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For this summer I'm working for a friends catering business as a small side gig. It's a bit of extra money and doesn't take too much of my time, so win-win.
Of course with a catering business, one of his biggest times is wedding season. He's been at this for years, has a degree and knows what he's doing.
I just got through my second wedding with his company and boy what a doozy. It started off easily enough. My friend had a contract signed in advance covering anything you could possibly think of and a deposit. The bride to be had told us there would be about 200 people attending. Fair enough. So we set about making food and other preparations for 200 people.
A week before the wedding, we get a call from the Father of the bride (FOB) who evidently is paying for things and he wants to know if it would be huge problem to prep food for "A few" more people than originally planned.
This triggered a lengthy conversation between him and the owner over the actual meaning of "few". You see, at first, the FOB didn't want to commit to an actual number. Since "few" could be 3, 10, 25 and on up, that wouldn't fly. My friend needed a number. A relatively firm number. Finally FOB decides that "a few" apparently would be around 20 more people.
Ok, not a problem. We'll just make a bit more food and the owner will increase the final invoice a small amount to cover the last minute additions.
We got the prep done smoothly and everything was going fine until the actual day of the wedding. When we show up, our faces look like this:
The reason being there is EASILY over a HUNDRED more people here than we anticipated!
Problem. BIG Problem.
So we track down and FOB and explain. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how we came "unprepared" and how we're going to ruin his daughters special day.
The reality is we only have X amount of food. There's no way for us to magically pull more meals out of our asses. So we do the only thing we can think to do given the circumstances: Ration out whatever we have to try and make sure everyone gets at least something to eat.
As a result of that, most folks ended up with smaller portions that you'd at expect at a wedding, which led to complaining, which led to us to telling the perturbed guests to take it up with FOB because we had no advance notice that SO many people would be there.
We survive the night, thank god, pack up and go home.
The story gets better though. FOB is now refusing to pay the remainder of the balance because of our "substandard" and "inadequate" service and rude demeanor (I was there the whole night, not one of us was anything but professional which was pretty impressive given the circumstances). He also had a laundry list of complaints about the food. Now my friend has a culinary degree. He KNOWS how to cook and he's very careful about his wedding meal prep. No way in hell there was anything wrong with that food.
My friend says he has a signed contract and FOB needs to pay up. FOB is still refusing. Friend/owner is now taking the matter up with a lawyer.
I'll post updates to this as I get them.
Of course with a catering business, one of his biggest times is wedding season. He's been at this for years, has a degree and knows what he's doing.
I just got through my second wedding with his company and boy what a doozy. It started off easily enough. My friend had a contract signed in advance covering anything you could possibly think of and a deposit. The bride to be had told us there would be about 200 people attending. Fair enough. So we set about making food and other preparations for 200 people.
A week before the wedding, we get a call from the Father of the bride (FOB) who evidently is paying for things and he wants to know if it would be huge problem to prep food for "A few" more people than originally planned.
This triggered a lengthy conversation between him and the owner over the actual meaning of "few". You see, at first, the FOB didn't want to commit to an actual number. Since "few" could be 3, 10, 25 and on up, that wouldn't fly. My friend needed a number. A relatively firm number. Finally FOB decides that "a few" apparently would be around 20 more people.
Ok, not a problem. We'll just make a bit more food and the owner will increase the final invoice a small amount to cover the last minute additions.
We got the prep done smoothly and everything was going fine until the actual day of the wedding. When we show up, our faces look like this:
The reason being there is EASILY over a HUNDRED more people here than we anticipated!
Problem. BIG Problem.
So we track down and FOB and explain. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how we came "unprepared" and how we're going to ruin his daughters special day.
The reality is we only have X amount of food. There's no way for us to magically pull more meals out of our asses. So we do the only thing we can think to do given the circumstances: Ration out whatever we have to try and make sure everyone gets at least something to eat.
As a result of that, most folks ended up with smaller portions that you'd at expect at a wedding, which led to complaining, which led to us to telling the perturbed guests to take it up with FOB because we had no advance notice that SO many people would be there.
We survive the night, thank god, pack up and go home.
The story gets better though. FOB is now refusing to pay the remainder of the balance because of our "substandard" and "inadequate" service and rude demeanor (I was there the whole night, not one of us was anything but professional which was pretty impressive given the circumstances). He also had a laundry list of complaints about the food. Now my friend has a culinary degree. He KNOWS how to cook and he's very careful about his wedding meal prep. No way in hell there was anything wrong with that food.
My friend says he has a signed contract and FOB needs to pay up. FOB is still refusing. Friend/owner is now taking the matter up with a lawyer.
I'll post updates to this as I get them.
)
(My partner and I decided that if we ever do, we're going to do it at a medieval fair 
)
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