Last-minute catering panic

This morning, I’ve come in to an email from her containing a final invoice! It excludes evening food, tasting and the deposit we paid. They want me to pay via BACs as itemised payments for each section of the food, rather than just one payment. The email states that I’ll be invoiced the final amount for the evening guests after the tasting. We’ve dropped two guests since the original quote and the new quote is an extra £5 per person as a result! I worked it out, and £5 multiplied by 66 guests is an extra £330! I know that more people equals a lower base cost, but how does just two less people cost me £300 more?! We’ve also been charged £650 for equipment, which I was told they wouldn’t need.

The email concludes with ‘I am sure you understand that we have to pay equipment and suppliers a month before the event’. I do understand this but I was told the final balance was due two weeks beforehand – and when you have to pay your suppliers is not my problem. I’m feeling pretty harassed by the requests for payment, as well as extremely concerned by what I see as ‘hidden costs’ that bump up our final balance by nearly £1,000 so far (£330 + 650). We’ve also been charged £18 for the kids’ meals, which I think is a pretty steep bearing in mind that they are both two-years old and don’t eat that much!

What should I do? Has anyone else had last-minute catering problems who could offer some advice? I’m really quite stressed! Am I being unreasonable?

Your not being unreasonable at all. Does your contract say 2 weeks in advance for final payment? Do you have recipes for your deposit and tasting payments? The difference between 2 people could be the tier say from 50-100 and next is 101-150 is one price now you only have 100 instead of 102 yes it's only 2 people but it puts you in a more expensive tier your better off knowing what the #'s are it's probably cheaper to pay for two extra meals then to drop the count. (I'm a bride and run a venue w/catering)

It seems to me that they don't have enough money to pay their "suppliers" period until you pay them, which is a huge red flag. They should have enough money to pay everyone ahead of time, and your payment should essentially be "paying them back" after the fact. That's how the food industry works. Restaurants don't call people with reservations ahead of time and ask them to pay for their meal then, do they?

How new is this catering company? $1000 unexpected dollars this close to your day is insane.

Thanks for the responses. I'm feeling much calmer now!

I'm going to search through all my paperwork tonight but I'm pretty sure that the information relating to how many weeks in advance we need to pay is in the notes I took during a face-to-face meeting. I'll definitely look in the contract though, good idea. I agree with you KM that it seems like they're having a cash flow problem and it's fallen to me to bridge the gap. I've double-checked our menus and I've made a mistake with the cost per head - I thought it was £30 and it was actually £34.70, so that was my error there and that £330 can be crossed off my list of woes. ;-) However, they have still upped the price to £35.95 per person, I assume to cover the cost of missing two people on the original quote. The extra is £1.25 per head, which totals £82.50 extra altogether. It would be cheaper to pay for the two missing guests, as you say Erin, and I think that's a good path for us to go down.

We've not paid for the tasting yet but we do have the receipt for the deposit. I think the reason why it's not on the invoice is because they've left it to us to do the working out!

So on the plus side, the £330 is not an extra payment, which is a relief. On the negative side, they do seem to have cash flow issues and there's still the problem of a £650 bill for equipment they've never informed us we would need, despite the fact that we finalised our menu in February last year. Fourteen months is more than enough time to say, 'Oh by the way ...'

I think the plan is to sleep on it and then email back to ask to discuss it when we go for the tasting on Thursday. In the meantime, I'm going to do some number crunching and also have a little look into the history of the company. Maybe I might also spend some time digging in the garden to see if anyone buried any money in there?! What do you think - good plan of action?

Do you have the option to switch caterers? I would at least start looking for a Plan B. Too many flags for me to feel comfortable.

Read your contract. It will stipulate when final payments are needed.

If it doesn't, that should be a huge red flag to you.

If in doubt or any of this seems iffy - get wedding insurance immediately and contact CAB for advice. (A lot of banks provide it, as well as some highstreet stores such as John Lewis)

Worst case scenario, if you paid your deposit by debit/credit and this company is dodgy - you can always dispute payment via your card provider. Do not pay anything via BACS - I've heard that this over POS transactions can thoroughly screw over chances of getting the money back if something goes wrong.

There is still time to find another caterer, depending on where you are in the country (especially if you find a small business/referral from a friend and explain the situation).

Hope it works out (and if you're anywhere near the border/in Scotland, I've some short-notice vendors saved somewhere that may be of use)

Thank you ladies for your responses: it's much appreciated. We have a tasting booked for Thursday so I'm just going to ask outright what is going on. At least then I'll know whether I need to go with the Plan B option so I can spend the weekend getting it sorted if necessary. I really don't want to have to find another caterer at this late stage if I can help it! :-( I've checked the contract and it's two weeks before for the final payment. Luckily I've got wedding insurance. By POS transaction, do you mean paying via card with chip and PIN? Thanks for the offer Miss Geek. I can't believe I've waited so long to start posting on this forum when you're all so lovely. :-)

I'll get back to you on Friday with an update. FIngers crossed!