Start Me Up! - Wedding review: read with caution!

I have said it before and I was reminded of it once again at my wedding last week - anything can happen… and oh boy it did.

First, what went wrong, went very, very wrong. The only elevator at the venue broke down. Ceremony and cocktails were to take place on the ground floor – great. Reception on the 6th floor – not so great. On Friday I arrived at the venue to conduct a rehearsal with the couple and that is when I found out about the broken elevator. In fact, the elevator had been broken for two days prior and no one alerted me of this fact.

As you can imagine I was not a happy camper, because something like this can have repercussions throughout all of my plans. For example, I had arrived early with my assistant to check through some of the rentals and separate some items that needed to go to different floors. The plan was to have the rental company deliver the order to the 6th floor where most things would be needed for reception, and for a few items to be brought down to the ground floor for cocktails. With a broken elevator, ALL of the rentals that were delivered Friday morning were left on the ground floor. To have the rental company carry items upstairs would be an additional cost of approximately $500-$800 dollars for the order. Apparently the venue confirmed to the rental delivery team that they would take care of moving the items up to the 6th floor once the elevator was fixed. When I left the event space at 7pm on Friday the venue assured me that they were doing everything they could to rectify the situation and would have staff working through the night if necessary.

That was not a suitable answer to me. I always have to think worse case scenario – what if it is still not fixed by morning/event time? What is our plan B? If plan B does not work, what is plan C? I refused to leave the venue until I had the cell phone numbers of every single person involved, including the building manager who was going away for the weekend with his family. It was imperative that I be able to receive an update at any given moment. Don’t forget, my bride was there for the rehearsal as well, so she had to walk by and see a large “OUT OF ORDER” sign on the elevator, surely her heart skipped a beat. Oh and did I forget to tell you that the bride’s brother has a spinal condition? Yep!

Next day, wedding day, I get a call from the venue that the elevator is still broken and that they need a part from Tennessee – the plot thickens. At this point I go into action mode and alert the caterer of the issue, as they will have a ton of items of their own to load in. It just so happens that because this caterer is more of a restaurant that caters events, not a full-service catering company, they are also a very delicate group that gets very nervous and agitated when things do not go as planned. I was not looking forward to this call but it had to be done. The venue had a very strict time frame and only allowed us two hours for event set-up, a tight enough time frame as it is. Then to have to haul equipment up (6) flights of stairs would surely throw quite a wrench into things. Not to mention that fact that they also had a DJ whose equipment needed to be brought up and set-up (thank goodness it was not a ten piece band!). A few other mishaps occurred and we were forced to resort to plan D as a matter of fact, to bring someone to manually operate the elevator.

By this I do not mean someone to sit at a desk or control room and push special buttons to move the elevator up and down, nor do I mean having an operator inside the elevator as you may have seen in years past. I meant there was a poor gentleman sitting on top of the elevator in the dark elevator shaft hand cranking gears that would literally move the elevator up and down.

In this way we were able to run a few trips up and down but at an incredibly slow pace due to the limitations of human strength, and the fact that the weight that the elevator mechanics could hold was also very limited. Instead of the usual max capacity of about 10 people, we were not able to load in more than 5 at a time. We learned this the hard way as we loaded in too much equipment at once during set-up and the elevator overheated and needed a 15 minute break. Thankfully I had confirmed the day before that the venue staff would indeed run the 1st batch of rentals from Friday up to the 6th floor from the ground level before leaving for the evening – at least that was one less thing to worry about.

So we loaded in. It was painful and hot and all of our legs nearly fell off but we loaded in. In addition, we also to execute all of the “regular” event set up. Organizing flowers, folding napkins and tucking menu cards, triple checking place settings. In almost every event I have worked with even the most experienced professional caterers – my staff has located at least one incorrect table setting. Hence, the triple check.

Regarding the actual transport of guests from the cocktail hour to the reception upstairs, I had this process begin about 40 minutes into cocktails. You may find on many an occasion that cocktail “hour” may just be an estimated time frame. It was a bit uncomfortable but my staff and I had to go around asking as many people as possible who felt they were up to it to take the stairs. We received many looks of confusion and even a few of anger, but again, it had to be done. We needed to be sure we had the elevator capacity and strength to get the elderly, pregnant women and some younger children upstairs. It took us about 10 elevator rides and 45 minutes to move the party upstairs. The timeline for the event was off by about 30 minutes at that point. I had to act fast to get us back on pace – we cut a few songs from dance sets, started food service as soon as we could and watched the clock religiously – we needed to get that cake cut and parent dances in before the photographer’s shift ended. We did it.

Two other sidebars – the rental company sent the wrong linens for the dinner tables. Instead of an ivory linen with a gold lace overlay, they send an ivory base linen with a solid cotton gold/yellow overlay. This bride had been extremely detail-oriented throughout this entire planning process. I of course had to advise her of this matter at once. She was not happy, but she was not angry. Disappointment is the word that comes to mind. She said it was fine but I clearly saw on her face that it was not. My heart sank, but I pepped her up and somehow got her to see that glass as half full – the room was still beautifully designed and the floral selection she had made was stunning and rather complimented by the incorrect linen. We had to move on; I needed her to be okay as I had other tasks to attend to.

Next, the Bride does not eat red meat and we had been very clear about this. The caterer and I communicated and confirmed this many times including that very day during set-up. Here we are at dinner time, meal service had just been cued and I popped over to the kitchen area just to make sure everything was okay. Just as I arrived, a plate of rare red meat was being placed in front of the bride. I scrambled to inform the head of catering of their incorrect service. It turns out that the catering head had lost her documents that listed the special meals that needed to be served for dinner, about (5) in total. She failed to inform me of this, which was unfortunate and irresponsible – I had several extra copies of the meal document and corresponding floor plan with me, the matter could have been 100% avoided.

The bride specified a pet peeve of hers - when half of the guests at a table receive their meal and the others have to wait, again this was discussed with catering staff. The bride’s brother-in-law who was sitting at her table did not receive his vegetarian meal until a full 10 minutes after the rest of the table had been served. I do not know how but the bride was not aware of this, as far as I know.

If I were a cat and really did have nine lives, I surely would have lost at least six that day.

xx,
Belle

Comments

[Benjamin Krudwig]

wow! that is an intense ride and a half, but it sounds like in the end it was okay (I hope) the stress alone would have had me in knots!