My fiancé and I are getting married in Whitefield, ME in 2019 and thought it'd be nice to have a local business cater our wedding. We live in NH but decided to do a Maine wedding as both of our families are in Maine.
I setup a food tasting session with Steven Dumas Catering back in August of 2018 for Sept.9th. We made the 2 and 1/2hr drive up to Whitefield on Sept. 8th just to be told via Facebook message by Steven Dumas Catering that they had to cancel our food tasting session and we'd have to reschedule.
Approximately 2 weeks go by where I have sent at least 3 messages to the catering company via Facebook and have heard no response. One nice thing about Facebook messenger is that you can see when someone has read your message. Steven Dumas catering had read all of my messages yet responded to none. I had also reached out via phone calls and left a number of messages with no return call. My fiancé had also called, left messages and never heard back.
Finally, Thursday Sept. 27th, I called the Aunt Gin's restaurant which is also owned and operated by Steven Dumas. I and asked to speak with someone about the catering and was told my information would be taken down and I'd receive a call back. At this point, I was frustrated and fed up. I explained my situation from start to finish and how disappointing my experience with them had been thus far.
Shortly after this conversation, I quickly got a phone call from the owner, Steven Dumas, who left me a voice mail saying I had been "pretty rough" on his staff member. After explaining to him how my experience had been with his business thus far. Mr. Dumas assured me that he would personally see to it that my fiancé and I got our food tasting session Sunday Sept. 23rd.
It is currently Saturday Sept. 22nd. We have again driven 2 and 1/2hrs to Maine so we can be in town for our food tasting session tomorrow. I have called Steven Dumas several times between yesterday and today to confirm the time of our tasting session with no call back, no text or Facebook message reply.
Approximately 30min ago I received a Facebook message from the catering company. The message stated that they think I'd be better off going with another catering company for my big day as they are having trouble getting enough labor to fill their positions and they don't see that changing any time soon.
We have now wasted our time and money not once, but twice. Being too under staffed to cater a 50 person wedding is something that could have and should have been communicated the first time we reached out to this company. This entire situation could have easily been avoided had anyone had the decency to be up front with us about the gravity of their staffing situation. Instead we were strung along, given the run around and had false promises made to us.
I am writing this review not to bash the company, but to raise awareness in hopes that this doesn't happen to anyone else. Planning any event especially a wedding, is hard and stressful enough. Setting up a catering service should not be. I hope this helps someone in the future. read more
