Okay, Can I preface this by saying that FI and I did not actually attend this wedding but saw first hand evidence of the horrors. My Step Mum was also a witness.
A while back when we were searching for our venue we viewed a Scottish stately home with a converted stable for your reception. One of the things that attracted us to the venue was that you could stock your own bar with no corkage charges to the venue. This would have saved about 50% of our drinks costs once you had hired a bartender.
Well anyway we were looking round the venue and it's a total tip from the last wedding, tacky tacky decorations everywhere, supermarket food packaging on the ground and empty wine bottles that were clearly all brought by their guests. I can say this with certainty as the bottles were all different supermarket brands and types, so if the couple had purchased them they would have been in bulk with many of the same type surely?
Anyway there was a new bride there starting set up for her wedding in 5 days time and you should of seen the look on her Mum's face! My step Mum's face was a picture as well. FI wanted to leave straight away but I said it would be rude as we had an appointment.
We go into the bar area on our showround and the previous couple had placed chalk boards asking for a 'suggested donation' for the various drinks. It was £2 for a pint of beer, £2 for a large wine and £1 for a soft drink. The reason for the 'suggested donation' was that clearly the couple did not obtain a licence to sell alcohol. We were disgusted! It was literally the tackiest thing we had ever seen.
What is the worst thing about this story in your opinion?
1. FI is a restaurant supervisor and knew that the products being sold would only cost around 75% of their 'suggested' donation.
2. The venue hire was £5,000-£7,000 (so up to $10,000) dependent on the areas taken, and that was for dry hire, so no food, no drink no nothing. Around here this is more than some people spend on their entire weddings!
And they were still too cheap to buy a couple of kegs (£100 each?) and some bottles of wine!
We did not pick the venue but interestedly enough they have now stopped couples from stocking their own bar due to the mess left behind. Just an example of rude selfish disorganised people ruining it for those who put on their events properly.
