My wedding was about two weeks ago. I contemplated whether or not to hire Tipsy to bartend for my wedding since the tradition for many Asian wedding consisted of putting a bottle of premium liquor on the table for guests to self-serve. Initially meeting with Tien, the owner of the company (I presume), he really sold me on the "open bar" idea. I had to contemplate hard because I knew my parents would be unhappy with this idea and also I was worried the wedding might get a little out of hand considering all would be at the bar and not at their tables. My last concern is the topic I am going to get into next: The alcohol.
I couldn't emphasize enough with Tien that both sides of the family are Vietnamese, meaning they drink a whole lot of alcohol. I also mentioned that my friends drink a lot too. Instead of taking my concern into consideration, Tien kept running his mouth about how his company has hosted many weddings and this is never the issue. So him being the professional and me the client, I trusted him. He asked what the total guest count would be and I include all adult guests count because they would be the ones drinking and not the kids. He then forwarded me the spreadsheet to get alcohol. In which briefly looking over it, I told my husband this is not enough. When my husband did the alcohol run, he purchased a few extra bottles and threw that in just in case we ran short. Even with the extra bottles we were a bit concerned.
So fast forward, the big day is here. We haven't even started the program yet and guess what? Bar notifies us that they are OUT OF ALCOHOL. Am I surprised? No. Was I stressed out? Heck Yes. Did I have a plan B? Sure. I had asked one of the Groomsmen to purchase more liquor in which he bought an additional 20 bottles of hard liquor and even with that we ran out of liquor. I tried to keep a happy face and not be too concerned about the bar running out of liquor until the wedding was done and over with.
Fast forward some more and here I am talking to Tien via text messages in which he said he has to communicate with his bartenders before talking to me about what happened. He promised to call back on Wednesday and no phone call from Tien. I then proceeded to reach out to him in which he phoned back with the first sentence coming out of his mouth "Why are you doing this to me?" First off, I have done nothing to you or your company Mr. Tien. Matter of fact, I paid for a service that is supposed to be properly rendered. $747 is a lot of money and I felt between all of my vendors, they are the WORST. As I am stating all of my concerns he tries to interrupt me and said "do you want to hear what my bartenders said about your wedding guests?" Wow, totally unprofessional for one and not necessary. Instead of trying to find a solution to remedied the problem he added more fire to the fuel. I was livid with Tien, as he didn't listen to anything and also accused me that I lied about my wedding guest count. He asked me how many guest count I had total for our wedding? I automatically tallied up the adults as they aren't allowed to serve to children and children aren't allowed to drink! I had a total of 48 tables, 2 of which were kids only on my family's side. And the other kids were spread throughout and sat with their parents as they were too young to be separated from their parents or didn't know the other kids at the kid's only table. We had a total of 400 adult guests which I accounted for alcohol. Keep in mind, my side of the family didn't even bother to get up to get liquor because they weren't familiar with open bar service and thought they had to pay money so they sat and drank red wine instead. My side of the family accounted for 22 tables so approximately 220 guests (200 adults). So that means, they only served to 200 guests on the other side of the restaurant. But ill give them the benefit of the doubt and say they serviced 300 guest. This was still not enough alcohol. What I am most upset about is I felt Tien totally miscalculated, didn't take my feedback into consideration, and more over I paid a lot of money for a service that was poorly rendered. I would've been better off saving that $747 to purchase 15 bottles of hard liquor for my guests so everyone can have an equal share of alcohol and save myself and husband from the embarrassment that they caused us. Tien through in there, "it's a good thing you ran out of alcohol, that means the guest used the open bar service and had fun." Bull crap. It doesn't make sense for the bar to run out of alcohol at 8pm. When the party goes until 11pm!
If you are looking for open bar service, DON'T USE TIPSY.
Unprofessional, not knowledgeable, and will ruin your wedding. THIS IS YOUR WARNING.
P.S. Tien offered $50 credit. I honestly don't know for what, as I will never hire them or recommend them to any of my friends or family. EVER.
If I could give negative stars, I would. read more