I am spending way too much time negotiating the ridiculous price of salad with my wedding planner

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 07/27/2016 at 15:37 • Filed to: None

3

50

I’m getting married in October. My fiancee is handling most of the wedding planning that requires having opinions, like what color flowers, and I’m dealing with logistics and negotiating. The wedding planner is being a pain in my ass over some salad.

The resort where we’re getting married has their own “wedding planner” (actual job title: Wedding Sales Manager) who likes to rush through meetings and conversations, and does her best to jack up the price of things as much as possible.

Since we’re going to have a lot of out-of-town guests, and we’re not doing a rehearsal dinner, we’re hosting an informal dinner the night before the wedding, and a brunch the morning after. The non-rehearsal dinner is going to be a couple hours, with pizza, and people can come and go as they please while visiting with us.

The resort wants to charge us $15 per pizza, which is a totally reasonable, normal thing to charge at such a gathering. Then the wedding planner mentioned they have this additional buffet option for $13/person for bread sticks, garlic bread, salad, and strawberry shortcake trifle. My fiancee and I agreed that carb-a-palooza the night before our wedding is not desirable, but it’d be nice to have some kind of veggies aside from the pizza so people who don’t want to tank up on only pizza have another option.

I asked the wedding planner what I thought was a simple question: can we have some salad but not that whole buffet nonsense. The discussion of this salad has been anything but simple.

Several times along the way, I’ve stopped myself from sending a more-assholeish version of my response about the salad, but I’m getting progressively less tolerant of her and progressively more snarky.

Here are the discussions of the salad, within larger emails about several other topics. Feel free to read this while listening to some Wu Tang Clan.

Me: Is it possible to have some salads in addition to pizzas? We don’t necessarily want the whole buffet with breadsticks and whatever else but figured salads to go with pizza would be appealing.

Wedding Planner: Removing the breadsticks from the pizza party buffet would not change the price. The pizza party buffet is value driven, so it would still be $13 per person.

Me: I’m not sure we’re on the same page about salad to go with pizza. According to the menu you sent us, the buffet includes salad, bread sticks, garlic toast, and strawberry shortcake trifle. This is an option above and beyond the cost of the pizzas, it’s not required, correct? Assuming that’s the case, we were hoping to just add some salad to the pizzas rather than do that whole buffet. I don’t understand why a few trays of salad would require being charged the per-person buffet price.

Wedding Planner: I spoke with our Chef in regards to the Pizza Menu. If you would like to do the salad in addition to the pizzas, it would still be the cost as if the bread sticks, garlic toast, and trifle were included. This is because it is quite labor intensive to set up the salad as it is set up like a salad bar (bowls for cheese, veggies, etc).

Me: For salad at the pizza party, can we please have some trays or large serving bowls of already-made salad (like the Four Lettuce Salad on the menu for the reception), and some dressing on the side? Even some veggie trays with stuff like carrots and celery and dip could work. All we want is to have some kind of veg for people to graze on in addition to the pizza. We don’t want a whole salad bar setup and really don’t want to pay that additional $13/person buffet cost just to have some veggies available. We’d happily pay for the large salads, veggie trays, whatever shape this takes.

Wedding Planner: I spoke with Chef to try and come up with a solution. He is going to do an Iceberg lettuce tossed salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots with Italian Dressing on the side for $5 per person.

Me: While $5/person for salad is better than $13/person, my problem is with being charged by the person, when the pizzas are by the pizza. On the estimate, you’ve got 15 pizzas at $15 each for a total of $225. Even at the $5/person for salad, if we ended up with 40 people, that’s $200 for salad. It makes no sense that a couple big trays of salad with the absolutely most-basic ingredients like iceberg lettuce and not even some mixed greens, are nearly the same price as 15 pizzas. That’s crazy. As I’ve been saying, we’re happy to pay for these salads, but it has to be some kind of cost that makes sense, and paying by the person does not make sense.

I got an out-of-office reply in response to my latest message about this salad.

The saga continues.

Rock Bottom > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:42

4

Salad is the food that our food eats.

crowmolly > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:43

0

$5 a person for a shitty pizzeria salad? Fuck outta here.

I am with you on this. It’s hard to believe they can’t just do, say, 4 trays of a basic salad. Probably every random roadside Italian place does it this way.

Textured Soy Protein > crowmolly 07/27/2016 at 15:45

3

And give me some goddamn mixed greens not that iceberg bullshit!

aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:48

0

It’s simple.

