Tuesday 20 April 2010

Wedding caterer stuck in Egypt - part 1

So there I was on Thursday evening, looking forward to Friday’s Cappuccino Connections in Berkhamsted,lunch at Brent Cross with my friend Caroline followed by a lovely, relaxing weekend off when a text arrived which changed the course of the next few days.....

‘Hi Debbie I am stuck in Sharm El Sheikh due to the volcano. I have a wedding for 120 on Sat. Is there any chance you can help me out if I am not back in the UK tomorrow night. Alison xxx’

Wow, first person I’ve heard of affected by the volcano, but I can think of worse places to be stuck! I send a text straight back ‘No problem. Just let me know and I’ll do whatever I can tomorrow and/or Saturday’. A friend in need and a wedding in jeopardy - count me in to help.

Ok, first challenge – let’s find out which Alison this is as I know a few! Turns out it’s a fellow Athena member and she’s a caterer. I hope I don’t have to do the cooking for 120 guests – gulp!

Next text from Egypt – ‘Thanks so much. Will keep you informed tomorrow – what will your fee be? Ali xx’
My reply ‘Don’t worry about fee – we’ll sort something out. I feel lots of white chocolate coming my way xx’ (standing joke between us is my love of white Lindor – yum!) I hadn’t even thought about a fee to be honest. We just need to make the wedding as good as we can for the bride and groom.

Tweeted about her plight (without mentioning any names) and immediately had a number of offers of help from friends – a few of the offers coming from previous Wedding Wonders’ brides. What did we ever do without the internet!

Friday morning, after a few texts and calls, lunch has been moved earlier and I’m to report for duty at 2:30 at Ali’s house. Lunch with Caroline was wonderful but I couldn’t relax wondering what the afternoon had in store.

Reported for duty and met Ali’s son and another Debbie who was doing all the cooking. Lucky guests – they don’t have to rely on my cooking now! Off to the cash & carry then get a call to say Tesco delivery only contains 7 cartons of gravy instead of 20.

Ok, next stop Tesco then! Very long story, but spent about an hour trying to source the gravy (no pun intended!) in other stores as they didn’t have any, before Debbie came up with an alternative option and I was able to return to the house.

Got home and devised a timetable for the day so at least we all knew what was happening. Thank goodness Ali’s son didn’t go on holiday with them or we wouldn’t have had access to all the equipment we needed! He has now forwarded all the wedding emails to me so I can get up to speed. I’m relieved to find that I already know the people who are providing the bar and I know they will help us out if we need them to.

Part 2 to follow ........

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