Fickle Bride

Last weekend was a busy one. Not only the engagement party that was mentioned in my previous column, but the following day was a wedding and reception. Most of the planning and menu discussions were either by phone or email as the bride and groom lived out of town. I am one of those detail people that must have every little thing nailed down weeks in advance. Unfortunately, the bride was not. We were still trying to get her to make decisions the week of her wedding. As it was she never got around to signing her contract for the catering but since time was so short we went with it anyway. What a mistake that was! She had, however, signed her contract for location but decided to take advantage by coming in the previous day with her attendants and by the dark of night when we were all busy across the street, decorate. It took them a couple of hours to weave the flowers through the gazebo and the arch, plus all the added decorations around the grounds but she thought nothing of pilfering the time. The day of the wedding preparations for the sit down meal began early. I was not at all happy with the menu she chose but it is what she wanted so it is what I did. It turned out that the guests ate every smidgen from the Balsamic green beans down to the shrimp Alfredo and that was enough to please me. However, the following Monday we received a scathing email from the bride complaining about everything from the food to the type of mulch we use and everything in between. Here is a person who, in essence, steals time, waits until the last minute to make decisions regarding one of the most important days of her life, then, when it is all over, complains about the type of mulch we use! In a lengthy email I tried to explain the mulch and a few other things but all that did was result in many threats so I gave up. It was odd because during the preparations and after the meal, both the bride and groom thanked us for the wonderful job we did and the lovely meal and two days later the barrage hit. All I can think is that there was an older woman who complained about everything from the minute she arrived, who must have been a relative, and she got to the bride. Who knows? No good deed goes unpunished as they say and we let her slide on the contract which will never happen again and we did not charge her for the extra time she took to decorate. You just never know but I will keep in mind that for my part, the plates came back cleaned of food so the guests must have been pleased. Besides, when one serves jugged Gallo with a gourmet meal, something is wrong with that picture.
The USPS holds the annual food drive every year in May, which makes it annual. Three years running no one picked up the bags in our neighborhood. I was expecting the same this year but was pleasantly surprised to find that they got it right on the fourth try. It is a good thing they do.
Finally, Sunday night past, with all the high winds, we were “treated” to an unplanned fireworks display. Transformers were exploding all around causing many power outages. Three houses up the street from me a transformer exploded sending sparks and fire shooting into the air for a few seconds. It was a relief that nothing caught fire and a special relief that our street did not lose power. We were actually lucky all the way around; the tornados missed us.