Earlier this week, I contacted our venue and was told that our old coordinator is no longer there. Okay, so it happens-- people quit or are fired, no big deal.
Except apparently that guy either was abysmally misinformed about his job role or simple stopped caring because all the info they have on our reservation is an event with my name and the room and the time, and that's it. They don't have any details whatsoever: he left no notes; he didn't even have contact info or note about what the event was for (this is a restaurant that doesn't do very many weddings).
So the new coordinator wanted to send me a new proposal and contract because "oh, it looks like we don't have a contract for you." WHAT??? So literally, on their end, all they have on us is an appointment on their Google Calendar saying "rooz103 event 12-4pm".
I also got the charming news that a lot of little policies (like their cancellation policy and gratuity fee) had changed since I originally signed the contract, but the big one for me was that the price for food and drink somehow jumped 30-40%. As is in it costs more to have a lunch reception now than it did to have a dinner reception prior to the price increase. This is particularly upsetting because for the same amount of money, I could have the wedding in a wonderful venue that we loved, but had to cross off the list because it was too expensive.
The new coordinator is nice and more on top of things, but there are still some yellow flags, plus the increased cost and the experience with the last coordinator has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Should I just suck it up and keep everything as is, sign a new contract and cross my fingers? Should I be trying to negotiate something with the venue to bump things to a more reasonable cost? Unfortunately, the contract didn't lock in the prices, but I somehow feel that I shouldn't take a 30-40% increase lying down. Should I ditch the venue? They technically have a 50% cancellation fee, but then again they also technically don't have a contract (although I have a copy of it somewhere).
The wedding is in two months, and things were going too smoothly, so I should have figured something would go wrong, but this is frustrating to the point that my brain just refuses. Advice?
(FYI my advice to lurkers: document better than I did. This was the one thing where I thought I should let go of my need for documentation and details. I was wrong, so wrong).