Furious with venue and need to vent!

[chemgirl]

Ok, so our wedding is on Saturday and we're doing a family only ceremony and meal. We also wanted to celebrate with our friends, so we booked a private room at a pub and called it the "Wedding After Party." We emailed the pub our food order last Saturday and hadn't heard back from them. So I decided to call today to make sure it was all set. We're just looking to have some snacks and finger food for the group, no meals or anything. Today when I call he confirmed the reservation, but told me we were 400$ short of their minimum food order to hold our reservation for 30 people. We were never told about a minimum food order! We actually had to ask them if they offered food platters for large groups! I know 400$ isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but its a lot to add two days before the wedding! Keep in mind that the average entree in this place is 10$. We're going after dinner (late night) and wanted to serve pizza and nachos, not a meal.

Here's the issue...when he told me about needing to order additional food and told me that I was informed about it at the time of booking, I said "This is rediculus, we booked over a month ago and we find out about this two days before our reservation." I said it calmly (FI was sitting next to me and he says I was using a reasonable tone). The next thing I know the general manager is all "how dare you call me rediculus!" and got very rude and heated. He may have suggested that I was being rediculus for trying to get away with a small order

I never called him rediculus and I said "This is rediculus"

In the end he agreed that it was an issue on their side for not telling us about the minimum order and agreed to keep our reservation. I was shaking I was so scared he was going to cancel it on us!

I seriously want to boycott this pub now. I know its way too late to try and change things for Saturday, I just really don't want to give them my business (sure we're not ordering a lot of food, but my friends like their beer!). I don't want to have anything to do with the GM and I totally don't know if I can talk to him with a civil tone. Grrrrrr.

Why can't weddings be easy!?

 

[amc80]

In the end he agreed that it was an issue on their side for not telling us about the minimum order and agreed to keep our reservation. I was shaking I was so scared he was going to cancel it on us!

I think this is what's important. Don't let one guy's temporary bad attitude ruin your day. Take a deep breath, have a drink, and move on.

 

[sillyberry]

I'm sorry you hit this snag. Agreed, it is really frustrating.

Had you worked with the GM before? If not, my guess is that the person who booked the reservation screwed up and he was upset about that -- and you were the person there so he got upset at you. Not very professional. However, since they agreed to keep the reservation as is, I would just keep things the way they are and laugh this off as the thing to go wrong on your wedding weekend. Isn't it great that you've gotten it out of the way?!?

 

[chemgirl]

Hehe yeah, its great that its all arranged now.

I "want" to switch it, but obviously I can't. The plan is to let FI handle any communication that needs to happen with the GM on Saturday and I'll just stay out of it and enjoy the time with our friends. We go to this bar often enough and its never busy at night so it would probably be fine even if they decide not to honour our reservation.

FI thinks that they might have realized that its UFC night and decided to try and get out of our reservation so they could take in a higher paying group...he's speculating

The sketchy part is that we were dealing with a female the entire time and the emails are signed by a female (who called herself the general manager). However, the email address is registered to the man that I was talking to on the phone. There are too many nice places in the area for us to use them for future events. However, we're comfortable with having this party there.

I just needed to vent and thanks for listening!

 

[chemgirl]

The main issue is that he called me the b-witch word when I didn't raise my voice or say anything offensive about him at all. It is rediculus to tack on 400$ after its too late for us to change venues. I don't think saying that is an insult to him personally. So I feel annoyed that I have to give the bar he represents thousands of dollars in business.

It was hilarious to hear him backpeddle when he read our email confirmation and saw that it made absolutely no reference to a minimum food order.