Gotta Have it Catering

leasure to work with.

planning process becoming such an unsatisfactory experience. However, we feel as though you are damaging our professional reputation unjustly by misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting the events & our actions. The following are a few points that we would like to make in our own defense: -Your parents, you, & your then fiancé were specifically advised by GHI at your tasting to book for less guests for the express purpose of avoiding having to pay the under contracted revenue fee clearly written in our contract's list of terms & conditions. Your father decided that was not advisable as he feared that if he contracted for a lower number of guests, we would not be able to scale up the event & was very confident that you would have 100 guests. -Additionally, the following lines appeared on your signed contract in large, all caps, red letters: "GHI HAS ADVISED THE CLIENTS TO BOOK FOR LESS GUESTS IN AN EFFORT TO OFFSET ANY POTENTIAL GUEST COUNT SHORTFALL DUE TO PANDEMIC GENERATED ISSUES. THE CLIENT IS INVITING 115 GUESTS , ARE EXPECTING 100 GUESTS TO ATTEND, & HAVE ELECTED TO CONTRACT FOR 100 GUESTS." -Throughout the long planning process 3 members of our sales staff asked to be relieved of their duties as related to your wedding booking because they could not tolerate your father's condescending & aggressive style of communication. Late in the process, our owner, Vincent Marra, was forced to take over the communications for your booking. -Your contract stated that final payment was due 15 days before the event. When your father learned that, due to his own insistence on booking for the larger number of guests, that he would be paying for guests that would not be attending, he elected not to pay the final charges in protest of this contractually agreed upon policy. Ultimately, he had to be told directly & aggressively that if failed to make immediate payment, GHI would not be providing service. As this ultimatum was delivered 5 days before the wedding, he had already been in breach of the contract for 10 days. -Your father was spoken to in this manner as he repeatedly hurled accusations of professional impropriety & lack of scruples at our owner in a confrontational & bellicose manner. Regrettably, our owner was forced to meet fire with fire in order to get your father to pay the bill so your wedding catering service could be carried out. This was the last of a series of such conversations between our staff members & your father. -Neither you nor any other member of your party was privy to any of the conversations between our owner & your father making your characterization of the actual participants' behavior during these calls less than dependable. -Your statement that the under contracted revenue fee was, "several thousand dollars" is patently false. In an attempt to placate your father, GHI made several concessions to lower the charge caused by your unfortunate guest count shortfall. The final charge was $1,082.00. -It makes us happy to read that even after the difficulties of the planning process, you could write that we , "did a REALLY REALLY good job at the event". Please know that we recognize the issues you have raised & will use this experience to better serve future clients. We sincerely wish you health & happiness in your marriage.

ignoring Mother Nature's challenges. Congratulations!

n your honeymoon. You are a class act. Congratulations!

words.

one to go to! Thanks Angie. 8 years later & we still love working with you!

ions!

& the GHI Team

pose this reviewer's blatant attempt to damage our company's reputation. -Mr. Yang's finance first contacted us via text on 4/2/20 asking for assistance in rescheduling their DJ services for their 5/16/20 wedding. In that correspondence, the couple inquired as to our availability to provide service for 9/26/20, 10/3/20, & 10/10/20. -On 4/3/20 we replied to let them know that we were available on 9/26/20 to provide service & that they should act quickly to confirm their new date as we are fielding many rescheduling requests for fall weekends to go along with the events previously booked for the desired dates. We blocked 9/26/20 for their event on 4/3/20. -As a condition of re-booking, we asked the couple on 4/3/2020 to secure the new date by: -Signing an updated contract with the new date & final payment terms -Pay $150 toward their final charges on the original final payment due date to secure the second date (To be clear, the couple was due to make their final payment of $461.29 on 5/1/20. We asked them to pay only $150 of that payment & deferred the remaining, final payment until 10/2/20.) Here is the exact verbiage of our request: "For clients whose original booking date is at least 2 weeks beyond the current governmental large event ban date range, we are asking the following to confirm re-booking: -A revised contract with the new date & terms -The client agrees to renounce all rights to the original date -Clients make an additional, non-refundable deposit payment of $150 THIS $150 CHARGE WILL NOT BE ADDING TO THE OVERALL COST FOR THE WEDDING. THE $150 & THE NEW CONTRACT IS FOR THE PURPOSE OF SECURING A SECOND DATE CURRENTLY UNAFFECTED BY COVID-19 CREATED RESTRICTIONS. THE $150 WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM THE FINAL PAYMENT. THIS IS NOT AN "EXTRA" CHARGE. Our apologies for the red text & caps. We just want to make sure that our clients understand that we are not charging more to service their event. We are offering no-cost rescheduling while incurring costs to do so." -After agreeing to these terms on 4/5/20 & having trouble syncing-up all of their vendors for 9/26/20, the couple requested, by telephone, to change the date again to 10/17/20. This request was granted immediately & 10/17/20 was blocked for their DJ service. -We have agreed, in writing, TWICE, to reschedule their DJ service at no additional charge. -Our contract terms & conditions are consistent with industry standards & are largely comprised of "boilerplate" clauses. There is nothing deceiving or unclear about them. Most importantly, we have repeatedly, politely, & professionally agreed to ignore the central terms of our contract for these clients in the effort to allow them to reschedule their DJ service at no additional cost. -As of 5/2/20 we have rescheduled approximately 83 events due to the COVID crisis. Each of those clients has signed an updated contract. No other client has demanded that we change the terms of our standard, long-standing contract. -On 4/13/20 the couple disputed the credit card charges for the original, nonrefundable, security deposit payment made 2/21/20. On 4/14/20 the couple sent an "official" email canceling their event with us. This seemed & seems like a good time to cease communications with the couple. -After reviewing the contract & the supporting documentation, the credit card company has preliminarily decided the charge dispute in our favor. -For potential clients reading this review/reply exchange, we would welcome the opportunity to forward the transcripts of all written communications concerning this matter. Likewise, we are always happy to provide our terms & conditions as a preliminary step to engaging in catering or DJ proposal discussions.

