I know that every wedding day comes with unexpected hiccups and challenges, but I did not expect them all to come from just one of our vendors. Your company let us down. Starting with your late arrival for prep on Friday, and coming to that unprepared. We wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. Anyone can forget a minor detail or forget to factor in standard Atlanta traffic once. That day had dirty linens, missing place settings, a last minute change of napkin color, or so we thought, a need for a second visit, which ran much later than we could have expected, and the surprise that you were pushing arrival time from noon to 1 for your crew and 2 or 2:30 for you. We questioned you then and made sure you understood that the wedding would be starting in that room at 2, and at that point you would not have access until the ceremony was over. The next day as we were putting together our last minute touches and trying to get the bride ready we had to take time out to find out where your crew was. They said they now planned to arrive at 2 and seemed completely unprepared by the idea they would not be able to access the venue at that time due to the ceremony. Imagine being the mother of the bride and having to make calls and stress over absent caterers all while trying to enjoy the moments of getting your only daughter (and only child) into her dress. I was literally on the phone looking for your team as we were lining up to walk down the aisle. My coordinator had to meet your team in the parking lot to explain the situation to them. It was clear they had no idea what they were walking into.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were able to remove one of our planned tables, reducing our number of guests to 31 instead of 39, which was a very good thing since one of the tables had no bowls, no napkins, and not enough glasses. The mustard napkins you said you were bringing never appeared so the blue napkins were put back out. However, your staff was short on napkins and rather than mention this to anyone they just left us with a table that had to go begging for a napkin when food was served.
In spite of us having less people than we arranged for, you still managed to run out of food. It was extremely embarrassing to us to have the last table in line miss out on more than one of the dishes because you did not adequately prepare. Considering that you assured us repeatedly prior to the event that there would be a large amount of food left over at the end it seemed as if you had forgotten to bring half the food. With the food gone, no take away box was provided for the couple, nor did you have the agreed upon cheesecake for them. There was far more time and effort put into the presentation of the food than there was into making the food itself. It really doesn't matter how pretty your dish is when it is empty.
When we contracted you to provide the food, table linens, and place settings, we assumed it would include dessert forks and plates on which to serve the wedding cake. Since cake is a basic staple of weddings, we should have been informed those would not be provided so that we could either arrange for you to bring the needed cake plates with the other pieces of the place settings, or make other arrangements. It certainly was not something we needed to find out at the end of the meal, and when I asked about serving the cake, you had to wash the dinner plates. You also should have made clear that you would not be providing chilled water. Having multiple guests going into the kitchen for ice and water was not the experience we were expecting. Nor was it expected that we would have to remind you that we ordered a coffee bar. That should have been set up while we were eating. I was also not expecting the coffee bar to be two small carafes, a bowl of sugar, two tiny pitchers of cream with no spoons, and plastic coffee mugs even though I paid for "fine china." The dishes were far from being what is considered "fine china." It was underwhelming to say the least.
In every step of the process you and your crew altered our timeline. From set up to tear down, we spent time waiting on you to the extent that the service was even delayed.
No client should have to spend extra time cleaning up the large amount of grease you left on the flooring of the deck. No bride should walk down the aisle wondering if her caterer will ever show up, or miss out on having her fill of the one dish she requested for the wedding, but that was the reality of my daughter's wedding day.
Mick also returned the flatware that was used at the wedding! Is this ethical? How do I know? He provided the return receipt!!! Hmmm, how do I contact Amazon? read more
