Host With The Most
This wasn’t just any guest; it was the person who owned our event location. We had chosen an elegantly renovated Victorian home as our reception site. The provided space came without any extras—no food services, drinks, furniture, or even chairs.
It was entirely up to us to fill the blank canvas. Of course, that involved quite a bit of coordinating with different service providers. From the beginning, our arrangement with the owner was clear: we would receive the house keys the evening before the wedding and return them the following morning.
Everything that happened in the interim was our responsibility, provided that we left on time and kept the property in the same condition we found it. On the night before the wedding, my entourage and I arrived at the site to arrange everything.
Just as we were finishing up the setup and preparing to leave, the owner showed up unexpectedly and insisted that I return the keys. After a lengthy and heated debate, he even threatened to void our arrangement. At last, I felt forced to surrender the keys.
I did, however, get him to commit to being there at 4 pm the following day to grant our caterers access. Still, I didn’t fully trust his word, so, to ensure everything was in order, I sent my father to the location at 4 pm, immediately after the wedding ceremony. Thank God I did.
When the agreed upon time came, the doors were locked. My father then contacted the owner, who nonchalantly revealed he was out for a happy family trip in the countryside, about a half an hour’s drive away, with no immediate plans of returning.
As someone who won’t stand for anyone taking advantage his daughters, my dad gave him a piece of his mind and even threatened legal action. With that, the owner promptly turned back to allow our providers in, albeit 30 minutes late. But his ridiculous behavior was just getting started.
The next morning, when I was blissfully sleeping off the celebrations, I got a call from the owner around 7 am. I missed the call, so he left a message demanding the keys be returned…The very keys he took away from me before the wedding.
At 8 am, he called again, this time claiming to have discovered a broken electronic key fob on the property’s driveway, and he held me responsible for the cost of replacement. Remember, he was the one who took the keys from me before the wedding.
So if the keys were misplaced or damaged, that was his mess to clean up, not mine. When I finally woke up around 9 am, I called him back. Nursing a hangover, I also gave him a piece of my mind. When he tried to deny having confiscated the keys, I threatened to bring forward all eight witnesses to court to attest that he indeed did. He backed down real quick.