Our morning-after brunch ended up good, but I was really frustrated with Yes We Cater. We provided them, like all of our vendors, with every bit of information they needed months before the wedding weekend. Our catering numbers were unbelievably close to our original estimates, which was the only uncertainty, and we gave that information to them two weeks beforehand. Why? Because I knew we would not have time to deal with everything at the last minute, and hoped that they would ask me whatever questions they could early, rather than late. But did they? No. First, Mark called me the Thursday before the wedding, when I had three out-of-town bridesmaids in tow on our way to pick up my dress in Greensburg. He wanted to know where our payment was; I explained that had we scheduled the online payment, it wouldn't have arrived in time, so we'd planned to bring it with us Sunday--wasn't that acceptable? No, he said, it wasn't acceptable; we could either drop it off at the Center for Creative Play (one of their venues in our neighborhood) by seven that night or after 10 the next morning. Fine, whatever. We have lots of time for more errands (see above). But then he wouldn't let me off the phone--at the same time telling me how busy he knowsI must be, but then going on and on. I literally almost had to hang up on him. Anyway, Andrew, god love him, took a check over there somewhere in the fog of all of those zillions of errands we were trying to run in those 24 hours. But that's just the beginning. Friday, I was on my way from the rehearsal to the rehearsal dinner, and the phone rang, but I couldn't get it out of my jeans pocket while I was driving. I listened to the voice mail when I got out of the car and it was Mark saying that Jen from the Edgewood Club had called to ask him about the setup for the brunch, and he wanted me to have someone let her know they'd need five round tables and two long banquet tables. I was livid! First of all, why are we dealing with this the night before my wedding? Second, why am I dealing with this at all? When I hired them, they made this huge deal about how they were such a turnkey operation and I wasn't going to have to worry about a thing--just show up and enjoy the party. But even if you need me to be the intermediary between you, the caterer, and the venue with which you supposedly work all the time, could we not have scheduled this conversation for, oh, I don't know, ANY TIME IN THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS?? Needless to say, I did not return that phone call, but instead went inside to my rehearsal dinner to entertain the family and friends who'd come to spend time with me. I figured Mark and Jen would handle this problem like the professionals we were paying them to be. But you know what? It didn't end there. HE SHOWED UP AT THE *** WEDDING RECEPTION! I am not making this up. Mark showed up at my wedding reception and asked me to find out whether the Square Cafe (our reception caterer) could leave five round table cloths behind for the brunch! So I, in my wedding dress, trying to entertain guests and have a good time, walked back to the kitchen to ask Barb about this (which, incidentally, was something I had ASKED JOHN AND MARK ABOUT AT OUR VERY FIRST MEETING!!!!!). I was SO MAD but I refused to let it show on my face, because I was NOT going to let that get captured on film or let one single guest see me angry that day. So I put on my best happy face and just acted like he was any other guest. In the morning, the food was delicious, and there were only a couple of disappointments: (1) there were supposed to be two kinds of omelets out, but there was only one out and two in the oven (but no room for the second flavor out, and we needed the second flavor because we had a vegetarian guest and it was our only vegetarian protein offering), and (2) because they decided it was too hard to find aspartame-free yogurt, they opted not to provide yogurt at all--again, no vegetarian protein and no dairy offering at all. (I did get my vegetarian guest some of the vegetarian omelet out of the oven, but if she'd wanted seconds, I don't know what she did.) The guests complained about the creamer, but when I couldn't reach John or Mark on the phone, I just went and stole some half-and-half from the club's fridge. So...I was thrilled with them before the sale, mostly happy with the brunch, less than thrilled with some of the stuff in between :-\
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