Replace the green stuff with bacon.

yamahog > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:48

0

Paging my fiancé to aisle Oppo

This is what you have to look forward to

We haven’t put a deposit down yet, there is still time to elope and be done with it (^_^)

Textured Soy Protein > Rock Bottom 07/27/2016 at 15:50

1

Here’s why I want salad: at my office, we sometimes get a bunch of pizza ordered in for some random gathering to be a small reward for us employees.

We get a couple big trays of salad to go with the pizza, and myself and the like 3 other people who are trying to not gorge ourselves on pizza, have a big plate of salad from this tray, to stop ourselves from “oh I’ll just have that one more slice of pizza,” because mass quantities of pizza are hard to resist. Then a whole bunch of the salad doesn’t get eaten by the rest of everyone else who’s just like MMMM FREE PIZZA.

So I’m thinking, at this non-rehearsal dinner, there are probably at least a few people who would appreciate there being some salad so they don’t stuff their face with all the pizza possible, but it’s not going to be something that everybody wants.

Ash78, voting early and often > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:51

0

Getting married is like going to Disney World or having a kid. ABANDON ALL LOGIC ABOUT MONEY :D

Ash78, voting early and often > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:51

1

Seriously, iceberg salad is the most useless thing every invented to sell. No wonder Olive Garden basically gives it away.

Textured Soy Protein > aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe 07/27/2016 at 15:52

2

My next email:

“Instead of salad, I’d like 5 commercial bakery size cookie sheets worth of bacon, for the price of you pay me $200.”

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:53

0

Don’t waste time over this piddly shit. Assume people will eat 2.5 slices each, then take your pizza number and figure out how many people plan to attend. Take that number and there’s your salad cost. Tell the wedding sales manager you want XX amount of salads. $150 in pizza would feed 30 people or so. You salad cost would also be $150. That’s $300 (plus gratuity and tax) for a “not really a rehearsal dinner” rehearsal dinner. Not bad at all.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:53

0

This is exactly why for the rehearsal dinner we just catered portillos at my parents house. That said we didn’t have a lot of out of town guests for our wedding

Textured Soy Protein > Party-vi 07/27/2016 at 15:58

0

But it’s the PRINCIPAL of it. :o

Really I’m just picking this salad stupidity as my one thing to make a stink over when we’re spending in the 5 figures at this resort.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 15:58

0

Solution: Have someone sneak in 10 individual salads from a nearby deli/Panera/etc.

Textured Soy Protein > haveacarortwoorthree2 07/27/2016 at 16:00

0

Or like a couple co-workers have suggested, buy a bunch of mixed greens and other stuff at a grocery store and slap it in some serving bowls ourselves. Sure, the resort says mk outside food, but what are they going to do, cancel our wedding over some salads?

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:02

0

I guarantee after the wedding you won’t think “I’m glad I spent the time arguing about the salads at the pre-wedding dinner”. Move on to something more important, like how the table linens have to be 3-4" above the floor on all sides.

Svend > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:03

0

Does the ‘chef’ exist or is it her way of passing the buck onto someone else.

Wedding planners just see a cheque book and anyway of trying to get what you want by saving is met with “this is your special day and you want it to be special, don’t you?”, etc...

What would be the situation to make large salad (either making it yourself or buying a large salad from elsewhere) and bringing it and placing it on the table?

Rock Bottom > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:04

0

I hear you speaking... but salad...

Textured Soy Protein > Party-vi 07/27/2016 at 16:05

1

This is pretty much the end of the line for this line of discussion, and you’re right, another hundred bucks on a ~$12k estimate is not that important.

Azrek > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:08

0

May the (salad) fork be with you, Atlas!

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:11

1

$12K for the entire wedding at the resort? That’s pretty damn good if you ask me. We spent that much on our wedding and cut and scrimped on just about everything.

Textured Soy Protein > Party-vi 07/27/2016 at 16:13

0

We’re keeping it small at ~75 guests. Can do it nice if you’re not doing a huge guest list.

Also that number is for the resort event rooms, food & beverage. Not the DJ, photographer, florist, dress, tux, etc.

Mid Engine > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:14

0

I got married in March, at a dive bar we went to on our first date. $66 for the state wedding certificate, $375 bar tab. Done.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:15

0

I had a week-long series of meetings at a hotel — three large conference rooms, plus at least 10 hotel rooms. They wanted to charge an arm and a leg for simple box (sandwich)-type lunches (after I rejected their attempts to serve huge, overly-complicated. multi-course lunches). The hotel also banned outside food. The first day I had some local deli bring lunch — what do you know, the hotel suddenly proposed a reasonable price for similar lunches.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 16:15

0

Do it... Elope. Big weddings are stupid.

