Have Your Cake Catering

We entered a contractual agreement with the guest to conduct their wedding catering that included clear parameters on what service was included, and what the payment terms were. Unfortunately, the guest was not satisfied with some elements of their wedding. They sent a letter to us outlining these...

complaints, and decided themselves to withhold $1,600 of the agreed-upon payment. Their complaints are outlined in the attached letter.  According to the guest, only one of these complaints are the basis for their choice not to pay us; nevertheless, I followed up with the guest over the phone to address each of their concerns. Their basis for non-payment was that they accused us of serving them our "Chicken with Ancient Grains" dish instead of our "Chicken Marsala" without mushrooms. According to the guest, since they thought we did not serve what they ordered, they felt entitled not to pay.  As I explained to them on the phone, they never tasted the Chicken Marsala dish without mushrooms, so I did not know how they could accuse us of having served the wrong dish. I offered to show them our back-of-house order sheet showing that we had made the Chicken Marsala without mushrooms. I checked with the Kitchen Manager who personally verified that he made the Chicken Marsala without mushrooms, but explained that mushrooms are an essential part of the dish. The guest never tasted it with or without mushrooms. Most of all, as I explained to the guest, not personally liking a dish does not entitle you to not pay for it. It was prepared, served, and enjoyed by all of their guests, and our contract clearly does not entitle them to not pay for a dish that they did not personally enjoy. They informed us of their intention not to pay for the Chicken Marsala dish on June 11, for a wedding that took place in May. The guest proceeded to ignore all of my phone calls on the matter for months. Finally, in September, I informed them that I was going to be treating this as a non-payment situation and would pursue our contractual right to get paid accordingly if they did not call to discuss it with me.  Finally, the guest called to discuss this concern and the others outlined in their complaint. On that call, which is when the guest accused me of "scare tactics", I went through each of his concerns and addressed them point-by-point. The guest still did not indicate willingness to pay. I explained to him that the contract was clear and that his distaste for the Chicken Marsala did not entitle him not to pay for it, and that we would pursue our contractual right to be paid for our services. I offered him 48 hours to consider how he would like to proceed, and fortunately he chose, more than 4 months after the bill was due, to pay for the services rendered. He then filed this complaint.It should be noted that all of us found these guests to be particularly aggressive and unfriendly, including yelling and swearing. When they sent their final payment, they included the memo "[redacted]" in the payment, which we found to be generally consistent with their aggressive behavior. I would include this as an exhibit here but it includes the guests's personal information, so I have not. Below are explanations of each of their other complaints which, according to them, are not why they chose to withhold payment. These responses were provided verbally and in some cases in emails, some of which I believe they have provided."lack of communication on point of contact changes which caused vital communication to not be passed from one point of contact to the next." --this event was handled as all of our weddings are. Our Community Sales Director handled all initial communication up to contract signing. At that point, the General Manager took over and was the lead point of contact. This handoff was done in writing. The guest confused themselves as to who the General Manager was, consistently thinking their salesperson was the GM. "lack of communication regarding cc processing fees and cake cutting service." --we offered cake cutting service at no cost, simply as a courtesy to the guest. I guess no deed goes unpunished! It was not a line item, and not charged additionally for. We charge credit card processing fees which the guest can choose to avoid by paying by check. Even after their bill has been processed by card they could have retroactively chosen a different payment method."The buffet was not double sided as agreed upon"--The Wedding Coordinator at the wedding venue, who does not work for our company but was working for the guest as part of a separate contract, required a change from a double sided buffet to a single-sided buffet due to space constraints. We complied accordingly.  All guests were served within a 1-hr period at a large wedding, which is fairly customary. We also never agreed to any sort of contract based on a double sided buffet. Changes from wedding coordinators and last minute adjustments are common."The Chicken Marsala was not served as agreed upon in the final invoice."--As mentioned above, we made the Chicken Marsala without mushrooms. Mushrooms is an elemental part of a marsala so it's understandable that this was a different dish than the normal one, but it was not the "Chicken with Ancient Grains" that they accused us of making. More importantly, as stated above, not liking a dish does not entitle you not to pay for it when it is made to customary standard and fully consumed and enjoyed by all guests. "The lack of customer service and communication that occurred post dinner." --there was extensive in person and email communication from the end of dinner until the end of the event directly to the GM and then via email and then phone with many members of our team. "Discovering the GM left the site for an unexplained reason."--First, we do not promise at any point that the GM is on site for any, part, or all of any wedding. We have banquet captains that handle most of our weddings without the GM of the entire organization on site. Second, they confused their salesperson as the general manager. The GM actually was on site 100% of the time. The only time she left the site was to fetch dessert plates, which is a normal part of service."Repeatedly refusing to address our concerns post-event." There is extensive email and phone communication about this event after it. We feel that we did address their concerns in that we heard what they had to say, apologized profusely that they were not happy, and offered explanations as to where their expectations hadn't lined up with ours. We do everything we can to set expectations accurately and to ensure a happy, satisfied guest, and we are disappointed that it did not happen this time. However, we simply did not feel that their concerns entitled them to walk away from a large amount of their bill. Many people in our organization spent hours trying to track down the guest, who continued to ignore us for months, to ensure payment, and it was only when I explained what our contractual rights were, and that we would pursue them, that they agreed to pay, sent us a check with a swear word written on it, and filed this complaint.