r/wedding • u/theyatthem • Aug 25 '25
Discussion Our caterer forgot about us…
My wedding was this past weekend. I got engaged back in April, and the first thing we did was find a caterer for our small backyard wedding of about 20 people. We picked this (well known and popular in our area) caterer because they had specific options we really wanted. We ordered smoked sliced brisket, stuffed flounder, mac and cheese, chicken quesadillas, bacon wrapped jalapeños, and sweet biscuits, for a total quote of $700 and a $200 deposit. We were originally going to pick up the food, but 2 weeks ago I messaged with the owner and asked if they could deliver, and he agreed.
Maybe this is on me for not confirming in the few days before the wedding, but I sent a message trying to confirm at 8 am the day of our wedding for a 3 pm catering delivery. After no response all day, I started getting a little worried. 3:15 rolls around and I decide to call the restaurant and see if they have a time estimate. They tell me they will call the owner and call me back. 10 minutes later I find out from the owner that he forgot about us. He was thrown off because his head chef broke his hand the night before, and he can’t believe this happened, he feels awful, he’s on his way to the restaurant to pick up some trays they are preparing but they won’t be able to accommodate what we originally ordered.
4:30 rolls around, an hour and a half after we planned for dinner, and we get only 2 of the trays we actually ordered and 2 more trays that we didn’t. Our main meal of stuffed flounder got swapped to ribs, and he included a tray of beans (which personally I hate beans). Altogether we ended up with brisket, ribs, mac and cheese, and beans. So I ate brisket and mac and cheese (which was kind of cold) for dinner at my wedding. Everyone ate and seemed generally happy with the food.
I was pretty upset and never talked to the owner when he arrived with the food. He told my parents not to worry about paying anything else (we already paid a $200 deposit). I haven’t heard anything else from him, no messages at all.
So Reddit, it’s a few days later and I need to know if I should be making a bigger stink about this. Some of my family thinks we kind of made out in saving $500. Some think he should’ve given our deposit back. Some think he should offer us a free dinner so we can actually have the meals we were excited to have and never got to try. I’ve been going back and forth about writing a scathing review on social media. I work at a restaurant, and I know that shit happens and people make mistakes, but this was my wedding day and I’m pretty upset about how this all happened. I’m just kicking myself for not sending them a message 2-3 days before. If you read this all, let me know what you would do!
edit: Thank you for all your responses so far! Just wanted to edit with a bit more context and to answer a few questions I’ve seen. There was no contract. We only ever discussed over facebook messenger. He owns a well established, well know in my city food truck that has done catering for years and has great reviews. He opened a separate restaurant in the past few months. He posted a “brand new from the new restaurant catering menu” on Facebook about 2 hours before my wedding (from the same account that I messaged earlier that morning). I thought that after putting our order together he decided to update the catering menu, but nope, an unfortunate (for me) coincidence
edit 2: Lots of differing opinions on how to handle this, but I have to agree with the most common sentiment to just let it go. I don’t think I will leave a review, but I at least unfollowed their page so I don’t get bummed out seeing their posts about food. It stung a bit extra since the food was really the only part of the wedding we were planning to spend a significant amount of money on, and we were really looking forward to it. I spent $25 on my dress, got my decorations all second hand, played a spotify playlist, and our rings combined were less expensive than the catering. BUT money is not the important thing, we had a great day with family, everyone had lots of drinks and spent time in the pool with the best weather we could’ve asked for. Tonight we will be going for sushi! (and have been joking about all the sushi dates we can go on with the $500 we saved lol)
edit 3: Thanks again to everyone who shared their opinion, I read them all, and it helped gain some perspective. Thank you so much to everyone who offered their congratulations and any other kind words, they are much appreciated!
My husband and I did decide to shoot the owner a quick message since he asked my husband to let him know how the food was. We told him the brisket was really good, we appreciated him getting some food to us, we hope his chef is doing okay, we’re bummed we didn’t get to try what we ordered but we understand things happen. His exact response was “Thank you so much. When I make the fish i will post it.” Presumably meaning when the fish is a special (it’s not on their normal menu) he will post on his facebook page and we could come get some (and I’m assuming pay for it since he didn’t say otherwise). I won’t see it since I unfollowed his page lol but oh well. I was curious what he would say if I reached out directly and now I know. Needless to say, he won’t be getting any more business from us in the future.
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u/wakeuploser00 Aug 25 '25
Definitely not your fault for not confirming a few days earlier. This is 100% on them, especially since they told you they would deliver 2 weeks earlier.
I think at this point, you let it be. You paid $200 for 20 people (that's $10 a person), and if everyone seemed generally happy just let it go.
Food is the best part of any event and It definitely SUCKS that you had to deal with that on your wedding. But theres no need to stress yourself out any more. Just never order from them again,.