What was supposed to be a beautiful and sentimental wedding at the Arkadaş Café, a Turkish restaurant at Fusionopolis in Queenstown, for Mr Marcus Lim and his wife, was cancelled four days prior to the wedding itself due to a 37% price hike.
The icing on the rotten cake?
The couple had only been told about the additional surcharges at the eleventh hour even though they had been planning and communicating with the restaurant for five months.
The Initial Red Flags
In Marcus Lim’s Facebook post on hard lessons learnt when planning a wedding, he realised that there were a few warning signs that should have clued him in that Arkadaş Café was not an ideal location to host a wedding:
During their first meeting, the café owner whom we’ll call Bob, stood Lim and his fiancée up for two hours, even ignoring their calls and messages throughout the whole duration.
To add insult to injury, it wasn’t that Bob was late or occupied: he had been present in the café the entire time, he just never bothered to acknowledge the couple.
Secondly, Lim had noticed strange tensions between Bob and staff, but thought it was none of his business to pry, except one of the staff abruptly quitting for no apparent reason should have been a warning sign.
The inept management at the café also meant that Lim and his fiancée had to go to the venue personally to count the tables, measure the space and create their own floor plan to ensure that it complied with COVID-19 restriction measures.
Furthermore, what should have been the restaurant manager’s task to ensure that everyone got their food, landed on one of the guests at each table instead.
Thirdly, the electronic equipment like the projector, AV systems, and microphones were either malfunctioning or had compatibility issues when they tested them two weeks prior to the wedding, which set them back by several hundred dollars in equipment rental.
The Chef, Bob, was clearly faulty too, because he managed to mistake what was supposed to be a lunchtime event for dinner one week before the wedding.
Man, with all of these obvious inadequacies swaying in the wind in alarming reds, it’s like National Day banners at a Community Club; you really should have seen it a mile away.
The price hike the week before the wedding that led up the cancellation just seems to be within Bob’s modus operandi at this point.
By which I mean, he is a walking and talking instruction manual on how to lose your customers’ loyalty.
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2 Sides of a Coin?
Despite all the failing equipment and lousy management, Lim and his fiancée were still determined to see the wedding through at this café that they held dear to their hearts.
What really broke the camel’s back was the pricing.
According to what an Arkadaş Café representative told Mothership, the couple were originally quoted a price of $55 per guest before a 10% service charge was applied.
Later, the quoted price was revised to $75—still without the service charge—because the couple had finalised the menu late and had chosen to customise different meals to suit the preferences of the guests.
On the other hand, Lim had been taken aback by the sudden price increase he received in January, since the food options had been settled on 12 December 2021, after a tasting session.
Lim proceeded to state in the WhatsApp conversation that they “were not told that there would be any changes to the package” so it left the couple understandably perplexed.
In the back and forth WhatsApp conversation that ensued, the restaurant representative explained the pricing was increased because the menu was being customised to each guest instead of having a standard menu.
Admittedly, that sounds like a reasonable explanation, since differing items equals more preparation and different ingredients required, as opposed to making one large serving of the same item.
Likewise, Marcus Lim expressed his understanding, but he asked why they weren’t informed of this earlier.
Then, he questioned why one appetiser, one main course, and one dessert was being priced at $75. Had it been a mezze—selection of six small dishes served as an appetiser (which was probably what Lim had expected)—the price would have been reasonable, but it was not.
Honestly speaking, reading their conversations made little to no sense because it felt like the persons involved were on completely different wavelengths, with the restaurant pursuing revenue and the customer trying to get his money’s worth in food.
Ah, one of the many pitfalls in relationship problems: miscommunication.
The Spilt Milk Sours
Subsequently, the restaurant sends another message, stating “We consider you cancelled???”
To which Lim replies, “I have said I love your food. If you decide to cancel, I will accept your decision. But your organisation makes me doubt if you can host a wedding that matches our expectations.”
And thus, the wedding event was cancelled four days before it was set to happen.
But as if the restaurant had more salt to pour into the couple’s wounds, it adds: “There is nothing to cancel as we haven’t received any deposit so far.”
So yes: there wasn’t any deposit placed in the first place.
In terms of hard lessons learnt, Lim concedes that not having a down payment or having everything written and signed on the contract to ensure that there were legally-binding mutual obligations to meet on both sides was one of their shortcomings during planning.
The couple had been despaired by the sudden of events since they had really hoped for a romantic wedding.
You can read Lim’s viral Facebook post here:
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Featured Images: Facebook (Marcus Lim) & NAHMJ Blog
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