted it as routine boilerplate. Venues want to know who they’re billing. They want a clear chain of financial responsibility. I was not thinking about transfer clauses in terms of my own situation; I was thinking about them the way you think about standard contract language when everything is proceeding normally and you expect it to continue proceeding normally.