Our restaurant hosted its first event since I became general manager. I’ve been nervous about it for more than a month. For lots and lots of reasons.

First.

The event was supposed to be on our patio. For two weeks rain has been predicted. Finally on Wednesday I met with the couple getting married (two very cute gentlemen) and convinced them to pay the additional money to buy the whole space so we could stop worrying about the weather. Of course the rain amounted to about 16 drops about 20 minutes after dinner started.

The worst part of this decision was that on Wednesday night I had to call and cancel 110 guests for the night. Only 1 person yelled at me.

Also I’d like to publicly acknowledge that if I’d listened to someone at work this would never have been an issue.

Another reason I was nervous is that I’ve sold myself as someone who can execute these events. And I can’t be the only one who feels like a fraud while singing your own praises.

Lastly, I had never hosted an event at this space with this chef, with these team. There were a lot of unknowns.

The event went great. A few hiccups. But mostly great.

Hiccups:

We never got a timeline so we were flying by the seat of our pants.

The guests were thirty minutes late. So food was starting to die because we had it plated and ready to go on time.

We found out about the champagne toast 30 minutes before it was to be executed. Like the first time hearing of it. Thank god the wedding planner rented flutes. We poured Prosecco since we hadn’t ordered champagne.

We learned there were two vegetarians as the food was landing on the table. It was meat for dinner. Lots and lots of meat. Pivot. Salad for everyone!

Also two people were gluten free. Thank god all of our meat was gluten free.

The kids at table 13 didn’t like our cheeseburgers so their parents had the trolley take them to McDonald’s which they ate on the patio upon their return.

Things that went well.

Our staff killed it.

Food was fucking amazing.

The band was good. There is nothing worse than a wedding event with a bad band.

The cake was good. There are so many bad wedding cakes.

No one puked. Remind me to tell you about the mostly naked bridesmaid from five years ago covered in vomit.

I got hit on by a drunk guy who tried to hold my hand at the bar and was open about liking older men. It was while I was learning this that he was served his last drink.

Our chef wanted to know why gay men didn’t wear socks with their suits. I explained that rich gays don’t wear socks. Poor gays always wear socks.

I learned a lot about weddings/events in our space. I know the questions to ask now.

I put every candle I could find out tonight. The space looked beautiful. Chef even commented on the candles. The staff will hate our new candle regimen tomorrow.

I learned who on the staff is good at these events. And who should have the night off next time.

I learned that our pastry chef is even better than I thought and we already knew she was good.

I learned we should just say no to espresso martinis at the end of the night.

I learned we are going to make a lot of money next summer if we do a few events.

And I’ll repeat. Our staff killed it! They really did great work.

And last of all I learned that even though I forgot to have bread put on the table before people were seated I AM pretty good at executing these events.

For those on my staff reading this. Big thanks to all of you!!!