For the reception, we decided on somewhere in Durham, because it is prettier than Sunderland.  We looked at all the usual sorts of places, but they were much too expensive, so we thought that a pub might be nice instead.  None of the pubs in the city centre seem to have function rooms, which rules them out.  So we resorted to Plan B.

Plan B was to have it in Sunderland.  I even found a posh (for Sunderland) venue on the Internet, but this place has all the competency of a goldfish playing golf in the desert:

1. I filled in their online form, requesting they send a wedding brochure.  A week or so later, there was not even an email to confirm anybody had even seen my request.
2. My fiancé filled in the form, just to see what would happen.  Nothing happened.
3. I discovered they had a listing in an online national venue-finding site, so I filled that site’s form in to request a brochure, and I got a phone call from ‘Sam’ at the venue itself.  Ignoring the previous lack of contact (although I was still a bit annoyed about it), we discussed what we wanted (that would make more sense if English had inclusive and exclusive 3pl pronouns) and she said it was all fine; she quoted me a price, which I thought seemed fairly reasonable, considering it’s a wedding reception.  She provisionally booked the date and said she’d post a brochure.
4. A week or two later, there was still no brochure, so I rang them up on the 2nd October, a Monday.  ‘Bev’ answered, so I asked for Sam.  Bev told me Sam didn’t work there anymore.  Nice of someone to keep Sam’s clients, for want of a better word, informed of developments.  This was not boding well at all.
5. Bev said she’d post a brochure to me and I thought I’d better ask her to confirm the booking was still made.  She said she’d ring me back.  How long does it take to check on the computer, I thought?  Nearly 10 minutes, it turns out.
6. On Wednesday, the 4th - the day I was to go to Uni and register for my PhD, there was no brochure, and I hadn’t received that phone call.  I rang Bev up, bright and early; she said she’d posted the brochure on Tuesday, the third.  Ok, I thought, maybe it’ll come tomorrow.  I asked about the booking.  She said she’d check for me now.  *sigh*  I was sure she was supposed to have done this on Monday.  She had computer problems.  I would have thought that at 9.30 a.m. the computer would be up and running ok, but of course not.  I heard her restart it, complete with Microsoft Windows chimes; we discussed what I’d discussed with Sam, to kill time.  She said it would be ok, and that she’d send out a menu.  Then the computer woke up, she found the diary and the correct date, and said it was indeed still provisionally booked.  Well, that’s something, I thought.
7. On Friday 6th, the brochure arrived, postmarked the 5th, so either the post takes two days to get from their post-room (or whatever) to the Post Office, or Bev was lying.
8. The menu hasn’t arrived yet.

Funnily enough, I don’t think we’ll be confirming that booking…

This entry was posted on Sunday 15th October, 2006 @ 4.37pm BST Europe/London and is filed under Uncategorized and is tagged with events, incompetence, The Wedding, wedding reception. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Reception”

1. dave mc Says:
   Tuesday 17th October, 2006 @ 3.01pm BST Europe/London

   Hi Panda

   You’re getting married!!

   You’ve got my email address - send the invite there. Ta.

   Dunno about Sunderland, though?

   TTFN
   Dave Mc

2. pandammonium Says:
   Friday 3rd November, 2006 @ 10.31am GMT Europe/London

   Er, yeah, Dave. Right.

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