Bar hire service

vaio

given the effect this had on your wedding I'd not be paying them anything.

they turned up late, didn't serve drinks when they should have, had dirty glasses which your guests had to clean before serving drinks, had flat lager, plastic glasses rather than the glass you had ordered, run out of spirits, didn't do the kids drinks, then left early leaving their rubbish behind.

Did they do anything right?

pinkshoes

Bill them for the time that your friends spent washing glasses, setting up the bar and serving drinks. That would be about £300??? So suggest you call it even...

piglet25

Agree with Pinkshoes and Vaio on this, they wouldn't get a bean from me and I would be happy for them to take me to court for it given the amount of people who can substantiate your claims

wealdroam

piglet25 wrote: »

Agree with Pinkshoes and Vaio on this, they wouldn't get a bean from me and I would be happy for them to take me to court for it given the amount of people who can substantiate your claims

But the OP has already offered them more than that:

PinkLady25 wrote: »

Thank you - I've offered them 50% and less the £75 glass charge so we'll go from there.

vaio

Easy, the bar firm rejected that offer so the OP should withdraw it.

Actually, if I was the OP I'd cut & paste the bullet points from her original post into an email, add "go whistle for your money" and send it to the bar firm.

I might even be tempted to cc the local newspaper too, it's the sort of story our local rag would love particularly if they could get a photo of a sad looking bride clutching a pint of flat lager

paddyrg

You're not far off meeting in the middle - either send them a cheque for a 'full and final settlement' of what you think, or just send the cheque for their adjusted figure and it's all over and done with and you can get on with a happy life. We're talking £30-odd difference I think. Probably worth it to my mind (I'd rather be reading, creating, procreating than dealing with hassle), only you will know if it's worth it to you.

I think an offer of £0 is going to end in court if they supplied staff and drink (albeit late), and unless you could quantify losses to the value I think you'd likely be found against, then have costs on top.

MamaMoo_2

paddyrg wrote: »

You're not far off meeting in the middle - either send them a cheque for a 'full and final settlement' of what you think, or just send the cheque for their adjusted figure and it's all over and done with and you can get on with a happy life. We're talking £30-odd difference I think. Probably worth it to my mind (I'd rather be reading, creating, procreating than dealing with hassle), only you will know if it's worth it to you.

I think an offer of £0 is going to end in court if they supplied staff and drink (albeit late), and unless you could quantify losses to the value I think you'd likely be found against, then have costs on top.

However, as the OP has already paid £75, I'd say that they have paid more than enough.
The company can't justify staff costs if the staff weren't doing their job, they can't justify cost price of the drinks provided if they were unsatisfactory (eg. Flat lager).
I'd say that the company are lucky that they already have the £75 as the service they provided IMO doesn't have a value anywhere near that.

arcon5

50% off drinks sounds fair to me. This probably nearly covers the cost of supplying the drinks but not labour or the bar 'service. Less the £75 of course.

I'd do what shaun has said and just send the cheque for the amount willing to pay and tell them to whistle for the rest

vaio

paddyrg wrote: »

........I think an offer of £0 is going to end in court if they supplied staff and drink (albeit late), and unless you could quantify losses to the value I think you'd likely be found against, then have costs on top.

My understanding is that only the meet & greet and toast drinks were supposed to be provided, the rest inc the flat lager were paid for (at inconsistent prices) by the guests.

The reception drinks were late and had to be served by the guests and the children's toast drinks weren't provided at all.

PinkLady25

Wow, thanks for the replies all.

The bullet points are the edited version of the original email I sent to the company. Their response was basically staff worked hard as you were in a marquee and it was raining (not sure how this affected their ability to arrive and leave as per the contracted times?!) and they refused to address my complaints as they didn't want to get into a negative discussion which is when they suggested I pay the outstanding money minus the glass charge OR less 25% as a 'goodwill gesture'... To me this seems like they know they messed up but don't want to admit it?

We appreciate that they supplied most of the drinks which we requested for after ceremony and toasts so we do feel that we should pay them something. We've tried to negotiate a bigger discount due to the complaints and their !!!!!! attitude which they have responded with. It may be worth bearing in mind we have already paid them nearly £1k for supplying a BBQ aswell, people were spending £10-£30 on each round of drinks (a lot of drinks were purchased - they ran out) so I think the 50% off the drinks is reasonable.

But as Paddy says, it's to decide now if we need the hassle of potentially going to court, which quite honestly, we don't. I don't know, part of me wants to say F-U and not pay. But I would be interested to post my experience/review them somewhere reputable online to warn other couples in the area of what we experienced as quite frankly their claims on their website don't add up to the service we received. Funnily enough, I can't seem to find anywhere that anyone has reviewed them other than the testimonials on their own website. Oh and we weren't asked to fill out an evaluation form either which they seem to like to showcase, fishy or what?!

vaio wrote: »

My understanding is that only the meet & greet and toast drinks were supposed to be provided, the rest inc the flat lager were paid for (at inconsistent prices) by the guests.

The reception drinks were late and had to be served by the guests and the children's toast drinks weren't provided at all.

This is indeed correct