Party-vi > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:15

0

We got around 90 or so that attended. Food was the largest expense for us, and we had some damn good food. We had the ceremony and reception at a state park because they are very reasonable and usually private. Good luck on your planning and nuptials!

yamahog > Party-vi 07/27/2016 at 16:18

1

yea holy shit

most of the golf club/resort type venues around us have a $19k minimum for Saturday events as well as guest minimums

my family has to fly in from NY and Florida, so it must be a Saturday

needless to say we are not getting married at a golf course/resort type venue

Party-vi > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 16:23

0

OH that’s right you aren’t married yet. Oh the joys you have to look forward to as you make the guest list, then the “A” guest list and the “B” guest list, then the “C” guest list, and then when your fiance’s mother decides to wear a white fucking dress but oh it’s not white it’s bone or ivory and I’m totally ok with it why aren’t you ok with it ?

I love the hell out of my wife, and a small part of that is due to the fact that I will not survive having another wedding.

Sam > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 16:24

0

That’s what my parents did and everyone was fine with it. They had the wedding a few months later. There is honestly, well, not much point to having a wedding in general. Just have a gathering later.

yamahog > Snuze: Needs another Swede 07/27/2016 at 16:26

0

I’m not the one who needs convincing, it’s Mr. “look at me I actually like my family and want them present at this large event,” lol :P

yamahog > Sam 07/27/2016 at 16:27

0

if only

yamahog > Party-vi 07/27/2016 at 16:31

1

lmao, I already have zero joy in wedding planning. I’m stoked for the actual marriage, just not looking forward to the event itself or any of the associated frippery. If Travis doesn’t plan it as he’s assured me he will, it won’t get done.

Also his mom is great, it’s mine who’s a pain.

Pickup_man > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:34

0

I’m glad that my wife did most of our wedding planning, and by most, I mean basically all of it. My mom and her went to check out our reception venue when I was at work, (because I didn’t really care) and booked it. When they came home and started telling me about this guys rules and stipulations I was glad I wasn’t there, because the guy sounded like a prick, and I wouldn’t have booked the place. The reception was actually really nice, but the guy still managed to piss me off the next morning.

Long story short, I made twenty some centerpieces out of logs that held a mason jar and flowers and after the wedding he asked if he could buy them, along with several other things we had. I said sure and gave him a price that was completely reasonable for everything he wanted. He low-balled, I came down a bit, he low-balled again, I told him that I spent a lot of time and hard work making those center pieces, I didn’t want to give them away. He instantly snapped back, “Well we spent a lot of time and hard work on your reception!” I told him, Yeah, and we paid you damn well to do it, then picked up my box and carried it to the truck. My wife later sold all of the things he wanted for easily over twice what I was willing to sell them to him for, let alone what he offered.

Dru > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:43

0

Honestly, and I probably wouldn’t say this to my wife, but I would much rather have spent the cash we did on our wedding on taking a two week trip to Italy or somewhere of the like. A wedding is hours upon hours of planning and fussing over details, and your spouse likely stressing out over said details, and 89% of your conversations are about "the wedding" up until the event itself, all for an event that lasts a few hours and feels like it goes by in 5 minutes. We had a wedding for our families, not for ourselves.

RallyWrench > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 16:51

0

This makes me so, so glad my wedding was a potluck. I bought a shitload of meat and two kegs of beer, that’s it. Worked great.

Party-vi > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 16:55

1

My wife’s mother. White dress. Nuff said.

Textured Soy Protein > Dru 07/27/2016 at 17:01

0

We’re totally doing this for our families. We want to do something nice but at the same time we’re trying our best to minimize the fussing. It’s still a lot of work though.

On the plus side, our families have already more than covered the cost of this wedding so my motivation for being thrifty about certain aspects of it is so we can keep that money.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 17:05

0

I’m sorry. Hopefully you can convince him, you’ve still got time!

And in case you’re unsuccessful, I can give you a glimpse of what you’re in for... When I got married, we had my mother-in-law’s dream wedding. The tragic back story is that her father passed away suddenly about a month before her wedding, so naturally that put a bit of a damper on her wedding. So apparently she was going to make up for it with my wife.