us given the difficult times we are all navigating. Stay safe!

ecial day!!!

s review is an apt reflection of our entire experience of working with you in that it is wildly inaccurate & dishonest.

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lient letters or reviews. The first time I did so was to apologize publicly, for the poor performance of my company. This is a very different situation. Your review is so full of blatant misrepresentations & outright lies it is difficult to know where to begin. However, I am going to give it a shot. -You did not & it is not possible to submit "the same exact information" through our website & Thumbtack.com. I can provide both our questionnaire & the Thumbtack request as proof. Further, in the 270 times we have been hired through Thumbtack, I have said the same thing about not having the precise details to give a detailed quote or proposal with the information provided. You are the first client to take issue with this procedure. Here is a quote from our return message to you when we were first contacted, "Our quotes are based on the information communicated by Thumbtack. Our real goal is to talk through the wedding with you & provide a detailed proposal. It is very hard to know exactly how we can best serve you with the information Thumbtack provides. Would you like to schedule a phone call to discuss menu ideas, service style, & equipment needs? I am happy to work around your schedule." -At your direction, your contract literally read, "-Cake service -client not saving any cake and will have their own cutting set". Furthermore, you directed Courtney to cut the entire thing while making a top to bottom gesture to emphasize your intent. When this was pointed out to you, you still insisted, (and continue to insist), that in cutting your entire cake & disposing of the left-overs, we were doing anything other than following your directions. You have also conveniently left out the fact that you found our disposable cake plates to be too expensive, resolved to provide your own, they were never provided to us, & we provided plates at no charge without mentioning it. -At your request & beyond the scope of our duties, we provided a detailed diagram for the wedding when your coordinator felt her inexperience with the venue would prevent her from doing so. -You arrived an hour late for your tasting. Became perturbed when the tasting scheduled after yours needed to be accommodated, & still received an updated proposal by the end of that evening. You followed that up by not making contact with us for 27 days despite repeated attempts to contact you. (Our catering software logs all client calls, texts, & emails.) -We provided cake service at no charge. That too is on your contract. That includes clean-up. The custom topper was placed in the care of your coordinator as is customary. -When we spoke after the wedding you said that Courtney & Tony were fantastic, the food was awesome, & that you felt the other staff were lacking. When I asked you how the staff fell short, you agreed that nothing was set incorrectly, all services & equipment were provided on-time & competently but, the demeanor of the other staff was not rude but rather, lacking in enthusiasm. -I have multiple emails from you directing us to lower the staffing levels before you were willing to sign a contract. I apologized about staff performance because I should have ignored your direction & sent extra staff beyond what you were willing to pay for. I explained that at length. -The lone item you could point to that was set late was the DJ's table & linen neither of which we were responsible for in any way. We are not in the habit of providing or setting work materials for other vendors. (The parking ticket you referenced came about because of the DJ being both late & improperly parked.) -Courtney was, at no time, on the phone working on the parking ticket. That assertion is absurd. -The "Mystery" buffet option was an attempt on our part to help you reach your budgetary goals. In fact, you were given the exact items you originally chose for $438 less than it was originally quoted. Given your very positive comments on the food after the wedding, I feel as though this was a successful solution to the challenge presented by your financial goals. -Lastly, you have very cleverly made it sound as if you did not receive the $300 refund. You did; the check has been cashed. I particularly enjoy the idea that you waited until the check cleared this morning before posting your review as if we might stop payment based on your review. -In the end, we are genuinely sorry that your day wasn't all you wanted it to be. That is truly disappointing to me on both a personal & professional level. Happy wedding clients are always the goal. However, I am more sorry that in attempting to accommodate your budgetary challenges, I set my company up to be falsely maligned.