College Football Schedules Holding Up Wedding Plans Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times Brian Frederick, 37, is engaged to marry Carolyn Hoef, 31, in September or October in Lawrence, Kan. Both attended the University of Kansas there. There are any number of reasons to get nervous about planning a wedding, but the realignment of college football conferences is rarely among them. Yet some brides and grooms, hotels and event planners are feeling the unintended consequences of the ever-changing sports landscape as college teams leap from one league to the next, chasing stability and the almighty television dollar. Football schedules for next fall in two major conferences have not been released because of a legal battle prompted by West Virginia University's attempt to move from the Big East to the Big 12, resulting in widespread angst for anyone trying to plan an event in college towns from Morgantown, W.Va., to Manhattan, Kan. Brides hoping to wear white on a fall weekend are being told they must wait until the schedules are announced, because event facilities want to give preference to football weekends. "It's amazing what happens when nobody can function because of college football," said Dennicia Craft, executive assistant to the athletic director at Oklahoma State. It does run our lives. Several schools said they were receiving frantic phone calls or e-mails from brides, meeting planners, campus groups and hotels wanting to know if the Mountaineers, Jayhawks and Cowboys would be home or away on a particular date. "I'm hearing a lot of brides are anxious," said Cathy Martin, executive assistant to the athletic director at West Virginia. They need to know our football schedule so they can coordinate dates for their wedding. Hopefully in the next two weeks we get this resolved and we'll make a lot of brides very happy. His father was Kansas" athletic director for 14 years. His mother is a retired event planner at the college. If anybody has connections, these two do. Still, their plans remain uncertain until the football schedule is made public. "I was hoping someone would release it WikiLeaks style," Frederick said. The couple want to marry in the university chapel where Frederick's parents were married and to have their reception at the campus alumni building. But neither facility will book the wedding, and local hotels won't make rooms available, they said, until the Kansas football schedule is completed. "It's very frustrating," Hoef, an architect who lives in Washington, said with a laugh. I never thought my wedding would be so influenced by a football schedule. I'm not even a football fan. Frederick, her fiancé, also lives in Washington. He is executive director of the Sports Fan Coalition, an advocacy group that has lobbied against television blackouts of games and against the much-maligned Bowl Championship Series, preferring instead a playoff in college football. "This gives me even more opportunity to hate the B.C.S.," Frederick said. Ashley Jones, 26, plans to marry on Oct. 13 in Manhattan, Kan., home to Kansas State, her alma mater. She had trouble finding a hotel to host her reception, she said, and the prices kept changing, depending on whether Kansas State would have a home football game that weekend. She finally found a ballroom that would accommodate her, but fears her wedding guests might have to book rooms a half-hour away if the Wildcats end up playing in town. "I wanted a fall wedding, so I'm sticking to my date," said Jones, who works for a sportswear company. I'm not stressing out too much. I hope to keep it that way. But it would be so much easier if we had the schedule. Lisa Webb is a sales assistant at the National Center for Employee Development conference center and hotel, which has 964 guest rooms, in Norman, Okla., site of the football-mad University of Oklahoma. Those who inquire about weddings, family reunions, conventions, conferences, anniversaries and bar mitzvahs for next fall are told that the hotel must first honor its contracts with the university, Webb said. "We have to have the schedule before we can book other things those weekends," Webb said. It's definitely causing an issue for all the hotels.