I like to think my wife and I are pretty humble people, at least she is, so we didn’t want to do anything too crazy, and we wanted to keep it small. We each came up with a guest list of about 40-50 people we wanted to invite. Her mom asked if she could add a few people, naturally we said yes (since she was paying for it). She came up with a list of 100 people. Seriously, one hundred people. She had like third cousins on there. It was crazy, there were people at my wedding that neither me nor my wife knew. There were so many people that I spent so much time saying hello to strangers I didn’t get to say hi to probably half of my friends and family.

There’s some other crazy things, but suffice to say I got really good at brokering peace deals between my wife and mother-in-law, which happens to be a skill that still comes in handy.

My sister went to one of the better weddings I’ve ever heard of. The groom was in the West Virginia National Guard, so he and his bride rented out the armory and did the ceremony outside on the parade ground. The reception was inside the armory hall and they hired a DJ had it catered by one of those BBQ joints where they bring a trailer with a massive smoker on it that can accommodate several whole pigs at once. For beverage service they had a table with handles of Jack, Vodka, Gin, Rum, and mixers, and had a couple kiddie pools from Wal-Mart full of ice with beer and sodas. My sister said you could tell it was a fancy occasion because nobody’s blue jeans had holes in them. Now that’s how you wedding.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 17:25

0

It’s a wedding, let the bleeding begin! I was married in Japan because my wife’s family wanted the traditional ceremony, then we had a party in the states. We were technically married in an office in Hawaii.

My speed3 is happy > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 17:42

0

Oh man, I am getting married in December. We haven’t nailed down the food yet but I hope it will be less painful than your experience. Having the reception at a restaurant owned by a family friend should help though.

Textured Soy Protein > My speed3 is happy 07/27/2016 at 17:46

0

Before we chose this venue we were all about keeping it simple.

But then we decided to do it at a resort on a lake because my fiancee’s disabled mom happens to live nearby, and it’s kinda like a family reunion for both sides of our family.

So we looked at different options in this resort town on this lake, liked this one, and went with it. Our families are kicking in more than enough money to pay for the wedding, if we were going out of our own pockets it would be way different.

We’re still dispensing with some of the more cumbersome wedding traditions and trying to not get bogged down in silly bullshit but this salad situation just rubs me the wrong way.

My speed3 is happy > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 18:07

0

You’re lucky that your family is kicking in money to pay for it. My fiancee and I are paying for it ourselves. Our total is up to $11K now while our starting goal was $5K(lol). But since both of my sisters spend north of $60K on their weddings I am thinking 11K is okay...ish.

I agree with you that there is so much silly BS with weddings. The industry really tries to take advantage of our emotions to try to get us to spend more money. Luckily my fiancee and I agree completely that our early retirement goals are way more important that one single silly day in December.

As far as negotiating with your wedding planner, might I suggest you borrow Getting to Yes from the library. I had to do a tough business related negotiation once, and I felt completely lost and out gunned by a much older and more experienced businessman. I went to the library to read it in the middle of the week long negotiations. The book helped a ton, and got me what I wanted (or according to the book, “what we both wanted”).

Your boy, BJR > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 19:37

0

Yeah but think of all the envelopes of cash you’ll be missing out on!

crowmolly > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 20:06

1

DipodomysDeserti > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 20:50

0

In my experience, having a wedding planner makes everything more of a hassle. My wife and I just hired a caterer who knew what he was doing, bought a years supply of alcohol (literally) and hired a bartender. Everyone was drunk and full by the end of the night. My brother hired a wedding planner because his wedding was at a venue much like yours she acted like yours. She started loosing it by the start of the wedding and my dad had to tell her to calm the fuck down. There wasn’t enough food, and we busted the venue’s bartender drinking the alcohol we bought.

Textured Soy Protein > DipodomysDeserti 07/27/2016 at 21:10

0

We didn’t hire a planner, we chose this resort and they are the exclusive caterer for themselves. So the lady is the person we’re stuck dealing with.

yamahog > Your boy, BJR 07/27/2016 at 21:22

0

gotta spend boatloads of cash to get envelopes full :(

Your boy, BJR > yamahog 07/27/2016 at 21:27

0

What happened to brides parents pay?

DipodomysDeserti > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 21:35

0

Yeah, that's how it was with my brother.

yamahog > Your boy, BJR 07/27/2016 at 21:36

0

hahahahahahahaha if only

my mom is so broke I’m about to co-sign on a lease for my youngest sister, and my dad is a cheapass who hates the institution of marriage. but still got pissy because Travis didn’t ask “permission.” whatever. my middle sister already had to tell both of them to quit being assholes if they wanted to stay on the invite list :/

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Textured Soy Protein 07/27/2016 at 22:04

0