To be worried or should I just give my head a wobble !

[Rockschooldropout]

Ok- I don’t know if I need to just stop worrying or if there is genuine reason here

Im getting married in three weeks , wedding was booked in September and we are having a small intimate country venue with 40 guests (second time round for me ) and decided a vintage afternoon tea would be a lovely wedding breakfast (we aren’t having an evening do )
The venue gave me a few recommendations based on catering that previous weddings had , they have a favourite supplier but they didn’t provide a vintage afternoon tea .
I booked a local company who have been around a few years and also had a popular well visited tea room so we went for a tasting and decided it was all perfect and booked .

From the get go communication was poor and I wish I’d taken heed of this now .
to start she took weeks to email our confirmation after I’d paid the deposit and had put us down for the wrong menu , I emailed to let her know and it took two weeks before I got a response saying she’d send an amended confirmation but it didn’t arrive .
I sent two emails asking her to confirm receipt of my deposit and received nothing . Tried to call but just got an EE voicemail .

I sent a message via the Fb page and had s response to confirm two days later , did think even then that communication seemed poor but having now paid my deposit and unable to find anyone else that could provide the same service , I tried not to worry as past reviews re their catering had been excellent

I emailed in January to ask when final numbers for food were required , a one line response came through two days later saying “a month before “ That was it !
I then emailed back advising the plan to have the food buffet style had changed and received no response what so ever .

So a month to the wedding I email confirming numbers , dietary requirements and to ask a few questions . No response after 48 hours , the weekend goes by , no response , so I follow it up with another email and 48 hours goes by with no response .
feeling anxious I try to call, EE voicemail again, I leave a message , another day goes by .
Finally I decide to send a message via Instagram , 48 hours later it’s read . She says sorry she’s having email issues and asks me to email a different address and promises to call me Monday morning.
No phone call arrives but a rushed email asking me to confirm a few details and asking about the layout for buffet style despite me emailing previously to say this has changed .
I email back and ask her to confirm receipt , nothing , that was Monday .
Since we booked they’ve closed their tea room and rebranded as a catering only business and set up a new website

Full balance is due on 25th but the one page confirmation I was sent last year says full balance is due if cancelled after 4th March , however I’m pretty much feeling that there’s a chance they won’t turn up !
So my question is No I’m not BU to be anxious and possibly cancel (and can she pursue me for the balance )
or yes I am BU , this is normal and I’m being over anxious

Anyone ?

Sounds very stressful for you. Can you drive to the catering premises if they're local?

They no longer have a “bricks and Mortar “ premises as they closed their tea room and there is no business address on their website !

I'd be worried too OP. I would have been concerned when she shut up the physical premises/tea rooms. Can you cut your losses and find an alternative caterer?

It's infuriating that someone can be so lackadaisical about catering for 40 and especially a wedding party. That's awful and very unprofessional.

Look the company or proprietor's name up on Companies House or Endole.
There will be a registered address, which will either be her home, or an accountant's office.

Turn up there, explain how lax & worrying her service has been so far, & ask for some clarity & reassurance.

I would emsil, text and leave a voice message saying your worried about due to lack of communication on their part that they won't turn up and you will have to cancel & refuse to pay the rest (due to their bad behaviour) if you don't hear from them by the end of today.

Then get looking at other places.

If the address is accountants office absolutely do not turn up there. If one of my client’s customers turned up at my office there would be absolutely nothing I could do to help beyond sending another email which they’re clearly not reading anyways.

She with @MeMyCatsAndMyBooks and also that you want your deposit back. It's only a few days off the no return and they have behaved incredibly unprofessionally so you have cause. I think small claims would uphold it.
This must be very stressful for you.
I wonder if there are business which aren't local that could provide this out of area..

If it is local to your venue, do the venue people know the catering people?

Agree with, not she with.

I must admit I was worried when this happened but then the owner announced on social media that they were rebranding and doing outside catering only and launched a new website . It didn’t overly concern me at the time . She posts very infrequently on social media though but had recently posted saying they were looking forward to the busy wedding season and had posted in their stories that they had provided catering for a recent posh shop opening

It’s not local to the venue but the venue said that they’d hosted weddings where they had catered , their preferred supplier is in the same village

Look up the company address on the government companies house website
Go and visit!

Right so I’ve just done this and the new name they operate under isn’t listed and the old name is showing a receivers address as they went into liquidation last year !

She's told you she's had email issues so I'd keep pursuing via social media rather than email. I bet if you put up a post publicly asking her to contact you to discuss urgently, you'll get a much quicker response as she will want to show a good example!

How much money have you paid so far?

Might be time to cut your losses and find another supplier?

Do you have wedding insurance you can claim on?

I think I would be looking for someone else. What about the venue’s preferred caterer? Even if not exactly what you wanted, would be better than nothing on the day.

I would also be putting a post on her social media page.

The thing is she said she had email issues when we first booked ! Also she has given me an alternative email which is her personal one which she’s still not regularly replying with . I can’t post on the Fb as it’s set to only allow their own posts

I’ve provisionally looked into the availability of another caterer this morning . The deposit was only £100 so I’m prepared to cut my losses on that but the balance is £900 . I didn’t take out wedding insurance as we’ve pretty much done everything ourselves bad the catering and anyway I think it would only pay out if they actively cancelled on me

If you've only paid £100, I'd cut my losses. I'd then rebook with providers with physical premises where you can pop in when you like to check arrangements.

The only issue is that the full balance is due if cancelled after 4th March 😞

I don't think she can come after you for the full balance if you can't even contact her and can prove how much you have done to try and contact her.

Not if the business has shut down though surely!

Ignore my ! 🙈 my phone malfunctioned while I was trying to swap it for a question mark and posted anyway.

I'd be almost tempted to find another caterer, say nowt to this one and see how long it takes her to contact you! But of course that would be silly. I'd cancel and tell her exactly why, i.e. that you don't need the kind of added stress caused by her parlous communication.